OFF THE PAGE WITH RAYMOND ATKINS

There is a famous quote that most writers know by heart that deals with the subject of writing. Sometimes it is attributed to Dorothy Parker, and sometimes to Frank Norris, and it is quite often credited to George R.R. Martin as well, but I don’t know about that. To paraphrase this sentiment, I hate to write, but I love having written. The reason that most writers are familiar with this perspective is because, in my experience, most writers feel this way, including me. Writing is hard work, but having written is very satisfying.

That is why I am here at the keyboard at 4:30 a.m. on a Tuesday, whipping this sucker out. Mandy wants to see it in her inbox when she gets to work at eight, and she’s not kidding around this time. Trust me on this; you don’t want to get on her bad side. She’ll come to your house. Anyway, I’ve known about the column for a month or so, but there is nothing like a looming deadline combined with the fear of an editor to get the creative juices flowing.

This is my first column for Well Read, and hopefully it won’t be my last. I’ll let you know at about 8:30 how that goes. Since only six or at best eight of you are familiar with me or with my work, I will begin my tenure at Well Read by introducing myself as I share some truths I have learned on my journey. That way you won’t get the idea that Mandy just found a random guy down at the bus station to take care of this month’s business in exchange for a meal after River, Well Read’s utterly delightful previous columnist, decided to go to the beach to work on her tan.

My name is Raymond L. Atkins, aka Ray Atkins, aka Raymond Atkins, aka Young Faulkner. Okay, I made that last one up, although I do tend towards long sentences. I was once compared to Mark Twain, however. No, really. As I recall, the review said, “that boy ain’t no Mark Twain.” It was a high point in my career, and you can take that to the bank, but I have digressed.

I live in North Georgia on the banks of the Etowah River with a patient wife and a Republican cat. We live in a 130-year-old house that regularly has chunks just sort of fall off, so now you know what I do in my spare time. I have six published books to my credit with two more on the way if I can just finish them. In my defense, no one has yet assigned deadlines on those two, and these adorable cat pictures on Facebook are not going to look at themselves in the meantime. Of the published ones, in my humble opinion of course, four are good, one borders on great, and that other one, well, we all have bad days from time to time

No, I won’t tell you which is which. If you’re curious, you’ll just have to track them down and read them, and now you see my strategy. Finding the older titles has become a bit like mining bitcoin, by the way. No, copies of them are not worth $20,000, at least not yet, but you do have to do some looking. Sometimes algorithms help.

My first novel, The Front Porch Prophet, was published in 2008 when I was 53, so you could say that I came to writing as a profession late. I was very proud of that book both because it was my first and because it was awarded the Georgia Author of the Year Award for First Novel, which I admit may not be a big deal up in New York City, but around here it is worth a mention. The main thing I learned during the experience of getting that one into readers’ hands was that it is a lot easier to write a book than it is to sell it, at least for a first-time author. People often ask me why I went with Medallion Press in Chicago, and my mostly serious reply is that I had worked my way up to the M’s in Writer’s Market before someone said yes.

Prior to that release I was an industrial maintenance superintendent in a lumber mill for many years, which was every bit as much fun as it sounds and is the reason I no longer hear very well, but I was good at it and had four children to feed, and in this old world you do what you have to.

During that career I satisfied my writerly aspirations by writing articles for maintenance magazines about how to keep factory machines running, which was ironic in the extreme, because I’ve never actually read any form of instruction in my life, much to the chagrin of the above-mentioned patient wife. Before that I was many things including a contractor, a mechanic, a truck driver, a bar band musician, and the manager of a car rental company. Now I am a semi-retired English professor who writes books on the side. I mention these things because if you are a writer who believes you have waited too long to write that novel or memoir, well, that’s just not true. As they say, come on in, the water’s fine. You may not get it published, but you certainly won’t if you don’t write it.

As my good friend the late Terry Kay once observed to me during the worst book signing either of us had ever experienced, three hundred words a day equals one novel per year.

Whoops. I have digressed again. I do that from time to time, so you had better get used to it. A friend of mine once told me that I write in the Southern Digressional genre, and I really can’t argue the point. Sometimes the words just wander around the page, and I have found that it’s just best to let them do what they want to, like children or errant pets, so they don’t get too fussy.

My second novel, Sorrow Wood, was published in 2009. The great lesson I learned from that experience was that if an author and a publisher have a difference of opinion, the publisher wins, or at least that was true in my case. This disagreement had to do with the cover, which featured a dramatic, gothic-style barn of all things. I hated it then, and I still hate it, not because it was done poorly, even though it did look like somebody’s brother-in-law or perhaps unemployed grown child might have produced it, if you get my meaning, but because it didn’t really have anything to do with the book that came after.

Ray: Can we talk about the cover concept?

Publisher: We love that cover! It’s already at the printer!

Ray: You realize there is not a single building in the entire story that looks like that, right?

Publisher: We want to talk to you about that…

If you’re curious about the outcome of that discussion, you will find that damn barn somewhere around page 178, moldering there like some Poe-esque nightmare. However, if you read on a bit, to page 180 or so, you might notice that it burns down. Hey, it wasn’t me. One of the characters did it.

My third novel, Camp Redemption, came out in 2013, and this one taught me the most about the ins-and-outs of the publishing industry. I originally sold the manuscript to Medallion, but after that sale and before publication their business model changed, and they proposed to bring it out as an e-book only. I have nothing against e-books; all my titles are on Kindle, and the last time I looked they were on Nook as well, and as far as that goes, I make more money with an e-book sale than I do with a printed version. But when I go to the trouble of writing a book, I want to be able to hold it in my hand, and smell the paper, and put it on a shelf, and sign it before giving it to a reader. I’m old school in that regard, which is okay I suppose, since I’m, well, old.

Luckily my paperwork was in order, and they reverted the rights back to me and allowed me to keep the advance as well. I found a new publisher, Mercer University Press, and the book when published was awarded the Ferrol Sams Award for Fiction and the Georgia Author of the Year Award for Fiction.

My fourth novel, Sweetwater Blues, taught me everything I ever wanted to know about patience and then some. It was released in 2014 and was supposed to be my breakout novel. I knew this because I had read an article which stated that statistically, more fourth books break out than any other. So when it was released, I put on my best authorly garb, bought a pipe with a curved stem, and waited patiently to break out. Unfortunately for me, not too many of you guys had read that article, and I didn’t break out, but I don’t blame any of you for not knowing about that fourth-book business, and I guess you can’t always believe what you read anyway.

My fifth book, South of the Etowah, was released in 2016. This release taught me that I could write something besides a novel. It was a collection of essays about living in Northwest Georgia, just south of the Etowah in fact, and I enjoyed the experience of writing it so much that I will probably do it again one of these days. One of the stories, “Nativity Scenes,” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

My sixth book was Set List. It was released in 2018. On many days it is my favorite of the books I have written thus far, and what I took away from the creation of it was flexibility and to always follow my instincts. The book began as a memoir of my time as a bar band musician, but even as I was writing it, the story was telling me that it needed the freedom to be a novel, and thus it became one. It was also my first foray into songwriting, and it contains 13 original songs I wrote, the lyrics anyway, so I came away from the experience feeling like the Bernie Taupin of the Georgia hills. It was during this time that I was Awarded the Georgia Writers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, an honor that humbled me, especially considering all of the amazing literary talent here in Georgia.

As a sort of preview of coming attractions I will briefly mention my two works-in-progress, one of which you should see next year. It is entitled They All Rest in the Boneyard Now, and it is a collection of poetry combined with original photography about some of the most interesting tombstones I have seen while roaming graveyards looking for character names. Trust me on this; repurposed names from long gone people make the best character names. They sound authentic because they are; they have been used for an entire lifetime before being retired to the clay.

The other book I am working on is an apocalyptic story set in the Georgia mountains. I wasn’t going to write it, but apparently it is now federal law that all writers must at least make a good effort along these lines, and I am nothing if not a rule abider. Don’t worry; the apocalypse does not pertain to zombies, aliens, or itchy button fingers down in the silos. I think in fact it may be a unique take on all of this end times business, or at least as far as I am aware. Hell, it may even be my breakout novel. I read this article that said that apocalyptic novels are the hot thing. If I include the link, maybe some of you can read it too.

So now you know everything there is to know about me, and enough is enough. In the coming months we will talk about all things writerly and readerly, and hopefully we will have a good time in the process.