Reflections & Ruminations

So I'm reading the novel Boy's Life by Robert McCammon, on recommendation from JJ. It's a coming of age story about a 12 year old boy in rural Alabama in the early 60's. I like McCammon's writing style. I read another of his books back when I first got out of college named Swan's Song. His writing voice is very akin to Stephen King, and his characters are very aware of themselves.

In 'Boy's Life,' the main character is Cory Mackenson, a young writer with a very active imagination recalling his youth spent in his hometown. That journey from childhood to adulthood can be, and often is, a magical one. Seeing the world through Cory's eyes - eyes focused through the filter of adolescence - is quite invigorating. Cory's story is very close to my memories of growing up in small town Louisiana. Of course, I am a child of the 80's, so the politics were not the same, but the people on the street sure had similar voices. It is a story of riding the fastest bikes ever built, of flying over treetops with the wings of the minds eye, of summers spent in pursuit of hidden treasure, of 12 hour days that passed by in the blink of an eye. I remember those days fondly. And even if my memories are skewed by the the passing of time and my mental editing-bay, they are still the ones I choose to have. Right now, today. In another 20 years, who knows? But for now, this is enough.

In the story, Cory has a teacher named Mrs. Neville who encouraged him to start writing. I, too, had a Mrs. Neville. Mrs. Riggs. She was my sophomore English teacher. She was in her late 60's and overflowed with a passion for writing that was downright contagious. She wasn't the first teacher to notice my skills, but she was the first to show me what I could do with them. She urged me keep a journal, to write editorials, to always keep working at it. She never let me give up.

Over the Christmas holidays that year, the doctors found that the breast cancer that had been in remission for several years had returned. Many people would have tried to hide it from their students (and themselves) or loose themselves in depression and self-pity. But Mrs. Riggs took another approach. She brought it right out into the open. She made us write about how we felt about life and death. About how short life could be and how precocious every little moment is. She made us open our eyes to our own mortality, and allowed us to see the people we would someday be. She passed away in the summer of 1990. She was not the first person outside my family to die, nor was she the last, but she is the one who made me think what it meant to me. I will always credit her with planting the seed of writing for a living within me.


Wow. Sorry. Didn't mean to get so deep this morning. Just a lot of old memories surfacing from reading this novel. Which is exactly why I love to read novels like this. I love to be transported not only to another time and place in someone else's life, but also within my own. I find that to be a trait of a truly great writer.

Haven't heard form AJ yet, but I'm in no rush for an editor just yet. I still need to pick a show to write the spec script for. It can be for either a half hour or a hour-long show, however it must a show that is currently on the air. Any ideas?

Well, that's it for me right now. Work is calling, and it's one I have to take. Today should be good, as long as I get a couple of projects out the door.

Oh, and the new Steven King novel, The Cell, should be arriving this afternoon.

Anyway, thanks for stopping by.

-Later