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Elmore Leonard and leaving the boring stuff out

Elmore Leonard died. So I pulled one of his books off the shelf. Turned to a random page. This is “Riding the Rap,” page 94:

Reverend Dawn was saying, “You met this other woman.”

“That’s right, in Miami Beach.”

“You and she are close,” Reverend Dawn said. “I’ll go so far as to say intimate.”

Raylan wasn’t sure that was still true.

“You shared a frightening experience. …”

She waited, but Raylan didn’t help her.

“That part isn’t too clear, but there’s someone else, a man. He stands in the way of you and this woman planning a life together.”

Raylan said, “That’s pretty good.”

“He’s an older man.”

Raylan waited.

“But not her father.”

“You don’t see him, huh?”

“Not too clearly.”

“I’m surprised,” Raylan said. “He was here just the other day, Friday afternoon.”

*****

The first thing about Elmore Leonard is, nobody wrote dialog better. His novels are full of people flirting, threatening, feeling each other out with words. This is real life. We spend more time talking than doing. Or the talking leads up to the doing. In Elmore Leonard books, every conversation has a point. But it doesn’t sound like characters talking. It sounds like people.

The second thing about Elmore Leonard is, everybody in his books has a certain charm. You get to know the bad guys, and sometimes you get to like them, right up until the moment they kill somebody else you liked better. The heroes are not always heroic. Some of them smoke weed and screw around and dance just this side of the law. But they always want a better life, and chasing after it puts them in the path of the bad guys.

The third thing about Elmore Leonard is, he would have been done with all this description long before now. “If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it,” he said. That is a hell of a lot harder than it sounds.

*****

Page 200:

Louis looked up. Three hundred yards away a foursome was teeing off. Time to leave. He said to the blindfolded man, “You coming with us. Hear? So don’t give us no trouble. Stand up.”

Bobby put his piece in the man’s face and cocked it. He said, “You give me any more shit, you dead.”

They brought him through the trees to the car, taped his hands behind him quick, put him in the trunk and got out of there.

Up to Royal Poinciana and across the bridge to West Palm.

Louis said, “We should’ve wore the ski masks.”

Bobby said it again, “Fuck the ski mask.” Like saying he didn’t care the man had seen them.

Louis had to ask himself what he thought about that. What it meant.

*****

No other author had more good movies made out of his books. “Out of Sight,” “Get Shorty,” “3:10 to Yuma,” “Jackie Brown,” “Mr. Majestyk,” “52 Pick-Up.” That doesn’t even include “Justified,” which to my mind is the best show on television. It’s based on a short story and two books featuring U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens. (That’s the Raylan quoted up above.) The writers on “Justified” all have bracelets that say WWED. What Would Elmore Do?

What Elmore did, when “Justified” became a hit, was write another Raylan Givens novel. He was no dummy.

He wrote 45 books, dozens of short stories, plus screenplays and essays and magazine articles and book reviews. Millions of words. And you might read them for days before you find a flowery descriptive passage, a wandering adverb or a boring character. That’s not just skill. That’s the daily willpower, over 60-some years of professional writing, to rewrite and cut and rewrite and cut until the only parts left are the parts readers want to read.You can know all the writing tricks. But to make the tricks come alive takes more work than most writers are willing to do. Elmore Leonard always did the work.

*****

Page 326:

“You’re not gonna testify against me?”

Sounding like she wanted to be sure about it.

Raylan shook his head. “Why put you in prison? This place is bad enough.”

“Then why can’t we go to bed?”

He said, “I’m getting out of here before I do something foolish.”

She said, “What’s wrong with being foolish sometimes?”

It was a good question.

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Let go.

You might have seen my tweet the other day:

https://twitter.com/tommytomlinson/status/367016039860551680

I don’t have a whole lot more to say about it right now, except for two things: one, it was unexpected, and two, I enjoyed every single day I worked at Sports on Earth  except for the last one. I wish the folks still there nothing but the best.

I’m not sure what’s next. I’ve heard from some people about some interesting possibilities, and I’m going to take a little time to sort things out. Plus, I have two very important fantasy football drafts coming up.

In the meantime, I’ll be posting here more often. I’m on Twitter pretty much every day, and my tweets cross-post to my Facebook account. Today I started a Tumblr about concerts I’ve been to over the years. And some other stories are coming out in various places soon — I’ll link to them when they do.

Everything’s fine. Thanks for all the kind words so far. See you on the next page.

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Jason Isbell and lessons for a fat man

Jason Isbell is in town tonight. I’ve been listening to his new record, “Southeastern,” for a few weeks now. Every song is touched with power and grace. He’s from Alabama, I’m from Georgia, and the people he knows and grew up with are like the people I know and grew up with. It’s like the first time I read Larry Brown and thought, that guy understands my people. But with Isbell it’s more personal. A couple of lines from one of his songs have stuck in me like an implant. He has put words to the greatest struggle in my life.

The song is called “Live Oak” and these are the lines:

There’s a man who walks beside me, he is who I used to be

And I wonder if she sees him and confuses him with me

The character in the song has led a wicked life and is trying to start over. Isbell himself spent a lot of years drinking too much and is now trying to live sober. Here’s what he told NPR about the meaning of those words:

That started as a worry that I had when I cleaned my life up, decided to be a grownup, you know? I worried about what parts of me would go, along with the bad parts. Because it’s not cut and dried. It’s not like you made the right decision and everything’s great and you’re a better person for it. … there are some things that are lost forever and that’s just the fact of it.

I have thought far too much about this notion over the years, for a different reason.

I’m a fat guy. You can say obese or overweight or heavy or one of those other words if you want. Fat pretty much covers it. I have never been anything else. I’ve gone to bed a thousand times — ten thousand times — believing I would start getting in shape the next morning. Sometimes I hang in there for a while. I’ve always backslid. There are a lot of reasons. Here’s the one that makes me sound a little crazy.

I worry that when I lose all this weight, I’ll also lose some essential part of myself. I worry about the good parts going with the bad parts.

This is terrible logic on a bunch of different levels. I’m fully aware of that. But when you’ve been one way all your life, there’s no way of knowing how it’ll turn out when you make a big and permanent change. I love my life, except for being fat. I don’t want to screw up the things I love in the process of getting rid of what I hate.

It means something to me to hear somebody confront this same thing, and deal with it, and live a better life on the other side.

I learned a long time ago not to make role models out of musicians (or athletes or famous actors). I don’t know Jason Isbell except from his music, and some interviews, and his Twitter feed, where I found out we share a love for the Braves. But I do draw inspiration from somebody who pushed his way through the door I’m headed for.

A few weeks ago I mapped out a walking route through our neighborhood. There’s a hill a couple blocks away that I’ve avoided ever since we moved here. It’s not much of a hill for somebody in shape — I saw a woman running up it the other day, pushing a baby stroller. But it’s a haul for me. The first day, I had to stop about a third of the way up. The next day I got a little farther. And the next, farther still.

I don’t always go up the hill. But I started a Seinfeld chain for walking. I’m up to 25 days.

Those of us who have one addiction or another, or just people who have a little something about themselves they want to change — there’s no way of knowing what that new person will be like. Some people might like the old one better. That’s life. One thing I know is this: Jason Isbell made himself a new man and then made one of the best records I’ve ever put in my ears. That gives me hope.

 

 

 

 

 

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Life advice from Kanye West

The New York Times had a Q-and-A with Kanye West a couple days ago. For most of it, he’s his normal Kanye-lovin’ self — “I am the nucleus” and that sort of thing. But in the middle, he said something really profound.

He was answering a question about his record “808s and Heartbreak,” where he sang most of the lyrics instead of rapping. Kanye is not a great singer, and along the way to admitting that he said this:

I love the fact that I’m bad at [things], you know what I’m saying? I’m forever the 35-year-old 5-year-old. I’m forever the 5-year-old of something.

That quote gets at two things that are crucial to creative work — or really, life in general:

1) You have to be bad at something before you get good at it.

You don’t get to be 35 until you’ve made all the mistakes you make when you’re 5. When I get asked about the secret to writing a great story, I always say: You have to write a lot of crappy stories first. Creative failure is the only way to grow.

2) Always keep trying new things.

Life should be wide as well as deep. Yes, you should have taken piano lessons when you were 8, and you’ll never be as good now. But being a bad piano player is better than not being a piano player. And (see point #1) being a bad piano player is the only way you’ll ever get to be a good piano player.

“I’m forever the 5-year-old of something” — that’s not a bad description of a good life.

 

 

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Messin’ with “Messin’ With Sasquatch”

In case you missed it:

Some thoughts on Tony Stewart, still blowing smoke.

My piece on the wizardry of Tim Duncan. (Here’s my friend Joe Posnanski on the same subject.)

Everything you need to know about storytelling in 5 minutes.

*****

I’m always surprised when companies spend millions of dollars on TV commercials to project one clear message: People who use our product are idiots.

The Jack Link’s Beef Jerky commercials with Sasquatch are the pinnacle of the form. There’s a new one out:

So these three friends are walking down a quiet country road, just having left the store back there along the curve. I assume this is the beef jerky farm store. You have to drive out there to get the jerky when it’s nice and fresh.

They run across this legendary monster sleeping under a tree. So they put makeup on him and paint his nails. Never mind that he’ll never know he’s wearing makeup because SASQUATCHES DON’T HAVE MIRRORS. He wakes up and sees the nails, and that makes him furious enough to chase after the three jerky-eating pranksters. They make it to their car … but he just flips it over and it barrel-rolls down the hill.

Sasquatch is undefeated in these beef jerky encounters. The folks eating the jerky always play some prank on him, and in turn he kicks them into a tree or throws a python into their camper or just beats them half to death. There are only two conclusions you can draw from these commercials:

1. People who eat Jack Link’s Beef Jerky are stupid beyond belief; or

2. Eating Jack Link’s Beef Jerky MAKES you stupid beyond belief.

Well, I guess there’s a third possibility:

3. Jack Link’s Beef Jerky contains a powerful hallucinogen that makes you see Sasquatch.

In which case, “Trippin’ With Jack Link” is a MUCH better slogan.

 

 

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Story shapes (and exercise tips?) from Kurt Vonnegut

My Twitter friend Baxter Holmes sent me this Kurt Vonnegut video the other day. He said my post on everything you need to know about storytelling in 5 minutes reminded him of this. Kurt pulls it off in 4:37.

Probably because of this, I had a dream a couple of nights ago that Vonnegut was showing me around a college campus. I kept hoping he’d dispense writing tips. But all he talked about was exercise. More walking, he said. Some light jogging is good, too.

I’m trying, Kurt.