Christal
Cooper 1,622 Words (including excerpt)
Guest
Blogger Bill Glose
Homage To
My Mentor Bill Walsh
When I decided to become a writer, I
said goodbye to a successful management position with regular paychecks and
hello to editorial whimsy and shoeboxes filled with rejection letters. I had no idea how difficult a writing life
could be; I simply knew I loved to write.
After I moved back to the neighborhood
where I grew up, I discovered that another writer lived down the street from
me: Bill Wash. Not to be confused with the copy desk chief
of the Washington Post, who authored Lapsing Into a Comma and the Elephants
of Style, nor the NFL coach who led the San Francisco 49ers to three
Super Bowl victories, this Bill Walsh was a writer whose published articles
appeared in such diverse publications as Black Belt, Woman’s World, and GRIT.
I’d only met Bill once before, and to
say that meeting was less that auspicious would be like saying William Faulkner
was a little wordy. It was late at
night, and I was a 13-year-old kid making a ruckus outside his daughter’s
window. I didn’t know Heidi’s father was
an ex-Marine with a tough-guy reputation, but I found out moments later when he
grabbed me by the scruff and shook me around to his front yard.
He forgave my teenage indiscretions, in
part because I only visited Heidi through the front door from then on, but also
because I served as a paratrooper in the Gulf War and the old jarhead had
respect for that. So, when I showed up on
his doorstep years later with the proclamation that I was going to be a writer,
he warned me of the difficulties and asked if I was prepared. “Do you want to write,” he said, “or do you
just want to be a writer?” The
difference, he went on to explain, was that many people want to be known as a
writer, to be some famous name that people talk about, but few are willing to
do the work that good writing requires.
I swore that I could do the work and
proudly produced my work-in-progress. He
took my story and, while I watched in horror, began marking it up. When he was done, the pages contained more
red ink than type. I was flummoxed. I had expected praise. I had expected him to recognize my work for
the masterpiece it was. I stewed for a
couple of days before rereading the ink-scarred pages, intending to ridicule
his suggestions. But the story was
improved with his changes. Much
improved.
I did the edits and slunk down the
street. When Bill saw me, he smirked and
said, “Wasn’t sure if I’d see you again.”
Inside his house, he gave me the first of many lessons. “Good writing requires rewriting, lots and
lots of rewriting.” Much of Bill’s
advice was of the big-picture variety, but his editing comments were always
specific: show, don’t tell; have a reason fro every scene; avoid clichés.
My ego suffered on those early trips to
Bill’s house, where counsel was frequently delivered with the force of a
shotgun blast. Once, he stopped reading
one of my stories after the first two pages and told me it was not worthy of
this reader. Bill is a pedant with no
patience for sloppy work. If something
I’d written used a secondary variant of a word or – gasp! – a cliché, I could
expect a scathing rebuke supported by excerpts from a procession of reference
books.
And if I hadn’t brought anything with
me, he would bemoan the general state of grammar and how it was being butchered
by common usage. Many times he has
lectured me on the misuse of such words as “minuscule” (“The universally
considered incorrect variant ‘miniscule,’ though common, is always incorrect”),
“enormity” (“Enormity’ defines something as being monstrously offensive; it is
not a synonym for ‘enormous’”) and “podium” (“A podium is what you stand on; a
lectern is what you stand behind”).
Bill never went to college, but he
reads voraciously and is better educated than many college graduates. Better yet, he is worldly-wise and practical,
giving him a better grasp on how to share his knowledge with others. For every roadblock encountered, he showed me
a path around. And every path included
examples, using classic literature or modern masters to guide me.
Before I met Bill, my reading list
consisted of thrillers, sci-fi books and an occasional cozy. Everything I knew about classic literature
dated back to high school, where lessons were so dull that I never dared to
pick up a literary work again. Until I
met Bill. He showed me that good
literature was not something to be feared, and he guided my reading selections. I went from a diet of James Patterson and
Stephen King to John Steinbeck, Ernest J. Gains and Charles Frazier. He introduced me to great novels. I read, I learned, and I fell in love with
the written word.
We often discussed what I’d recently
read. Sometimes we’d chat about plot,
but usually we’d talk about the writing techniques employed. What makes David Schickler’s characters so
powerful? How had Ronald Wright so
skillfully alternated voice in Henderson’s
Spear? Was Jonathan Franzen showing
mastery or just showing off with his page-long sentences? Sometimes we talked about literature in
general. Bill would tell stories about
various writers’ lives, their notable books, their triumphs and flops, their
peccadilloes and literary sins. It
seemed he had an anecdote about everyone and everything.
Once my work started getting published
and I began promoting it, Bill’s advice turned to effective readings. “Even if there’s only one person in the
audience,” Bill said, “he gave his time to come listen to you. Make it worth his while.” At many of my outings, readers actually did outnumber
listeners. However, well-constructed
presentations and word of mouth soon had me reading at venues where the
assembled crowd outnumbered available chairs, and patrons had to line up
against walls or sit cross-legged on the floor.
He shepherded me through the finer
points of literary presentation – practice beforehand, use dramatic pauses,
arrive early and ensure the reading area is set up properly – and he
accompanied me to early outings. Once,
he read an essay about his father that made the hairs on my arm stand on
end. Another time, he acted out a
humorous scene that had a bookstore crowd laughing so hard that everyone else
in the store bunched into our little section.
Now Bill tells me that I’ve outgrown
what he can teach me, but after every visit I leave his house stronger and
smarter than when I entered. Sometimes
his mere presence affects my work.
Before I share with him anything I’ve written, I labor over work choice
and shave off all the fat I can find.
And even when I don’t share something with Bill before sending it out to
an editor, I still hear his voice in my head as I edit.
The lessons I’ve learned at Bill’s
house are with me every time I face a blank screen or scratch a typed page with
a red pen. But just as important as anything
he’s taught me is the friendship I’ve gained along the way. I did not always go to Bill for advice. Whenever one of my stories was published, I’d
bring the magazine or journal to his house, and we’d marvel at the layout or
the other names on nearby pages. His joy
over my successes often inspired me to write something else. And, when the mail brought nothing but
rejection letters, he’d share a beer with me as we criticized the editorial
decisions and discussed methods of retribution.
Bill is sick now. Congestive heart
failure keeps him bedridden for most of the time. Occasionally, he’ll have a good day, and I’ll
visit. We still talk about books and
writing, what’s going on in the world of publishing, and arcana of the English
language. He still rants with vigor, but
that tires him out so the length of our discussions is limited.
Bill has been more than a mentor to me;
he’s part teacher, part confidant, part friend.
In the years since I first asked for help, I have become a professional
writer, with all of my income generate by the words I produce. Bill made this possible. He taught me hard lessons and gave me comfort
when I faltered. While I will always strive
to be a better writer and a better editor, I know I am a better person for
knowing him.
*Below
is an excerpt from “Memoir of a Ball Well Hit” by Bill Walsh. Used with permission from the author.
During the Great Depression, my father
was a legendary figure in the mountains of western North Carolina. Whether they wrestled plows, labored in
mills, or hauled whisky by the dark of the moon, the bone-tough hillbillies of
his generation were bound each summer Sunday by a common bond, a cultural phenomenon
of the rural South that lifted their spirits even higher than
fire-and-brimstone preaching: semi-pro
baseball. Every village, institution, or
enterprise that could round up a dozen men not crippled by war, flue epidemics,
or the quotidian brutality of mountain life fielded a team. Baseball was the defining sport of many
Appalachian communities. This was the
era of file-sharpened cleats and emery ball pitchers, when red-clay playing
fields the color of substance of brick exacted a payment in flesh for every
diving catch or slide into home. These
were hard times, this was a hard place, and garments worn to work or to play
were as often stained with blood as with dirt.
Photo
Description And Copyright Information
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Bill
Glose.
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Jacket
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William
Faulkner in December of 1954
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Bill
Glose during the Gulf War.
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Bill
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Bill
Glose writing in his home office.
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Jacket
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cover of Ten Twisted Tales edited by Bill Glose.
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10a
James
Patterson on August 18, 2008.
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to Susan Solie-Patterson
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Stephen
King
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10c
John
Steinbeck and son John visit LBJ at the oval office in the White House. To the
left is 19 year-old John Steinbeck, IV with his father, John Steinbeck, III.
The senior Steinbeck, a friend and sometime speech-writer for LBJ (they had
first met in 1963), has written the president to ask on his son's behalf that
he would be posted in Vietnam. The 4-minute meeting takes place on Monday, May
16, 1966, shortly after the younger John has finished bootcamp, and a few weeks
before his departure for Vietnam. The
visit is to say thank you in person, and to give the younger John the chance to
shake the president's hand.
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cover of A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest T Gaines.
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cover of Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
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David
Schickler on January 2, 2013
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Ronald
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part of International Week 2007
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Jacket
cover of Henderson’s Spear by Ronald Wright.
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Jonathan
Franzen at the 2011 Time 100 Gala
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Bill
Glose speaking at the F. Scott Fitzgerald Literary Conference.
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Bill
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Bill
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Bill
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President
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