When I first set out to write a book, it was to be a technical book on Information Technology, the Unix Operating System, and professional Systems Administration. In thirty years, I have learned a lot of practical things that I thought I should share. Some, I have learned from others, and some I have discerned all by my self. I had written down a great many simple, catchy axioms that I was eager to share. I was excited, and I sat down at my laptop to begin the outline and …well….nothing happened. I would start, and then backup and start again. Once more, I would begin…only to stop two lines in. This is hard, I thought, as I watched my 5 year old son walk by me wearing a cape, a football helmet, goggles, knees pads, carrying a shield in one hand and a tennis racket in the other. He was going to the basement to watch cartoons on TV.
I smiled as I paused from writing my technical book and thought about his life. I remembered mine. It’s funny the stuff you remember when you just sit and think about it. I remembered the pecan tree behind our house in Senatobia, Mississippi and how when I got in trouble mom would make me pick up fallen pecans. I was 3 years old. I remembered when my sister won ‘Little Miss Lady of the Lake’ at Sardis Reservoir, and that two people drowned in the lake that day. I couldn’t have been much older, but I remembered when my brother got Tobasco in his eye at Leonard’s Bar-b-que in Memphis, and I remembered when the Peabody had elevator operators. I thought they had the coolest job in the world. I remembered the Broadwater Beach Hotel in Biloxi, and the day my little brother, much to my mother’s horror, rode the tram all afternoon long. After an epic search, we found him…..riding the tram.
Gradually, I wove a tale about three little boys colliding with the grown up world. Though their intentions were always good, they always seemed to misinterpret things in unfortunate ways. Many of the incidents in the book were inspired by things that actually occurred, but some are completely fabricated. Some parts of the novel flowed like a river into my computer, and others had to be dragged out, edited a hundred times, and reviewed and edited another hundred times, and then rewritten because it still just wasn’t good enough. Finally, it was done.
In the two years it has been on the market, ‘Me, Boo and The Goob’ has done very well for a book with no marketing and without a major publisher. I have received emails from around the world. I have had a couple of (very skeevy) inquiries about doing a movie. Now, after two years, I have signed with a new publisher who is capable of nationwide distribution through Barnes and Noble, Amazon as well as local bookstores. As I write this, we are working with Barnes and Noble to host a series of book signings across the south.
I have a copy of ‘Me, Boo and The Goob’ before me right now. It’s a product of my efforts at writing, but more so, it is a product of all of the teachers who put up with me through grade school, Jr. High and High School. One of my English Teachers, actually my Creative writing teacher, told me something once that has stuck with me for more than 40 years. I had handed in an essay that I thought was pretty good. It had some problems, but for the most part, the words danced off of the page like an Edgar Allen Poe poem. I don’t remember what it was about, but I liked it and thought it was good enough. Mrs. Seaton handed it back to me the next day. She looked me in the eye as only Mrs. Seaton could do, and said, “You can do better.”
She was right, and I knew it. I learned the importance of criticism and revisions that day. Good enough just isn’t good enough.
Everyone needs a Mrs. Seaton. Maybe that is what is wrong with the world today is that there just aren’t enough Mrs. Seatons to go around.
4077
Leave a Reply