I've no doubt my books could be better, too - but not made so by me.
I see so many books that could be better with greater dedication from the author. He taught me many things, most of them minor aspects of the craft of writing, save one: He showed me how to rewrite, a skill - Or is it a disposition? - that too often today is attenuated or lacking altogether. Without him, I doubt my writing would ever have found a publisher. Heat-Moon: Jack LaZebnik was my beloved friend. Identified as a mentor and close friend, LaZebnik apparently had considerable influence on you as a writer. There are numerous ways to make something that never before existed - whether in the arts or elsewhere - yet those makings share various aspects.Ĭullimore: You dedicated "Writing Blue Highways" to the late Jack LaZebnik, longtime professor of English at Stephens College. That's to say, it's a presentation of a process inherent in many creative endeavors.
It's the making of the book, a process having a touch of the universal. It's not the author who's important in the story. In that way, "Writing Blue Highways" is more autobiographical than its progenitor, but it, too, I trust, goes well beyond me. "Blue Highways" itself, to use your phrase, cracked the doors on my psyche, although the point of the book is not so much my heart and mind but the lives of people I met along the road. After several months, I felt it did, and now I can only hope readers will be similarly inclined. To crib from publisher's jargon, I wanted to discover whether the tale had legs. I followed the events along to learn where this second journey might lead, fully aware that it could be a dead end. Heat-Moon: The story behind the making of "Writing Blue Highways" was persistent enough for me finally to give in to it so I might see how the tale would turn out as a book.
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