My Grandparents' House

My first memories of any house are of my grandparents' house on a quiet, shady street in the historic district of a midwestern city in the middle of corn and soybean country. The house was old and it had a wonderful porch for playing and sitting, and it also had a large back yard where I was allowed to help with the garden when I was about five years old.

My grandparents sold this house when I was about seven years old. I haven't seen it for many years, but it was my favorite house when I was growing up.

Many writers, I think, synthesize fact and imagination when they create fictional settings. This house, then, became the very natural model for Robert Adams' childhood home in my novel "The Sun Singer."

I changed the color and the configuration of the rooms inside. I smoothed over the ceiling in the front room to conceal the water spot that resulted when--as a very young child--I wondered what would happen if I tried to flush a small toy down the toilet in an upstairs bathroom. I was too young to get in trouble, but I felt bad about it then and now. At any rate, the water was cleaned up before Robert and his parents moved in.

While the physical house underwent changes as it filtered through my imagination for the book, I kept its heart and soul. This was the house from which I went out into the world. It was a special place. I wanted Robert Adams to have the same special place and I wanted my readers to feel that they were there, too, in a home with a loving family, secrets and all.

Many Glacier Hotel

I worked as a bellman at Many Glacier Hotel at Glacier National Park, Montana, 1963 and 1964. During recent flooding in the park, the water of Swiftcurrent Lake rose up into the hotel's lake level rooms, reminding me of the devastating Montana flood of 1964.

Photo by Hiker 1


The flood caught us before the guests began arriving for the season. Our first knowledge of the high water came when we were pulled out of bed before dawn and told to report to the hotel. Our first duty: rescuing the furniture in those lake level rooms. When the waters receded, there was quite a bit of mud to clean out of the rooms.

My primary job was hauling water for the clean-up process, for the kitchen and for the restrooms in a van. Potable water went into clean garbage cans; cleaning water went into used garbage cans. With a little luck, we opened the hotel on time for a convention scheduled for the beginning of the June-September season.

Experiences like these engraved the park in my memory, making it a fitting setting for large portions of both The Sun Singer and my novel in progress.

Thanksgiving in a small town

Jefferson celebrated it's 200th birthday this year, topping off the year-long festivities with fireworks on the town square Thanksgiving night.

Before the fireworks, hot chocolate and cider were available at a nearby restored Victorian house next door to the Crawford W. Long museum. After the fireworks, we went back for bicentennial cake.

The best of it, though, was this: people. When you go to a small town celebration, you run into people you know. It's always like a class reunion.

I see that as another thing to be thankful for on a full day of blessings.

--Malcolm

A Truckload of Authors

The luxurious holiday issue of Living Jackson Magazine is out with articles about holiday entertaining, Crawford W. Long Museum, things to do and places to go, and a great feature story called "A Truckload of Authors."

It was a priviledge to be one of the local authors profiled in Joshua Barnett's story about authors who live in Jackson County (50 miles northeast of Atlanta) .

I was in great company:

Caine Campbell (no relation) is the author of "A Reminder of Stones" and "Two Hundred Years of Pharmacy in Mississippi."

Richard Hoard wrote "Alone Among the Living" and "The Race Before Us."

Pamela Dodd is the author of "The Gift Horse" and "Trinity on Tylos."

Frank Gilbert wrote the civil war novel "Chasing the Wind."

Tom Lewis is the author of "Finding God: Praying the Psalms in Hard Times of Depression."

Mary Hoood, a Flannery O'Connor Award winner, wrote "How Far She Went," "And Venus is Blue," and "Familiar Heat."

The group photograph in which we were posed in the back of an old Studebaker pickup truck came out fine, meaning that I don't look as bad as I thought I would.

Congratulations to publishers Priscilla Daves and Roxane Rose for getting their wonderful new magazine off to such a great start this past summer.

And thanks for telling a few stories about Jackson County's authors.

Recent Review

After two and a half years, it's nice to find an occasional review of The Sun Singer, this one posted on Review Stream.

Believin' writes, in part, "[Campbell] has a wonderful grasp of the notion of the heropath, and what that journey entails. It is the overarching structuring principle of 'The Sun Singer,' and the novel is filled with the depth of knowledge, compassion, and insight that Campbell likewise displayed in [a recent] online discussion. The book and author demonstrate a real understanding of the mind of a young man, and the difficult journey he makes toward adulthood.I think this book is an excellent read for young and old alike. It is a book of empowerment, and has been beautifully crafted."

While I appreciate the kind words, I find greater happiness in the knowledge that the book and it's theme have connected with a reader who adds to and improves the story by speaking of it from another frame of reference.

I can usually be counted on to say something unexpected

My father was a journalist as well as the dean of a university school of journalism. My college degree is in journalism.

While I have written actual news stories and press releases during my career, I can't help but wonder what my father, his colleagues, and my teachers would think if they knew I was using my news writing style for satirical purposes.

While I can usually be counted on to say something unexpected in what is billed as a normal conversation, I find it just as much fun to put unexpected things into print---but in a news style. Many of these writings find their way into my Morning Satirical News weblog under my "Jock Stewart" pseudonym.

I'm about to take the next step. I'm collecting some of my parody news releases into a little book of satire. I'm finding it a nice change of pace from my work on my 200,000-word novel in progress. I'll keep you posted when the satire hits the fan, so to speak, and comes out on the market where it will be an interesting alternative to reality.

One small step at a time

"It has become a common feeling, I believe, as we have watched our heroes falling over the years, that our own small stone of activism, which might not seem to measure up to the rugged boulders of heroism we have so admired, is a paltry offering toward the building of an edifice of hope. Many who believe this choose to withhold their offerings out of shame. This is the tragedy of the world. For we can do nothing substantial toward changing our course on the planet, a destructive one, without rousing ourselves, individual by individual, and bringing our small imperfect stones to the pile." --Alice Walker “Anything We Love Can Be Saved," as quoted in "Pause for Beauty" from Heron Dance

On a grey day like today when there are so many personal matters for each of us to attend to, how easy it is to say, "my vote won't count anyway, I'll stay home and 'participate' in the process by watching the election returns on TV."

On a grey day like today when other volunteers are already out their stuffing envelopes, cleaning up littered trails, and serving food in soup kitchens, how easy it is to say, "one more set of hands will hardly solve the problems of a dying wilderness or hungry people, I'll stay home and 'participate' in the process by donating $10 to the next door-to-door charity worker who comes along."

On a grey day like today, when established writers and artists are already filling the arts & books pages with all the buzz the world can handle, how easy it is to say, "adding another 100 words to my novel in progress or buying a new tube of Grumbacher paint will hardly bring me fame and fortune, so I'll stay home and 'participate' in the process by thinking about the art I might produce as soon as I have time enough."

On a grey day like today, when other people are already living the lives of their dreams, how easy it is to say, "taking one step in that direction is hardly going to change either me or the world around me, so I'll go out to the mall and shop before stopping by for a few drinks before coming back home to the same old same old and I'll 'participate' in the process by lamenting what might have been if I had simply taken one small step at a time.

I'm comfortable hiding behind my fiction

When it comes to weblogs, I am--to use an old word--flabbergasted by the amount of intensely personal information people are willing to reveal to the world.

I'll leave it to the psychologists to debate why bloggers feel comfortable enough to share with online strangers such dreams and secrets as they often will not share with their families and personal friends. Perhaps it's group therapy on a very large scale.

One way or the other, many of us feel compelled to tell our stories whether they come out in bits and pieces in a bar, over the backyard fence, in a moderated group setting, or over quiet dinners with friends.

I seldom share much of any deep substance with anyone, but I do "work out my issues" under the cover of fiction and satire where most readers will never know which parts are the real me and which parts are completely fabcricated. Writers, some say, don't really understand themselves or their issues until they have written about them. Perhaps those who don't label themselves as writers are discovering the therapy of words these days through journaling and blogging.

Others step out from behind their anonymous online screen names and away from the security of short stories and novels and disclose their stories and their truths through memoirs and other nonfiction books. One such book is Diana Marie Weitzel's Fall Into Freedom (http://www.fallintofreedom.com). The book is subtitled "An Affair Inspires one Woman's Search for Truth."

Weitzel has written a very open, courageous and personal book about a marriage in which a husband admits he's having an affair and continues to flaunt his new relationship while the wife is left to pick up the pieces of her life. The book captures the drama of one woman's quest for answers while serving as a guidebook to others who are confronted with similar struggles.

Weitzel, who found herself only remotely employable with nothing but basic minimum-wage-level typing skills at the time her marriage began to crumble, went back to school and earned an M.A. degree in psychology with a counseling focus. Her story shows other women what is possible in a world of patriarchy where the odds clearly do no favor the personal, spiritual and economic succcess of women.

I admire Weitzel's willingness to share with her readers what many of us fear to share with our closest friends and family. If she hadn't put herself beneath the magnifying glass through such disclosure, her book would have lacked the power to show others a way out of the vise-grip of their own problems.

If weblogs and journals are even the remotest yardstick of public predelections, more and more of us would like to step outside the claustrophobic confines of our secrecy and do what Weitzel has done. While I'm still comfortable living within my fiction, I appreciate the freedom one finds in disclosure and see that trend around me as a good sign.

Living Jackson Magazine Photo Shoot

Living Jackson Magazine, which previewed this summer as a window looking out onto Jackson County in North Georgia, is a high impact, well-appointed labor of love created and nurtured by co-publishers Priscilla Daves and Roxane Rose. Already I hear that this glossy, well-written bi-monthly is expanding in size after a great reception from advertisers and readers.

I hope that I am in no way responsible for screwing that up.

The next issue of the magazine, due out after Thanksgiving, will include a profile article about Georgia authors Pamela J. Dodd, Caine Campbell, G. Richard Hoard, Frank Gilbert, Tom Lewis, Mary Hood and myself.

We got together for a photo shoot last week that included a pastoral fall setting and a pristine 1961 Studebaker pickup truck. As Pam Dodd ("Trinity on Tylos") said in her weblog, we were a "truck full of writers." The photographer took a group shot of all of us sitting in the back of the truck, following that up with an individual shot of each writer in or near the truck.

While I'm pleased to be included in an article with these wonderful Georgia writers, I'm concerned that the appearance of my picture will destroy the magazine.

You see, most people think I look exactly like the evil, he-just-got-out-of-prison photo on my Georgia driver's license. Angry dogs, little kids, nuns, and bluebirds flee when I walk down the sidewalk minding my own business. Fallen leaves magically return to the branches from whence they came.

I fear what will happen when the next issue of Living Jackson reaches the happy homes of its unsuspecting readers. Sooner or later, somebody will thumb through it, see the photo and all hell will break loose.

CNN will have a field day.

How a writer knows he's recovering from the flu

This may come as a surprise: writers are just as human as everyone else.

It doesn't matter whether I'm busy writing about a snake-infested Florida swamp or the first blanket of snow in the Montana high country when the flu strikes. Everything stops. The rattlesnakes fall asleep in the saw palmetto thickets and the grizzly bears go deeper into hibernation waiting for me to pick up my pencil again.

During my recent "flu experience," I didn't even want to see a pencil. When I was awake, everything hurt. When I was asleep, I dreamt that everything hurt. My wife, who wondered if I were still among the living, claims now that when she asked me how I was feeling or if I'd remembered to take my medicine, I just stared off into space like a zombie.

Needless to say, I was not thinking about the characters in my novel in progress, much less the next novel down the road.

We all know the first signs of recovering from the flu...we welcome sunrise and no longer fear sunset...we're awake for 30 minutes without wondering why...we try some bland food and it doesn't taste like dumpster garbage...we can hold a glass of water without spilling it.

For me, there's another sign of recovery: I hear my characters talking. When I got sick last week, my characters were pushing through a titi thicket into a Florida swamp. As I began to recover, I heard and saw them in my mind's eye trying to move on into the next scene of the book.

Most writers hear and see the characters of a novel in progress while they're mowing the yard, driving to the store, washing dishes or even trying to distract themselves with a good television program. My characters are, in a sense, a part of my life. I see them in the way most of us see friends and co-workers who come to mind when we're not with them.

Until a book is done, the characters are always going to be there: talking, thinking, plotting, getting into trouble, wasting time, having dreams. I may never know whether this process is creativity or insanity. Either way, the flu puts a quick stop to it.

So yesterday morning, it was kind of nice to wake up and hear somebody say, "Bob, there's a water mocassin swimming in your coffee."

Perhaps, if you heard that, you might assume you needed more sleep and a lot more medicine. When I heard it, I knew I was recovering from the flu.