A Word on Words; 4301; Tom Wood

fb taylor says

exhilarating literature and ideas for more than three decades but this is a worrisome thing the welcome once again to award own words my guest today is an old friend tom wood has always been right of having spent thirty six years is what brought a copy editor for the tennis scene where we were colleagues in fact his first novel written in journalism coven bad as though its a fictional true crime thriller the same tree as reporter and therefore serves as the backdrop for the story tom welcome welcome to word on words that they're not surprising of national so much a monster have your first novel is rooted in the in our hometown here it just made sense to write which you know and journalism is all of known for months my working career so your analysis to the story by telling

us knew you already own you're a year journey was signed by jerry and then that we are working for that teenage same with a an nice play on words there and then so and this is a story and i got ask you about where the idea for the story came from this is a story about a fellow comes home one night from a trip to charlotte a business trip his wife had been murdered and blown all the house and the police found her body later on diapers or poor and of the end of the gold was going to end cinema one justice owen lynch then that's on television and then you're a

reporter who covers it and your viral absolutely he's going to hunt down and kill the person who killed his wife no more than it is a funny story i was sitting at home one day not enjoying a day off with my wife and we're sitting just watch in jail for news and then their murder in town a restaurant now won the restaurants in town manager lost his son and he's very anxious man interviewed in that anger is just really coming through and when he finished i turned to my wife and said wow that god doesn't want justice he wants revenge and then i have an even for the story it was and that turned to her the next thing was and so what i have something like that ever happy india and i kept thinking that's a pretty good line

and i can let it go so then i got to thinking ok now something like the idea that god forbid how would i go about finding a killer and then it just to go from there so an hour later i was downstairs trying to figure out who just sticking to the basics of journalism that we've all well levine i worked in journalism together for a long time and i would only more but i love wonderful years of your many years was forced apartment i note that you list as in your acknowledgments at some of our own colleagues of those in next on when they mourn and their campbell and feckless and this hour or whatever wonderful cartoonist and who is responsible for the government but did your of them for

information about the things as dealing with the police nowhere over for dealing with the police actually went over and talked to a policeman over at the central precinct and also i did my homework to talk to a psychiatrist in town i've talked to my minister tolkien you were the first person and it again cindy about this and let me look at them first recommendation a designer called exactly right there is an answer in the book who seeks rod guidance to europe bureau who says oliver me and only get revenge there is a psychiatrist rouleau who plays a role in causing him consulting will the chief of police his name came and it plays a dominant role in the store and so it was a souls and often in that would feel were

these people did you meet eleanor love honey based on real life characters they're people i've met all through my career this can cause it's a wonderful people that the toe salem john barrow jeri thompson you made all these wonderful characters and they're all their paces of everybody great friend of mine was stan allan he was a a lawyer in town is a boxing promoter and i cover box and for a lot of years in you really got to know him well say what wealthy in different one listener then there is need you know when you set out to write this that human heroes as sites for the store savers or pork or the pub or it was for the parthenon fallen dramatic comeback be seen where will it kill and it's just do

did you know you're going in the direction that are growing not exactly i wanted to have nationalists are unsettling to have a national flavor and you know i have a dramatic ending and i visited i had an idea of three or four different locales that it could possibly happen or country music setting but the first place a loneliness was the parthenon and when i walked in there and saw famous stand there with her statue that whether spiro hand i just knew that was where was not say what was in no it didn't occur to me to ask well while he's not called murder at the parthenon and of course it's on a murder or not it relies on a thing as failure oh we're going for that idea come from don't

want them and as i saw the river the parthenon and it just occurred to me that there could be the perfect setting for him to fall through the sunroof there is no sun roof you know that's poetic license so i created that i'm undoubtedly unloosed the year was over in nevada i did so said that there was they just all were and they know our only hero is a young is it as good guy and he's lovely avoid blogger dearly love his image and doesn't second in love he's i got friends normal life and the death of his wife is disrupted everything that was right about his world is now or all and hear it and he's been arrested by the cygnus phone down you know tom the human events a different way of dealing to the response to it it was

natural i think that part of all of the reaction to the murder of would be they have different forms cover different aspects and in government clarkson whose time has been reformed and the and you got colleagues at tennessee and the city editor who threw a fine young woman in them and and you know you go through that business occasionally of delivery right calling in those or you live and i came to it and it doesn't exactly know on the telephone call ins a good new rewrite and then dictate the story it's a paragraph of thought period comma seemed an odd and it brought back memories and made it work on all foreign journalists who've gone through that that experience but you got a great journalism

into it and such an effective way that it becomes really sort of part of the store is not just a murder story it's a murder story which the journalism all are really as active in trying to solve it as dick would feel the policeman is was it you came years exactly correct among the first draft that you saw back in the beginning of all of this and nine and two thousand and i told it just is a straight story and abroad to you and you have a lot of very helpful suggestions it wind to know more about the characters you wanted more depth to them and a ticket to a local publisher and she lifted fifty pages and she said i really like the story is you did but it needs some more she says she suggested try

writing from either the journalists the forty point of view were jackson sounds viewpoint jackson stone being silver bands have acted out i thought it would be too easy to write from the journalist pointed to you so i spent about a month trying to get jackson's voice and i never could quite get it like i wanted just didn't ring true we were still introducing ourselves to each other and so far less than i listen i've let me try writing from the journalist and also you fell but on jury duty and in joe and i started and it just click on images there was just going perfectly you know there's so many people who are all writers who have stores they want tailor out their many of them right now only of sunscreen listening to you and i think it's an inspiration to him to know that it

one device doesn't work and it doesn't click and quicken your kid in your heart and then try and on the end and this case you worked on in store it and work with the jacksons own tell his own story and it does work with very good in telling the story of including jackson and dr moore wulf does well i mean you know if you read that story the reader knows who really has a lot of will adopt a single town for jackson song love and so he's got a brother who has a wife and competence jonas and what are named brianna briana mullen then though and they enlisted state to the narrative and knowing they give him a home life

and roots and well then let's talk about the whitfield he plays a crucial role that seems to maybe they're ready come from your window probably would be you know a couple of them we used to play cards with one he walked in one night and he's still in uniform and put his gun on the table and said let's play poker so that this meeting characters that i never covered place i'm never covered a lot of crimes and less involved athletes and then resigning as to you know i have covered crime you never have covered general's son to accept an office with this right and still this story and take it from someone who has been both a working journalist on the news

and who has covered those press conferences politicians and police and it's just right on the money and you've captured the spirit and in detail exactly how it happened how it out yay remember i just did my homework is all i can say and i'll follow follow the news i watch tv and now and i'm aaron and for a lot of years earlier that being the police commission on his actual police department has new a couple of officers with the police athletic league three covering boxing career and got to know them and i'm so and so but you know everybody was very helpful to be a saver those of you just joining me on top with tom were about his debut novel than that of stone worries that title come from vendetta stone that's not a pretty funny story so i am was probably the last thing i wrote ahead a couple working titles i met

mickey spillane one time so i had a vengeance is mine type of headline working headline one day my wife comes in and says they need to get a title and to think about ok a wide jackson stones name in the title somewhere and i'm trying to think of revenge trying to think of vengeance different different synonyms and just as the word vendetta popped in my mind i had the tv on in the background what comes along with it commercial for rosetta stone up just been almost exact second i said vendetta us down pops a commercial so it felt it just felt right well it partly due to another huge bridge and it will only be of course in the course of writing don't know how you would put aside the time didn't the toughest thing for a first time novelist

fannie and the chipper you and good on paper i was just pretty driven to do this i was still working at the tennis in that time every day i would go downstairs and write from my ten in the morning till about two in the afternoon and then go to work on my days off i would spend a full eight hour day just downstairs right inundated damon how long was the process probably about a year to that first draft that you sell and then i take it to a killer nashville that's a local conference for mystery thriller and suspense writers and presented it to the editors and the publishers and literary agents there and outlawed and then fade backed at like you said this is a good story but it needs more so they would offer suggestions i would send them pages

and they would return home and say well this is good but let's say you tried this i would incorporate their suggestions on most a member of several critic groups in town i am got a lot of feedback on the old fugitive votes had this policy of leading and critiquing each other's work sounds to me like that model so work for you with sony's computer if you're interacting with their adult it was all very helpful and then they out last session until in nashville and i guess i'm just really great advice is that if you didn't go some townspeople who in laws can be very cruel their words staying calm in it your work and you know there are also the new life into a new book the hours into it and it is saying could take his father and yet what you're not really looking for

bone every every every bit of that tape is constructive criticism just along and not really not as bad as i thought it would be a comma expect the worst hope for the best type of scenario so it's always went in with that idea that okay it's gonna get rejected her as going get blasted and i never really did all at all ever say was positive feedback and some suggestions i worked some of them didn't i am like la back and forth on the last visited tiller national and that with a literary agency said this is going and we need some more or find an editor in your area you can work with and then made some changes in and send it back to me well i have to take a business approach suicide left the tests and by that time i

met with three local language is all very good all very different now finally found one cathy roads and new wisdom was just right for my project she you know grief is a large part of that she had experience grief in her life i never have to the degree that she has it just shoot when we just worked very well together now so plays at the end of it all that i did not send it back to the lyrics you know it can lead you ever come to terms of head writer sit in a chair and tell me yes it happened to them and may not ever have you where yes i'm gonna work today on the spin two for five hours on this book and it's a noun and it just won't come not a word will come and call writers and a lot of people have and that didn't affect your number there were a couple of times when i was still at the tennis center when we were at the recent and some very busy times i just what had to step away

for a few minutes or a few days maybe a mine and that didn't seem to help and just pick him back up with fresh set of eyes and then a whole week or months a console is turnover you on a new word about is a gonna come was sit back down but inevitably it does oh god i knew i had a great story so that made it easy and then i've been on both a sports writer and a copy editor on when i was writing i had writing cap on when i was an editor i had in editing cap and i was a pretty tough editor myself so i would really get after myself i would say why is this work and wise is not working what you need to do what you need to change to basically runs a writer to basically are you at when where why how the approach to it if you know if a jackson stone says the us what are the consequences of how does this person may act

out as a preacher react how those friends react why did this happen and so it is a lot of my journalism training to to write the book and it really is a written out there going to be people who read his boat a little light up oh no i have to bargain on our homes and on and there literally nothing on an eleven that's beer and that a lot of the scenes and then they go that they see and they'll all wore white up there i'm so this part of my career since our sense of less bitterness and i've been doing some acting that no national several times now know what they see fleeting glimpses of you if you blink you go miss me so so they're so i've taken her approach and i still do freelance journalism discovered a state high school swimming it for the next no paper

i had taken on an approach that whaler and i'm a journalist i'm an author and i'm an actor and my goals are to inform inspire and entertain and if i can do all three of those at the same time we really know they know it will have a great appeal four of people in nashville who own or don't recognize places the landmarks in the mau mau what about the pope is is that the real quote it is not it's so there's several of my favorite places of interest house two or three others over in east nashville in midtown cafe brio tears over basic ideas cap and melted and i'm just i created a place that your son some places are familiar the reason i mention the ryman i mentioned that and roberts and down broadway

to it sees him but but for a lot of the different time more grazing places as it was serial killer showing up in midtown cafe know as i was in the bar would say when they found out you know if you feel more warmth on this spirulina a couple of their people again and in right now saw that gap i am and i was a yellow the leicester do so i've just finished third in this first draft of the screenplay based on the book everybody i talked to they said while there should be a movie a member of the tennessee screenwriting association ride in first grain is this different from rihanna book why is there as writing a book is different from rye new cardinals players differences well islam is more visual and taking

a cue from those i tried to write with a visual for costly mortgage on it absolutely does and i you don't meet dale moore wolf till about page sixty in the book on you know he's introduced in the first two pages you have to grab them and tell people who work when where and why in those first five pages of a screenplay not necessarily how but a year to make or so jackson's stone without you have to show a sympathy for him you have to show curse at the whole stage for the for the moby so so is elle was a well and you know working on a screenplay viewers target wealthier people and it's very very early and all of that price us my guest is the general idea about somebody in the indian film world would go on route

to the bomb a letter that spirit like you have any suggestions vision no more walls them they use of all that spiro more than anything i wanted to have a realistic feel to it and i think i accomplished that you know you get a real sense of the girls a heartfelt way not so when you when he died less torture on sunday on the screenplay is that obvious sequel live there as a number of about seven chapters in bed and i've got probably five books on our item about jackson star in his friends and his enemies as long as i can i'm working on a couple of the short story ideas i just had a western non excepted to have public new publication that salary but now and it's gonna be out in april as part of an anthology of me

westerns well as terrific guy ended know you're into writing stories by western wilmore more methane wells was one thing right where you were the three month or you know we had him on this program and more than once and you have great writer and then that we know more about the west because we had a wonderful absolutely wonderful writer and an inspiration what we've done tom thank you so much for a common thought about them and us so it's a it's for me it's a thrill to read the product of a sick a little friend or colleague and i congratulate your underwear thank you very much scott thanks all of you for watching and johnson and going forward on words keep reading it's b

fb