I grew up in the rural South, where everything begins with a story. I love stories. What I love most is words, and the way a good writer can make one lean against the other in a perfect fit. Like an old stone wall in Ireland. How Shakespeare or William Faulkner or Solzhenitsyn make their words come to life.
When Solzhenitsyn tells, in Cancer Ward, of how the little dog who was afraid of water apologized, first with his ears, then with his tail each time they approached the lake, I can see that dog. That's magic.
In the summer of 1991, I decided to write a novel. (My second, though the first will probably always live in a closed drawer) My wife, Maggie, long ago adjusted to the ADD center of my being, how I could sit beside her, or stand in a crowded room, interacting while my mind was a thousand miles away. She nudges me sometimes, and whispers in my ear, "Lights are on...nobody's home."
I'm always making up stories. I've done this for as long as I can remember. Telling myself bedtime stories to get to sleep - I still do, at my age.
Maggie and I have an old farmhouse in the Florida Panhandle, deep in the lush jungle that borders the wild Gulf of Mexico, where there are no street lights and, on moonless nights, stars, thick as dust, make a pure white light that can cast shadows on the ground.
Our house is surrounded by huge pecan trees, and skirted with a wide porch filled with chairs and little tables, and we sit there (as the old folks say) "of an evening" and listen to the night. There was a time, in the early Nineties, when we could hear rapid arms fire and helicopters not too far from our house, just across Econfina Creek. Always in the dark of night. I began to imagine the ‘what if's' of Contras training there in that large area beyond the creek, fenced and patrolled to keep riff-raff like me out, which only increases my curiosity; so with each distant burst of weapons fire, each thumping of helicopter rotors in the dark night, I began to create a story. The story became a novel, and I found first an agent then, through him, a publisher. My title, A Thousand Bridges, held on and the book was published to critical acclaim in 1992.
The reviewers called it a political thriller, a detective mystery, but I think of it as a love story with a lot of death in it. I called it A Thousand Bridges, after one version of a saying fighter pilots in Vietnam passed around: ‘You build a thousand bridges and you're an architect, but just let one of those bridges fall down on market day and you're a bum again.'
A recent review from a blog called it "An amazing fore-shadowing of today's current political climate!"
A Thousand Bridges was released by Walker Books, NYC. In a hardbound edition, it received a coveted Starred Review in Publishers Weekly, who also chose the book as one of their Top Ten First Fiction of the Year.
Fantastic reviews followed in publications like Kirkus Reviews, The San Francisco Chronicle and The St. Petersburg Times, among others. The Library Journal chose it as one of their top First Novels in the October 1992 issue, which had the effect of delivering A Thousand Bridges to public libraries all across America. The Associated Press sent a lengthy review out on its news wires titled A Thousand Bridges Bats 1,000.
Then, the division of Walker Books that released the novel folded. Times change.
But I believe this novel is as vital now as it was when it was first released. Kiki Olsen, a reviewer from Philadelphia, PA, wrote in a review published in the St. Petersburg Times Sunday edition, September 27th, 1992, that it was " an astoundingly articulate novel set in Florida..."
She says of McDonald Clay, the protagonist, "Mac is a supremely engaging hero. He is brave, honest, bold and begrudgingly romantic....The all-but-impossible mission McKinney sketched out for him is packed with action, desire, suspense and mystery.
McKinney does a sensational job of putting his ‘it could happen here' story together, and much of his art lies in the economy of words. He is succinct and precise in moving the action and emotions, making it unnecessary for readers to slog through dreary, unnecessary descriptions."
More reviews followed in The Times Picayune (New Orleans) and the Buffalo Times. Jerome Sterns of NPR, writing in the Tallahassee Democrat, said A Thousand Bridges is a thriller with just enough resemblance to today's political weirdness to make it downright scary. The cast of villains are involved in the stuff of today's headlines. Dope dealing and arms deals that involve the very pillars of the community. Corruption wrapped in the cloth of high righteousness and the American flag. A avidity for power and money that violates all notions of decency. And most interesting of all, an impatient intolerance with the inconvenient people of America - "them," as Pat Buchanan put it in a recent speech."
My mother, Lucy, instilled this love of words in me in such a way that it has remained a single, driving force in my life. I'm a sixth-generation Floridian, and love writing about the land that created me - the land I love.
I'm a Vietnam era veteran who never had to fight, but I still hate the sound of helicopters. I was stationed at Tyndall Air Force Base in the Florida Panhandle when I met Maggie. I worked on the flight line and she was leading the anti-war protests on the marina. It was love at first sight. We've been together for a long, long time, and we spend our lives mostly as a singer/songwriter duo called "Lucky Mud". We've had the chance to play our original, lyric based music around the world, but Florida is still our home. We've played the main stages of the Florida Folk Festival and the Will McLean Festival, and tour the West of Ireland every year. It's a heady thing to know our CDs are being played from Florida to Texas, from Ireland to Denmark. We've just now released our 8th CD on CD Baby, called Into the Night. Our son, Griffin, resides in Mountain View, California.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Sleeping in the Chair
Writing takes time, and there's never enough of it. Every writer I know writes while his family sleeps. Every fortunate writer has a family who forgives, friends who overlook the things we do to feed our compulsion.
"I'm Michael McKinney", I say to the circle of strangers, "and I'm a writer."
My novel, A Thousand Bridges, came out in 1992, and because of the good reviews I was guest author at a lot of writers' conferences. At each of them, there was the inevitable panel of writers. We sat on some raised stage, behind a table, each with a little microphone, imparting wisdom to a crowd of hopefuls.
I sat there listening to so many writers as they told the audience how to write. There was the reference to Hemingway and the fact that if you didn't write at least a thousand words a day you couldn't call yourself a writer.
Bullshit. Hemingway also stood up to type and blew his brains out when he was still young enough to create more great stories. I was honored to share a page in Publishers Weekly, and a writer's conference, with Lorien Hemingway, and she's one hell of a writer. Both our books were chosen by PW as Top First Novels in the same year. I remember she said that, in her family, it was "kill or kill yourself."
Don't kill yourself. Write. Don't let anyone stop you.
Nobody knows how to write, as though there were a manual somewhere with exploded diagrams and a handy index.
Whether it's music, novels, paintings, any form of creativity, you alone know your heart. Your timetable is yours alone. You know where the dark corners are, the sharp edges, the peaceful fields. You alone.
What I try to say at each conference is the only thing I know to be true to me. No one, at the end of your life, will stand over your casket and say, "He was a good man, but he never wrote a book."
Or a song. Or painted a picture. You're the only one who cares. Don't create if it hurts you. I hear authors tell a crowd, "Writing is like cutting my wrists with a rusty razor."
Then, don't write. If revealing the truth inside you is that painful, maybe you should keep it to yourself.
The only thing you have to do to be a writer is to write. Books, songs, poems, it doesn't matter. Published, unpublished, you're still a writer. Don't let anyone say you're not. I've heard so many authors talk about how the ‘only' way to write is to block off a section of time, regular as clockwork, and force your Muse to sit there, stroking you while you think.
Maybe, if you have that kind of Muse.
My Muse is more like a lover; showing up when she wants, staying as long as she wants. She'll leave in a huff over the smallest argument and be gone for weeks. All I can do is hope she's away on business, some mission of mercy and not in the arms of another man.
Sometimes, she taps shyly on the door, other times she rips it off its hinges, bowls me over, sits on my chest and whispers in my ear, "Do what I say and you won't get hurt."
She doesn't like it when I get in the way, when I try to mold a song or story in my image. ‘They're like children', she says. ‘You give birth to them but they're not reflections of you'.
Creativity is a great mystery, and there's nothing like lying in the arms of the Muse afterward, listening to the rain, feeling the cool air, the sheets, her warm breath.
Writing is a dreamworld to me. My wife, Maggie, and I have lived together, close to each other for almost 40 years and though she's a great songwriter we've never written anything together. My creativity comes from a place unlike hers, the paths are different for each of us.
I'm fortunate enough to be a published author, with a well-respected agent in NYC, but that business is on the ropes. Of course, so is pulp wooding, so are the sawmills here at home. Hard times are everywhere.
And I'm not sure I have any advice that would help you, or anyone, with writing. I've never written at the same time every day, or even every day. I don't set a goal of a thousand words, or a limit, either. I've been known to party when others work, and to write for days on end. Without sleep.
Now, I'm trying to imagine how to start a blog that might be readable. I guess I should say here that I have a website called http://www.athousandbridges1992.com and it has links to Kindle, Nook and the other eBook readers. Now that I've decided to re-release the novel as an eBook, I'll hold my breath, hoping someone notices, because I have a completed sequel to it, and four other novels ready to try out this wonderful new medium.
I know this is long-winded. Sorry. I wait to hear from you, and to learn the etiquette of blogging.
Mike
"I'm Michael McKinney", I say to the circle of strangers, "and I'm a writer."
My novel, A Thousand Bridges, came out in 1992, and because of the good reviews I was guest author at a lot of writers' conferences. At each of them, there was the inevitable panel of writers. We sat on some raised stage, behind a table, each with a little microphone, imparting wisdom to a crowd of hopefuls.
I sat there listening to so many writers as they told the audience how to write. There was the reference to Hemingway and the fact that if you didn't write at least a thousand words a day you couldn't call yourself a writer.
Bullshit. Hemingway also stood up to type and blew his brains out when he was still young enough to create more great stories. I was honored to share a page in Publishers Weekly, and a writer's conference, with Lorien Hemingway, and she's one hell of a writer. Both our books were chosen by PW as Top First Novels in the same year. I remember she said that, in her family, it was "kill or kill yourself."
Don't kill yourself. Write. Don't let anyone stop you.
Nobody knows how to write, as though there were a manual somewhere with exploded diagrams and a handy index.
Whether it's music, novels, paintings, any form of creativity, you alone know your heart. Your timetable is yours alone. You know where the dark corners are, the sharp edges, the peaceful fields. You alone.
What I try to say at each conference is the only thing I know to be true to me. No one, at the end of your life, will stand over your casket and say, "He was a good man, but he never wrote a book."
Or a song. Or painted a picture. You're the only one who cares. Don't create if it hurts you. I hear authors tell a crowd, "Writing is like cutting my wrists with a rusty razor."
Then, don't write. If revealing the truth inside you is that painful, maybe you should keep it to yourself.
The only thing you have to do to be a writer is to write. Books, songs, poems, it doesn't matter. Published, unpublished, you're still a writer. Don't let anyone say you're not. I've heard so many authors talk about how the ‘only' way to write is to block off a section of time, regular as clockwork, and force your Muse to sit there, stroking you while you think.
Maybe, if you have that kind of Muse.
My Muse is more like a lover; showing up when she wants, staying as long as she wants. She'll leave in a huff over the smallest argument and be gone for weeks. All I can do is hope she's away on business, some mission of mercy and not in the arms of another man.
Sometimes, she taps shyly on the door, other times she rips it off its hinges, bowls me over, sits on my chest and whispers in my ear, "Do what I say and you won't get hurt."
She doesn't like it when I get in the way, when I try to mold a song or story in my image. ‘They're like children', she says. ‘You give birth to them but they're not reflections of you'.
Creativity is a great mystery, and there's nothing like lying in the arms of the Muse afterward, listening to the rain, feeling the cool air, the sheets, her warm breath.
Writing is a dreamworld to me. My wife, Maggie, and I have lived together, close to each other for almost 40 years and though she's a great songwriter we've never written anything together. My creativity comes from a place unlike hers, the paths are different for each of us.
I'm fortunate enough to be a published author, with a well-respected agent in NYC, but that business is on the ropes. Of course, so is pulp wooding, so are the sawmills here at home. Hard times are everywhere.
And I'm not sure I have any advice that would help you, or anyone, with writing. I've never written at the same time every day, or even every day. I don't set a goal of a thousand words, or a limit, either. I've been known to party when others work, and to write for days on end. Without sleep.
Now, I'm trying to imagine how to start a blog that might be readable. I guess I should say here that I have a website called http://www.athousandbridges1992.com and it has links to Kindle, Nook and the other eBook readers. Now that I've decided to re-release the novel as an eBook, I'll hold my breath, hoping someone notices, because I have a completed sequel to it, and four other novels ready to try out this wonderful new medium.
I know this is long-winded. Sorry. I wait to hear from you, and to learn the etiquette of blogging.
Mike
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)