Twelve years ago, I made a conscious choice to stop writing standard academic history books. Instead, I switched to creative non-fiction, choosing characters who lived through important historical events but who had left little or no documented evidence of their lives. I was fully aware that I was risking my  professional and academic reputation by doing so, but I had retired from teaching and could do what I loved.  I could try to please myself and my readers rather than a tenure and promotions committee. I believed—then, as now—that readers wanted both facts and drama, that they wanted to be caught up in a story while learning something new in the process.

I also knew that great stories influenced more people than heavily-footnoted academic tomes. Ask medievalists for example, what sparked their interest in medieval history. Chances are, the answers will include “The Lord of the Rings,” “The Chronicles of Narnia,” or any number of historical novels. My own personal spark came from “Kristin Lavransdatter” by Sigrid Undset. 

Now some ten books later, I have just received an invitation from a well-respected historical society to review a new book for their journal. The book tells the stories of two relatively unknown Southerners who took opposite sides during the Civil War. The editor explained that he was asking me because of my demonstrated knowledge of South Carolina history. He also commended my reputation as a successful author of fact-based biographical novels . . . and he mentioned the book I had written twelve years ago. I am surprised, but delighted to accept the invitation.

The take-away? Take chances. Do what you love instead of what others think you ought to do. Count your successes, not by money or awards or promotions, but by the level of satisfaction you receive by following your dreams. In the long run, that’s all that matters.

I’m not sure how I managed to get this old without setting foot in a Trader Joe’s but somehow I had never even seen one. Maybe it had something to do with being an Air Force wife and living in so many off-the-map places that had nothing but an Air Force base and a commissary. Whatever the reason, I had no idea why people were so enthusiastic. When the rumors of a TJ coming to Germantown first circulated, I may have been the only person in Memphis who was not excited.

 

Still, the hype eventually piqued my interest, and when the store finally opened last week, I started to make a list.  I asked everyone I talked to about their TJ favorites, and I soon had a long list, but one invariably topped by two items: Mandarin Orange Chicken and Cookie Butter. Other treats jostling for top sport were Triple Gingersnaps and something called Ginger Chews. Then came bagel seasoning and various exotic produce items.

 

Armed with my list, a friend and I ventured out to explore. No one warned me about the traffic—not outside, but in the aisles. Related images kept flashing through my mind as I struggled to push my cart into a slow-moving line of discriminating shoppers.  Imagine the Santa Ana Freeway at rush hour; an inbound evacuation route as a hurricane bears down on the coast; the Salmon River during spawning season.

 

I hear it’s a beautiful store, but all I saw were people and whatever happened to be at eye-level on the shelves as I passed by.  And if I missed an item and wanted to go back . . . well, imagine being a car going the wrong way on that rush hour freeway. Just turning around caused a ripple effect of clashing carts.

 

Eventually I gathered most of my items without spending too much money and came home to indulge in some sampling. The results were . . . instructive. First came a Ginger Chew, which sent puffs of peppery steam right through the top of my skull. Too late, I read the bag, which recommended these as a cure for travel sickness. Maybe so! Hoping for something a little milder I tried a Gingersnap, which turned out to have three kinds of ginger and not much else. A peanut butter pretzel cooled my taste buds, and I decided to try the orange chicken for dinner. You guessed it. The most prominent flavor was ginger.

 

Still searching for the ultimate TJ high, I tried their plain yogurt for breakfast. Not even raspberries and granola could add any sweetness to it.  So I turned to a crumpet (yes, a TJ crumpet) topped with cookie butter. That wasn’t too bad, but you probably don’t need to be told that cookie butter tastes like gingerbread. What is it with these people? Have they never heard of garlic?  Oh, yes, there’s always the bagel seasoning.

 

Will I go back? Of course. It’s the next best thing to visiting a street market in Morocco. Besidesnow I understand the origins of the word “gingerly,” which means to do something with extreme caution.

 

By ELMORE LEONARD

6. Never use the words “suddenly” or “all hell broke loose.”

This rule doesn’t require an explanation. I have noticed that writers who use “suddenly” tend to exercise less control in the application of exclamation points.

7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.

Once you start spelling words in dialogue phonetically and loading the page with apostrophes, you won’t be able to stop. Notice the way Annie Proulx captures the flavor of Wyoming voices in her book of short stories “Close Range.”

8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.

Which Steinbeck covered. In Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” what do the “American and the girl with him” look like? “She had taken off her hat and put it on the table.” That’s the only reference to a physical description in the story, and yet we see the couple and know them by their tones of voice, with not one adverb in sight.

9. Don’t go into great detail describing places and things.

Unless you’re Margaret Atwood and can paint scenes with language or write landscapes in the style of Jim Harrison. But even if you’re good at it, you don’t want descriptions that bring the action, the flow of the story, to a standstill.

And finally:

10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.

A rule that came to mind in 1983. Think of what you skip reading a novel: thick paragraphs of prose you can see have too many words in them. What the writer is doing, he’s writing, perpetrating hooptedoodle, perhaps taking another shot at the weather, or has gone into the character’s head, and the reader either knows what the guy’s thinking or doesn’t care. I’ll bet you don’t skip dialogue.

My most important rule is one that sums up the 10.

If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.

Or, if proper usage gets in the way, it may have to go. I can’t allow what we learned in English composition to disrupt the sound and rhythm of the narrative. It’s my attempt to remain invisible, not distract the reader from the story with obvious writing. (Joseph Conrad said something about words getting in the way of what you want to say.)

If I write in scenes and always from the point of view of a particular character—the one whose view best brings the scene to life—I’m able to concentrate on the voices of the characters telling you who they are and how they feel about what they see and what’s going on, and I’m nowhere in sight.

What Steinbeck did in “Sweet Thursday” was title his chapters as an indication, though obscure, of what they cover. “Whom the Gods Love They Drive Nuts” is one, “Lousy Wednesday” another. The third chapter is titled “Hooptedoodle 1” and the 38th chapter “Hooptedoodle 2” as warnings to the reader, as if Steinbeck is saying: “Here’s where you’ll see me taking flights of fancy with my writing, and it won’t get in the way of the story. Skip them if you want.”

“Sweet Thursday” came out in 1954, when I was just beginning to be published, and I’ve never forgotten that prologue.

Did I read the hooptedoodle chapters? Every word.

Here's an example of the kinds of insights I'm getting from the Reconstruction course I'm taking.  This is an illustration taken from a contemporary (1868) book about the fall of Charleston:

The accompanying description is even grimmer:

Taken from “Leaving Charleston on the City Being Bombarded,” image from J.T. Trowbridge, A Picture of the Desolated States, 1865-1868 (Hartford, Conn.: L. Stebbins, 1868).

Look at the tone of the accompanying text: "crushed fragments," "monotonous gloom," "a roost for buzzards," "deserted and solitary."

These are the words of a white male, visiting a city that he sees as having been attacked by War, Famine, Pestilence, and Fire. How terribly sad it is.

But is it the truth? Maybe. But is it the whole truth? Maybe not. 

Consider this interpretation of the surrender of Charleston from the black point of view.

The original document  (Resolutions adopted by a meeting of the colored citizens of Charleston, South Carolina, March 29, 1865. Alexander Gumby Collection of Negroiana, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University)is faded and difficult to read, but here is a transcription:

"At a meeting of the colored citizens of Charleston, So.Ca. held at Zion’s Presbyterian church March 29th 1865 the following preamble and resolutions was unanimously adopted.

Whereas it is fitting that an expression should be given to the sentiments of deep seated grattitude that pervade our breasts, be it.

Resolved 1st That by the timely arrival of the army of the U.S. of A. in the city of Charleston on the 18th Feb. 1865, Our city was saved from a vast conflagration, Our homes from Devastation, and our persons from those indignities, that they would have been subjected to.

Resolved 2d that our thanks are due and are hereby freely tendered to the District Commander Brig. Gen. Hatch, and through him, to the Officers and Soldiers under his command, for the protection that they have so readily and so impartialy, bestowed since their occupation of this city.

Resolved 3d That to Admiral Dahlgreen U.S.N. we do hereby return our most sincere thanks, for the noble manner in which he cared for and administered to the wants our people at Georgetown, So.Ca. and be he assured that the same shall ever be held in grateful remembrance by us.

Resolved 4th That to His Excellency (the President of the U.S. of A. Abraham Lincoln) we return our most sincere thanks and never dying gratitude, for the noble and patriotic manner in which he promulgated the doctrines of Republicanism, and for his consistency in not only promising but invariably conforming his actions thereto and we shall ever be pleased to acknowledge and hail him as the champion of the rights of freemen.

Resolved 5th That a copy of these resolutions be transmitted to Brig. Gen. Hatch, Admiral Dahlgreen, His excellency the President of the U.S. of A. an that they be published in the Charleston courier.

Lesson Learned: Truth is in the eye of the beholder.

For many people. the word "retirement" conjures up daydreams about beaches, hammocks, lemonade, afternoon naps, or world travel. For me, retirement meant that I finally had time to work on things I wanted to do rather than the things somebody else expected me to do.When I looked back over my working career, I realized that no matter what job I was doing , I grew bored and tired of it after a few years.

I went to college to become a Latin teacher, and jobs were easy to find. After all, how many people do you know that want to teach Latin? But after ten years in high school classrooms, I was burned out. Lesson plans, faculty meetings, lunchroom and bus duty, extra-curricular activity supervision, and endless grading took almost all my waking hours.  There were many days when I worked at the school for 14 hours straight. I really wanted my life back.  At the end of that period, our school system was embroiled in a nasty teacher strike.  I remember thinking that there was a great novel lurking in the details, but I was too tired to write it.

I escaped by becoming a stay-at-home Mom, particularly after my Air Force husband was stationed in Canada, and the NATO agreement under which our family entered that country said that I could not take a job that a Canadian could do. I became a domestic goddess instead.  I picked wild berries and made jam and pie fillings for winter, bought a sewing machine and learned to make my own clothes and children's stuffed animals.  Our yard sported an extensive vegetable garden, and I learned the fine art of making things like sauerkraut from my very own cabbage.  I took lessons in pattern drafting, gourmet cooking, and cake decorating. The end to that phase came when the seven-year-old dropped my newly decorated Halloween cake face down into the shag rug. (yes, shudder, we had shag carpets back then!). I discovered I really missed books, and I toyed with the idea of writing one, but the idea sounded silly.

What was next? After five years of unemployment, my teaching licenses had all expired, which meant I had to go back to school to update my credentials. Going back to graduate school was exhilarating. Yes, I was older than my classmates, but I was also more experienced, and my own years in front of a class served me well in this new role. I loved the books, the ideas, the research -- so I stayed as long as I could. Instead of picking up a few credits, I did a Master's Degree in History, and then went on to pursue a Doctorate. Another ten years went by, and I was tired of sitting in the back of a classroom.  I was ready to teach again.

This time I was a tenured professor in a fine and fancy liberal arts college.  And teaching was fun again.  The years of bus and lunchroom duty were far behind me, and people were actually encouraging me to write books -- but they wanted their kind of books -- academic tomes for my fellow professors. I did it because the stories about "publish or perish" are true. But it wasn't as much fun as I had imagined. And after fifteen years on that faculty -- as I stared down the throat of the monster who reminded me I was now 65 years old -- I knew I had to get out of our limestone tower and write the book I wanted to write.

That was ten years ago.  In that period, I have written not one book, but six of them. And for the first time, I'm not burned out. I love what I do now, and within days of finishing one book, I discover another percolating beneath the surface. My mother had a treasure trove of old Pennsylvania Dutch "wise sayings," and one of them said: "We get too soon old, and too late smart." True enough, in my case, I suppose, except for the "too late" part. It's never too late!