Gone With the Wind: Part One

The more I read, and the more I write, the more I’m convinced that good writing transcends genre. A well-paced work of non-fiction can clip along as well as any Vince Flynn thriller just as a beautifully crafted novel can transport readers to a world as vivid as any historical tale of David McCullough’s. In much the same way, good story telling should transcend the editorial peculiarities of a give age. And yet it’s hard to read a Russian masterpiece like War and Peace or a universally acclaimed novel like Moby Dick and not think of Elmore Leonard’s admonishment to “try [and] leave out the part that readers tend to skip.” So it was with some trepidation that I cracked the spine of Margaret Mitchell’s epic tale, Gone With the Wind, in June 2014 to see what the fuss was all about. Surely a novel that had won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction (1937) and had sold more than 30 million copies since its publication has something going for it. My aim that week was to understand what made the novel work. Commentary on her one-and-only novel undoubtably runs deeper and wider than my personal reading and writing experiences. Like all readers, though, I know what I like. As with many writers, I know what seems to work in effective story telling. I’ve spent a lifetime, it seems, hearing references to Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler, but I had never read GW2 and had never seen the movie. So with a near virginal approach to this masterwork, I dove in this past summer. What follows are my daily impressions as I read the novel. Here’s what happened:   GW2 Day One: Successful stories have captivating first pages and gripping opening chapters. Reportedly, after ten years writing the novel Gone With the Wind, Margaret Mitchell spent an additional six months massaging the words of her initial scene. She ultimately settled on the stark and prophetic first line: “Scarlett O’Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm…” So far, she has delivered on that promise. As the opening scene unfolds in the lazy April afternoon of the antebellum south,  Mitchell reinforces the charm of Scarlett even as she shows her petulant side. Layers of Scarlett’s personality are painted on with a combination of bold actions and rich backstory. In lesser hands, such detail could be...
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The Road to Publication

There was a time in my childhood when my tongue was saddled with a speech impediment. Not an irreparable delay nor a lifelong concern, but a lip-twisting malady that likely made adults smile as my ‘R’s and ‘W’s came out with similar sounds. For a boy whose middle named started with a ‘W’ and whose last name started with a ‘R’, it did not seem like a funny condition. My dad, whose own double-‘R’d name also gave him fits as a child, later told me that he had endured the same problem growing up. “There was a time as an emcee of an elementary school program,” he once said, “when I started the event by saying, ‘ “Pawents and fwiends, we gweet you.’ ” He turned the once-embarrassing story into a humorous yarn since his southern speech is now smooth as buttermilk. For most of my adult life, I’ve also moved passed the temporary speech delay. Still, both the long ‘I’s of a muted southern accent and the misplaced ‘W’s of yesteryear tend to creep back into my speech when I’m tired or excited. Such was the situation I found myself in this past month, when (both tired and excited) I answered a question at a local book signing. Several friends and family members came to support Blood Money, wishing me well and buying some books. When one colleague asked about the road to publication, I found myself excitedly responding that, “this had been a busy writing week in the Wussell house.” The delivery notwithstanding, there is truth in those words. For the past year, my road to publication has been long and winding but rarely busy. A publication path more backroads than Autoban, which suits me just fine. One year ago this week, I pulled out of the gravel driveway of my rough drafts, steering past the potholes and weeds of abandoned manuscripts, and onto a road paved by my publisher. I knew from the signed contract that this road would lead to three books published in two years, but the road that spooled out in front of me appeared only wide enough for one book at a time. For most of the last year, the one-book road has kept me busy enough. Since one manuscript was already polished and ready for the fast-lane, I had left it in the garage while I worked on the other two...
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Pitchers and Catchers

The Major League Baseball pre-season kicked off on Valentine’s Day as pitchers and catchers reported to spring training. It’s an annual ritual as important to baseball fans in February as the appearance of Punxsutawney Phil’s fickle shadow. My brother and I participated in this ritual many years ago. He was a seasoned college student and the time; I was an upstart high schooler. Both of us took off in his white, ’88 GMC Jimmy to hit the dusty stadiums of Florida’s spring league. We saw the Dodgers. The Reds. The Cardinals. And our adopted hometown favorite, the Braves. We come from a long line of baseball fans, so it has always seemed natural for me to root for the Braves. To be sure, my love of the game did not spring from any inherent baseball skills I possess. I was more likely to throw a tantrum as a toddler than throw a ball. But that didn’t stop me from collecting the cards and scouring the box scores as a kid. My siblings and I would spend endless summer days in small town Georgia at my grandparents house, and baseball became part of the daily rhythm there. My grandfather followed Skip Caray’s crackled radio broadcasts under the covered carport at his house. Even when TBS began televising almost all Braves games, my granddad continued to prefer listening to games on the radio. We knew where to find him after the first pitch, and he welcomed us to come and go at our leisure. I’m sure my rookie season as a fan must have found me with bare feet swinging from a wicker rocking chair, listening along side him. As I got older, I soon learned to ask about Bob Honer’s injury-plagued wrists; to complain about “Bedrock” Bedrosian’s pitching brilliance after leaving the Braves; and to wonder if our man, Dale Murphy, would ever make it to the World Series. Even though I never excelled at playing catch, I learned to toss statistics with my family, and then my friends, in baseball’s unique language. So when my brother and I showed up for spring training that year, it was like we were coming home. We watched meaningless games in near-empty stadiums surrounded by snowbirds. We bought baseballs and autograph pens, collecting signatures from minor leaguers hoping to make a name for themselves. We treasured those players not for what they had...
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In the Beginning

Like many novels, I suppose, Blood Money began as an affair of the heart. Unlike most, though, the roots of the Mackie McKay series are anchored in academia.   When I was young boy of six, still enamored with Star Wars and Legos, my father dedicated a book to my siblings and me entitled Coronary Artery Disease: Recognition and Management. Even as the text of the thick green book remained largely inscrutable, the idea of being an author’s son enchanted me. Often during my formative years, I would remove the tome from the shelf and simple hold it, feeling the weighty importance  of bound words. Only later would I appreciate the process of producing such a work.   Twenty five years later, in the early-morning hours of infancy, I abandoned the hope of more sleep and began to write. I was no more prepared for the disciplines of authorship than those of parenting, but I pressed forward anyway. I soon realized that my muse would meet me after diaper changes and often stay until sunrise. At the quiet kitchen table in our Cincinnati home, disparate chapters accumulated. By the time our second child was born, I had completed what I thought must be the next great American novel.   Enter the heart again.   An author and cardiology colleague of my father’s helped me interpret the meaning of a first draft and the importance of revision. Sending me to meet with a team of seasoned scribes in Santa Barbara, I learned how to polish that first manuscript and where to search for the next novel within me. My wife indulged my fictional fantasies, quite certain that the words “author” or “re-write” were never even whispered during our courtship.   Like so many affairs of the heart, this one is only possible because of the patience and persistence of those who’ve shared this journey with me.   And it all began at home.   Thanks, Dad. This one’s for...
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Farewell to the Odd Couple

My wife lost her first love this past weekend. She inherited him as a nuptial cast-off from a young couple pining for a fresh start. By the time I came into the picture five years later, this guy was a constant presence in her house. Sharing her bed. Sleeping on her sofa. Eating her food. My questioning glances during the early days of our courtship remained unnoticed. Soon his presence became part of the package. I learned to tolerate his car sickness. To dodge him when I walked into the house. To drop a few well-timed chucks of cheese to quiet his complaints. I viewed my reluctant kindness toward him as an investment in her. Two years later, we brought another man into our house. This one was lanky and lean, a vibrant picture of youth. These two guys could not have been more different, but they complimented each other like a living yin-yang. The veteran would quietly leave the room when the rookie burst in. But he didn’t leave for long. They became our surrogate children, teaching us what it meant to set boundaries in the context of hospitality, helping us to practice parenting’s twin-paradox of loving discipline. When our own kids came along, these two guys accepted them like the family members they were. They tolerated the ear pulling and piggy-back rides. They wore dress-up clothes and silly hats as if it were part of their job description. By then, the old man had lost his cheese weight and was frail enough to be carried by a toddler. The rookie never truly mellowed, but would gum his side of the knot in a game of tug-of-war. These two also forced uncomfortable conversations with our kids. They introduced topics from basic anatomy to carnal physiology. We turned our embarrassed heads when the old man sat on the sofa and licked himself with leg-quivering abandon. We redirected the kids’s attention when the young guy began sniffing and prodding places previously labeled as private. As the family grew, my wife and I lost our ability to multi-task. Despite our periodic negligence and intermittent irritation, neither man wavered in his loyalty. They stuck by us through four kids, three houses, two miscarriages, and one new city. They stayed up late to watch us feed the babies. They sat at the foot of the bed when the kids cried. They greeted our...
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