GVP's Way is the author's blog including book and movie reviews, thoughts on the craft of writing, perspectives on the business of publishing, and musings on life, politics, and family.
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He's a walking contradiction
Partly truth and partly fiction
Taken every wrong direction
On his lonely way back home
And there's a lot of wrong directions
On that lonely way back home.
The Pilgrim
Kris Kristofferson
Entries in Creative (64)
Road Trip
My seven year-old son will never understand. Well, maybe he will, because I’ll keep on him until he does.
We took our annual road trip to Chicago to visit family last week—even with $4.00 gas it’s cheaper to drive than fly. Along the way, we stopped in places like Asheville, North Carolina, Berea Kentucky, Bloomington and Elkhart, Indiana. Notwithstanding my son’s penchant for “kid meals” and plastic toys served up alongside smashed burgers and soggy fries at the usual fast-food havens, I resisted with a passion, choosing instead the Moose Café, the Daniel Boone Inn, the Malibu Grille, and the Cozy Corner.
It’s harder and harder to find roadside cafes, diners, and truck stops, real places owned by local owners serving authentic food, but I do my darnedest.
Gary
5 Comments
Red on Red
Jeff and Bill, I really appreciate your thoughtful comments, and I'm so glad we've found this blog as a way to reconnect. I think the history we share, growing up in Elkhart in the 60s , gives us a common perspective that is rare.
So, guys, this story, "Red on Red," set in Elkhart in that time when "gas was cheap and RVs sold for less than ten grand" is for you.
I'm fortunate enough that while I've not reached a point with my writing where my novels have been noticed, my short stories usually find a publisher and some have even received modest acclaim. In the last couple of years I've written four stories set in Elkhart in the late 60s, early 70s. "Homecoming" took third prize in SEAK's Legal Fiction Contest. "Redemption," which I hope to post soon on this blog, has just made the second cut in a prestigious competition (so I learned today). "Savage Nights," took first prize in a contest last summer. And I just recently completed "Red on Red."
We Miss You Bobby Kennedy
1968 began on a bad note. Things went from bad to worse.
The Tet Offensive kicked off the night of January 30 with over 100 simultaneous attacks against American targets throughout South Viet Nam. The offensive was intended to inspire an uprising against the Americans, who were in disarray at home. Eugene McCarthy had already launched a campaign against President Johnson on the single issue of bringing the troops home. General Westmoreland was predicting outright victory with light at the end of the tunnel, but he thought he needed another 200,000 troops in addition to the half million US troops already in country. The Tet attacks were strategically unsuccessful, mopped up in 24 hours, but the impact was more far reaching. An already skittish nation watched on the evening news as the US Embassy in Saigon came under enemy fire. A famous photo of the execution of a bound Viet Cong soldier at point blank range by the commander of the South Vietnamese police added fuel to the fire--a doubtful country sensed chaos, defeat, and wasted lives.
Miller's Deer
I am pleased to announce that my story, "Miller's Deer" was the runner up for the Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize and is under consideration for publication in the Thomas Wolfe Review. See prize judge and novelist Ashley Warlick's comments on my story here.
Reflections on 2007
This time of year it's difficult not to reflect on the months past and hopes and dreams for the upcoming year.
We've had both highs and lows this year. Overall, more highs and lows.
Here's how it shook out for us in 2007.
Children
The year got off to a rocky start with Ashley's visit. We were set to meet with her probation
Chooch Bartkowski-Shana's Run Part 3
Thunder rolled across the Piedmont. Lightening flashed and rain fell in dark, gray sheets. Chooch Bartkowski struggled out of bed and pulled on a worn pair of cut-offs. Mrs. Borden, the older woman he’d hired as a nanny, was already stirring. A light shone under her door and his Chicago Bears traveling coffee mug waited next to his aging Mr. Coffee. He filled the mug to the brim and looked in on Brick. The boy was still snoring softly despite the storm front that had passed through. Bartkowski decided to let him sleep rather than wake him to say goodbye.
Chooch Bartkowski-Shana's Run Part 2
After dropping Brick at school, Chooch Bartkowski cruised the streets on the near south side. He slowed past alleys and doorways, but saw no sign of Shana. He visited the free clinic where she’d gone for her CA meetings. No one there had seen her for two days. After checking the parking lots of local grocery stores and strip malls and failing to find her Chrysler minivan, he drove north of the city.
He stopped for breakfast at Carter’s in Morrison, before ditching Interstate 77 in favor of the back roads. He was looking for a street sign—God’s Bluebird Lane. All the roads up this way had names like that. Resurrection Way, Peace in the Valley Road, Blood of the Lamb Court. The influence of the Baptists and Evangelicals was not to be denied. He missed the turn off, drove ahead a quarter mile out of his way, and made a “Y” turn in some good old boy’s yard. Three or four big mouthed hounds bayed like he was prey on the run.
Chooch Bartkowski--Shana's Run
(The following is excerpted from my novel, Beyond Redemption. It serves as a pretty good introduction to Chooch Bartkowski's world).
Chooch Bartkowski pulled the blanket over the little boy’s shoulders. Brick Bartkowski looked up at the big man who’d married his mother and adopted him four years earlier. “I want to go to the construction site with you this weekend,” he said.
Bartkowski smiled down at his son. The first time he’d seen Brick in his mother’s yard, the kid had been playing with construction trucks. “Sure, Buddy.”
He didn’t have the heart to tell the boy that if business didn’t turn around soon, there wouldn’t be a site to go to.
Chooch Bartkowski
I've been spending a lot of time with Chooch Bartkowski lately. He's not always the most likeable person, yet he's one of my favorite fictional characters.
Let me explain.
Last spring, I attended the Green River Writers 'Novels in Progress Workshop in Louisville. I go nearly evrey year, even if it's just for the weekend. Then I make a run up to Bloomington to see old friends. I like the Workshop, because it's just far enough away from home to make you feel like you've been somewhere. On the other hand, it's close enough to drive and hang out at places like the Moose Cafe just west of Asheville and the Cracker Barrell outside of Knoxville.
Anyway, at the workshop last spring I met the editor of a small but successfuil publishing house in Cinci. I'd had a good day pitching my first novel, Pointe of Contention, to agents, so I arrived at the closing dinner fully lubed--I'd already drank most of a bottle of Sonoma Coutrer Chardonnay at the hotel where I was staying talking to a potter (yep, a potter) at the bar before catching a cab over to the restaurant where the dinner was held. Another writer introduced me to Rick when I was deep into my second bottle of Chardonnay (this bottle not nearly as noble as the first). He asked me to pitch my novel to him. I declined, saying we were both drunk, and while I wrote drunk, I refused to pitch drunk. He said I was just another sonofabitch prima donna author, to which I replied that he was just another asshole publisher. Then I pitched my novel, while he listened.
Neil Moore
It gets cold this time of year, even in North Carolina. Not the kind of cold I remember growing up in Indiana, but cold enough. It gets damp, not that it rains, because it's stopped raining here, but damp enough to make your joints hurt. It's the kind of cold and damp that wants a fire.
We burned the last of the half cord we bought a couple of years ago over the Thanksgiving holiday. It was good wood, cured and hard. It burned slow and reduced to hot coals. It warmed us on many a night.
My wife, Mary, reconnoitered and found a spot for wood up in Mooresville. Saturday morning we borrowed our neighbor Bob's pick-up and headed up. We agreed to split a truck load with Bob.