When I’m not working on a book — as is the case right now — I still have to keep my tools sharp.

READING – One way to keep my tools sharp is by reading; I read the New Yorker Magazine religiously and recently picked up James Wood’s How Fiction Works, Drew Gilpin Faust’s The Republic of Suffering, and John Updike’s The Centaur and In the Beauty of the Lilies.

WRITING – Another method is to write other things — diary entries, a log, letters, or, as I did for a number of years, book reviews. Although I don’t do it anymore, I used to write reviews for Books in Canada and the Kingston Whig-Standard Magazine. The advantage of writing reviews is that it forces you not only to analyze another writer’s work, but to articulate that analysis. Writing about writing can be very instructive.

EDITING – A third way is to edit other people’s writing: at the moment, I am reading my son’s novel in manuscript; he hopes, as all writers should, that an objective eye will help him improve his book. A long-time friend of mine, Roderick Jamer, who was for many years a staff writer with TV Guide, has asked me to take a look at his murder mystery-in-progress; and I am also participating in the evolution of a film script by another friend, Peter Blendell; the script involves a Stanley Cup victory by the Toronto Maple Leafs (some of you will suggest that this project be categorized as fantasy), and Peter hopes that I will be able to help with the scenes that deal with hockey itself. (I have a long history in the game, first as a player — my career peaked when I was 13; it’s been all down hill since then — and as a fan — the Leafs are what I have instead of religion, or more correctly, they are my religion; sitting down to watch a game is, for me, what going to church is for other people. And although I may bleed blue, at least I can say that the only violence associated with my religion is restricted to the arena.)

TEACHING – Although not all writers have the opportunity to teach, those who do know that teaching another writer’s work is an edifying experience. I taught Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises at least thirty times over my 25-year career as a high school English teacher. I know the book like the back of my hand — its strengths, its flaws — and may even have become more familiar with it than Hemingway himself, who wrote it in nine weeks. Hemingway said that studying a still life by Cezanne taught him as much about how to write as anything he read, and, similarly, I have learned as much about how to write from teaching The Sun Also Rises as I have from anything else.

BLOGS – Writing this blog also helps me keep my tools sharp, because I can write about whatever interests me, and I can do it whenever I feel the urge — every writer’s dream. Now if I could only make it pay …

Next Installment – Salvaging a Novel I Wrote in 1983

For the novel I’m writing, Black Tupelo, my two main characters, Campbell Young and Priam Harvey, pursue a miscreant named Wendell Honey through the American midwest and southern states. Although my imagination was up to the task of creating the scenes I needed, I wanted — for the sake of authenticity — to see the actual places I had my characters visit. And so it was that in the summer of 2007 I undertook a journey which followed the itinerary my characters followed, a journey that would eventually consume five weeks, take me to 20 states, and cover more than 12,000 kilometres.

FROM CHAPTER 13 OF BLACK TUPELO:

It was noon by the time Leonard picked Harvey up in front of the library. Harvey insisted the cab driver have lunch with him, and they went to Leonard’s favourite restaurant, an unassuming diner just outside the Quarter.
“This is the best sausage I’ve ever eaten,” Harvey said, midway through the meal. “And red beans and rice go really well together.”
“They was made to go together. Benny!” Leonard called out to the waiter. “More beer!”
“More beer?” Harvey said. “Don’t you have to drive this afternoon?”
“I’m takin’ it off, gonna show you ’round my town.”
Several hours later – after standing in line at the Toulouse Street wharf with a bunch of old people carrying deck chairs; after taking a two-hour cruise, featuring a calliope concert, of the lower Mississippi River aboard the steamboat Natchez; after a leisurely drive up St. Charles Avenue through the Garden District to Tulane University; after several cold Coors at the Famous Door on Bourbon Street; and after a visit to Leonard’s favourite tourist attraction, Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museum (“It’s goin’ out o’ business,” Leonard told Harvey. “I gots to see it one last time.”) – Leonard dropped Harvey at the Best Western. They shook hands and said goodbye. “Y’all got my number if ya need me,” Leonard said.
“I will. Thanks for everything.”

A follow-up conversation between Campbell Young and Priam Harvey expands the visit to the Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museum:

“What did you see there?”
“Well, let’s see, I saw a wax reproduction of Robert Wadlow, the tallest man who ever lived, and a model of the London Tower Bridge made out of two hundred and sixty-four thousand matchsticks, and the car Lee Harvey Oswald drove the day he shot Kennedy. Oh, and the world’s largest tire. Thirteen thousand pounds.”

There’s a fine line between using such details to make scenes richer and simply showing off. The writer must be careful not to overdo it: within the context of Chapter 13, these details should occupy a very small space.

Next installment: How I keep my tools sharp

Shelf Life writes, “Peter Weidhaas offers a most entertaining and historical look at the Fair, showing the importance of books through the centuries, and their importance is still strong today.”

The Winnipeg Free Press notes, “[Weidhaas] writes with insight, if with a touch of dryness, about the bazaar and the bizarre that make up the world’s largest annual meeting of minds and money.”

For the full review from the Winnipeg Free Press click here.

For more information click here.

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Don’t forget you can tune into CFMU online too!

As a result, I’ve got some promising ideas for Campbell Young #5 (including a particularly gruesome death involving a horde of flesh-eating crawfish in the Atchafalaya Swamp), and am looking forward to sitting down to some serious writing in the next few months.

It was great to be gone, but it’s great to be home. And if you happen to be in Picton tomorrow evening (Tuesday, July 31), we’ll be at Steve Purtelle’s Acoustic Grill on Main Street about 5:00 p.m., enjoying a drink with our friends. Join us if you can.

So ends our blog. Thanks for your company.

Dean Wilson, our Atchafalaya Swamp tour guide, had given us a large piece of bald cypress driftwood, which we had been carrying with us for the last week. Even after we discovered that it was infested with ants, we sprayed it with Off! and kept it with us. When it started to smell, I encased it in a plastic garbage bag and we kept it with us. However, when the unfortunate young woman assigned to our “case” removed the still sodden contents from the interior of the Jimmy, just about everything within a twenty-foot radius suddenly smelled worse than a week-dead armadillo on the side of a Texas highway. “What is this?” she asked me, and I said, “It’s a piece of bald cypress driftwood from the Atchfalaya Swamp south of Lafayette, Louisiana.” “Well,” she said, “you can’t take it with you.”

An hour later, back in Canada, the Jimmy smelled much better, and by the time we reached the home of our friends, Jane and Whitey Hamill, in London, Ontario, we were much relieved that the driftwood had been disposed of. And we were so happy to have home-cooked food again that we consumed an alarming amount of Whitey’s expertly barbequed steak and Jane’s pasta salad and garlic cheese bread, and the next morning an equally alarming amount of bacon and eggs and toast and jam. Not only was it good to eat home cooking again, but it was good to be with friends again. Complete strangers had been very good to us during our travels, but now we were home.

And this afternoon we took another tour, this time of the Buffalo Trace Distillery, where some of the finest whiskeys in the world are produced. The aroma, as you walk past the old brick storage buildings (six floors of bourbon ageing in thousands of white oak barrels) is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever smelled — more beautiful even than steak, or roses, or babies.

Faulkner and his wife, Estelle, had adjoining bedrooms; hers still contains the air conditioner she had installed the day after his funeral in 1962. His hatred of air conditioning was well known within the family. When I mentioned this to the young man who admitted us to the house, a history major at Ole Miss, he related the following story: “Apparently, one of the grandkids said to Estelle, ‘Wouldn’t Pappy be angry with you for putting in an air conditioner?’ to which she replied, ‘I am sure he would want me to mourn in comfort.’”

At one point during our visit, Karen asked if she could buy a potholder Mary Ann was working on. “This is the foist potholder I ever made, and you wants to buy it!” Mary Ann said. She got to her feet, embraced Karen, then me, then signed the potholder, as did Ritamae and Mary Lee. This is one potholder that will never hold a pot, but will occupy a place of pride on our kitchen wall.