Nashville, My Writing, My Idols, My Favorite Food

This is an interview I did with Julia Buckley back in 2006 that I really like. I can't believe it's been ten years, but I mention having spent most of my 80 years in Nashville. It's been 90 years now and the city has changed dramatically in the past few years. I hope you enjoy it.


Hi, Chester. Thanks for chatting with me. You live in Nashville. Are you a country music fan? Whose music do you particularly like?
I cut my musical teeth on the big bands of the thirties and forties. I also loved balladeers like Perry Como and Andy Williams. So my country music tastes favor the old timers in the style of Eddy Arnold and Ray Price. My wife is a pure country fan, but I'm not too familiar with the current scene. Music City references in my books are more generic to the broad picture along Music Row. There's a lot more recorded in Nashville than country.

You got the mystery-writing bug early, and wrote a mystery while you were still in college. Did you have a sense then that you'd write more seriously one day?
Hey, I was dead serious back then. I was a fulltime journalism student during the day, worked a full shift as a reporter on a morning newspaper in the evening, then sat down at my little portable typewriter in my basement room in the fraternity house, whenever I could find time, and banged out the novel. Seriously, I always kept in the back of my head (is that where our memory chips are located?) that I would someday be a published novelist.

You've mentioned that your wife is a great supporter of your work. Does the rest of your family help to sell the books?
Not as much as I'd like--I need all the help I can get. (Just kidding, I think). They do promote the books among their friends and colleagues. Now if I could just get my daughter with two girls in Girl Scouts to sell books like she sells cookies, I'd have it made.

The New Mystery Reader has referred to your work as nothing less than "Campbellish." Are you pleased with the fact that they had to create this word to describe the essence of your books?
I'm thrilled at all the nice things reviewers have to say, like "this is one author a reader can count on," or "he continues to write fabulous mysteries," and "the plot is fast-paced, and the writing is top-notch." Hopefully all my readers will find that "Campbellish."

Tell us about Greg and Jill McKenzie.
The McKenzies have survived nearly forty years together. He's a little past 65, while she's just under that milestone. Greg came from a middle class family in St. Louis--his father was a master brewer for Anheuser-Busch. By contrast, Jill's father was a well-to-do life insurance salesman in Nashville. Both are college graduates. Greg started out as a deputy sheriff in St. Louis County, then enjoyed (more or less) a full career as an Air Force Office of Special Investigations agent (think Air Force detective). Jill studied aeronautics and operated her own charter air service during Greg's military gig. As an investigator, Greg is a no-nonsense, no-compromise, put the blame where it belongs kind of guy. The series starts after Greg is retired, and in book three he and Jill go into the PI business. She's a caring, understanding, non-judgmental person who is especially good at getting information out of women. The really fun part of writing about the couple is doing the occasional humorous digs between them.

Your Greg McKenzie novels take place in Nashville. What makes Nashville a good place to set a mystery?
Having spent most of my 80 years in Nashville, I have watched the city grow from a leisurely-paced town that proudly called itself the "Athens of the South" to a moderately-paced city (we're not New York or LA yet, thank God) known as "Music City U.S.A." Nashville is schizophrenic enough to cling to the old image while beckoning newcomers by smiling through its modern face. It offers lots of contrasts to play with while creating nefarious plots. I put the McKenzies' home in the Hermitage suburb and their office on Old Hickory Boulevard, both references to President Andrew Jackson, who lived nearby. But the stories take them to locations like bustling Music Row and the ultra-modern Opryland Hotel. You can read an article I wrote for Mystery Readers Journal on Nashville as a setting by going to http://www.chesterdcampbell.com/Articles.htm.

Like many writers, you have some manuscripts that were never published. Is there one of those in particular that you would really like to see in print?
Funny you should ask. I have one titled Hell Bound that has been making the rounds lately. I wrote it just before tackling Secret of the Scroll, which became my first published novel. Hell Bound takes place in 1999 and involves a busload of seniors on a church trip from Nashville to New Orleans. One of the passengers, living under an assumed name, is a former Mafia investment counselor who testified against the mob. He is tracked down by a hit squad that doesn't know his current identity but is determined to single him out from among the male passengers. If there are any agents or publishers looking in, it's available!

Among many other jobs, you once worked as an ad executive. What's the best ad you ever created?
I worked on several national accounts like Kentucky Fried Chicken, Pizza Hut and Martha White Flour, but nothing I did really stands out in my memory. One of the most challenging was full page ads for a local undertaker who decided to build a high-rise mausoleum. When we got through, I had a great time creating a parody using all the old death clichés I could unearth. Some of my colleagues were afraid the client might see it.

You've authored some interesting articles, including one about the trial of Charles Manson and his murderous followers. This trial went beyond the bizarre shenanigans of even the O.J. trial; what was it that made you want to write about it?
When the editor of Web Mystery Magazine contacted me about writing an article, she gave me a list of possible subjects, including such famous trials as the Lindbergh kidnapping. I did a little research and was intrigued by Manson's background and the shocking way he manipulated people. There is a subplot in Hell Bound about a mass murderer, where I had mentioned Manson, but I had never looked into his character. One of my earliest non-newspaper jobs was free-lancing for national magazines. This gave me a chance to tackle non-fiction once more.

You've met a lot of other writers in your travels. Is there a writer you haven't met, but would really like to meet?
There are two whose writing I have admired and have heard speak at conventions or conferences but never met. They are James Lee Burke and Robert B. Parker. Maybe I like them because I also use a middle initial with my writing. Actually, Burke's sense of place and Parker's dialogue have inspired me to work harder at my own.

You'll be at Bouchercon in the fall. Do you know what panel you will be on?
I have corresponded with Jodi Bollendorf, one of the programming chairs, about some ideas for panels, but I've heard nothing definite yet. Incidentally, my closest contact with James Lee Burke came at the 2003 Bouchercon in Las Vegas. I was a newby then with one book out. After my panel, I sat at my table in the signing room like the Maytag repairman. Next to me a long line trailed out into the corridor. The table, unoccupied, bore no name. When I departed without signing a book, I inquired about the line. "James Lee Burke is coming," I was told.

I think many of us can relate to the Maytag Repairman analogy. What are you currently writing?
I have just finished the fourth Greg McKenzie mystery titled The Marathon Murders. It involves a bit of Nashville history and a fictional ninety-year-old murder. The Marathon Motor Works built a popular touring car in Nashville between 1910-1914 before falling victim to mismanagement. I've also just written my first mystery short story titled Double Trouble. The protagonist finds a look-alike to take the rap for a murder he plans. I'll soon be working on the fifth McKenzie book. What it'll be about is a mystery to me.

If I were to be invited to your Nashville home for dinner (hypothetically) and you and your wife were going to prepare me your favorite food, what would it be?
The menu would likely include chicken breasts cooked in sherry, green beans, corn, tipsy sweet potatoes (spiked with Jack Daniel's), yeast rolls, and green salad (made with lime Jello, cottage cheese, chopped celery, and pecans). We would drink fruit tea, my wife Sarah's (and Jill McKenzie's) concoction made with peach-flavored instant tea, pineapple juice, and Marachino cherry syrup. We'd have coffee (decaf for us) with the pecan pie dessert. Y'all come.

Thanks, Chester. That sounds fabulous. :)

My accidental venture into writing

How authors get started in writing is a fascinating subject. I've read countless stories of people who wanted to be an author from the time they learned to hold a pencil. Others knew it would be their fate on reading the Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew as youngsters. I'm not one of them.

I've told a bit of the story on the F.A.Q.s page of my website. Although I was a dedicated reader of short stories in The Saturday Evening Post and other weekly magazines as a teen, I never considered writing them myself. My closest connection to the printed page was as co-business manager (make that advertising salesman) for my 1943 high school annual, The Grey Eagle.

After graduation, I volunteered for Aviation Cadet training in the Army. My World War II military career did not consist of air raids on Tokyo or Berlin, however. I was shifted about from base to base waiting for openings in the next phase of training. I wound up in the summer of 1945 at Randolph Field in San Antonio, a legendary base with permanent buildings. I was assigned as a clerk in the VOQ, Visiting Officers Quarters, located upstairs above the Officers Mess.

I had a partner on the job, another cadet named Wolfson, who had spent a year at Yale before going into the service. While chatting one day, he told me that if he had it to do again, he would study journalism. For some reason, that idea took root in my mind. The more I thought about it, the more intriguing it sounded.

We had a typewriter in the VOQ office. I had used it to hunt and peck letters and such. After news of the atomic bomb exploded across the front pages, I sat down at the typewriter and began punching out a story involving a nuclear weapon. I don't think I got too far with it as the war quickly came to an end, and we began to consider what would happen next.

A lot of the guys who had volunteered for Cadet training came from families in high places. I heard that some of them had lobbied the War Department (now Defense) to release us, rather than put us in other Army units for postwar occupation assignments. Whatever happened, orders came down in the fall giving us the option of taking a discharge. I was ready to head home and resume my education, so I split.

I wanted to study journalism. I learned that the big J schools were upper class programs, meaning I couldn't get in until I was a junior. So I enrolled at the University of Tennessee in January of 1946. I considered transferring to Wisconsin, one of the top-rated J schools, but I learned that UT would have a reporting course in my sophomore year. I signed up for that one and enjoyed it immensely. The following year, a full journalism program was established.

I had worked on the student newspaper, the Orange and White, and was tapped to be managing editor of one of the semi-weekly editions. However, my reporting course teacher returned to his post as executive editor of The Knoxville Journal and offered me a job as a reporter. I skipped the student assignment and became a cub reporter at the morning daily.

I quickly found my forte was writing feature stories, finding interesting twists to make articles come alive more than with a straight news treatment. After reading two mystery books by Horace McCoy (They Shoot Horses, Don't They? and No Pockets in a Shroud), I decided to write one of my own. Going to school in the day and working nights didn't leave a lot of spare time, but I sat down in my basement room at the fraternity house and banged out a mystery novel on my little Smith-Corona portable.

The manuscript was rejected by a publisher, and I was too much a neophyte to know I should try others. I was hooked on mysteries, though, and on writing in general. I've been at it now for more than sixty years. Who knows what I would have done if it hadn't been for Cadet Wolfson?

Write what you know...or fake it

Write about what you know, says the familiar mantra. That implies that we should all be experts, or at least quite well versed, in something. Like a lawyer would write legal thrillers, and a doctor would write medical mysteries. Ex-football or basketball players could pen novels in the sporting realm.

That sort of leaves me out. If I was ever an expert, or at least reasonably proficient in some particular endeavor, it was so long ago that I’ve either forgotten how all the good stuff worked or things have changed so much in the interim that I’m way too far out of date.

Take newspapering, for example. I started out as a reporter in 1947 and departed the field in 1959. That was back when everybody typed their copy on sheets of newsprint with old Underwood typewriters and stuck the pages together with goopy paste from a jar. Newsrooms were as open as the corner drugstore, and anyone could walk in off the street. Try to get past the reception desk at a newspaper now. I have no idea what goes on in newsrooms, but I’m sure it’s all done by computer.

Bottom line, I’ll not be writing a contemporary reporter story.

I wrote copy for an ad agency back in the late sixties. I’m not sure how agencies operate now, but no doubt it’s eons removed from what we did back then.

My last job of any consequence was executive vice president for a statewide trade association. I worked at that for eighteen years and was pretty proficient at it. I was one of the early Certified Association Executives accredited by the American Society of Association Executives. But I retired in 1989 making a salary in the $50,000 range. You got any idea what they make now? It would make me cry.

So I’m twenty years out of date on that score. The only thing I’ve done that hasn’t changed over the years, except for the implements used, is writing. Sentences are still put together pretty much the same as when I was in grammar school (only they don’t have grammar schools anymore, do they?). Nouns and adjectives and, yes, even the dreaded “ly” adverbs, are still the same as they’ve always been.

I suppose that means I should be writing about writing, or writers. But I’ve learned to cheat. For the past several years, I’ve been writing mystery novels about a pair of private investigators. I’ve never been been a PI or anything approaching it. But I’ve learned a lot about the field and seem to have knack for creating believable situations for my fictional investigators. I was really flattered when one reviewer wrote:

“If you’re interested in seeing how a real private detective works, try Chester Campbell’s Deadly Illusions.”

And another wrote:

“The Marathon Murders is a skillfully woven tale that shows detective fiction wannabes how it’s supposed to be done.”

So I guess I’ll just keep on writing about a subject I shouldn’t really know. What about you? Do you write about what you know? Or do you fake it, too?

To learn more about my PIs, go to my website.

Tim Hallinan's Writing Resolutions

The following Writing Resolutions were written by Timothy Hallinan, author of a series of Bangkok thrillers featuring an expatriate travel writer named Poke Rafferty and published by William Morrow. The most recent was THE FOURTH WATCHER. Coming next, in August, is BREATHING WATER, which Adrian McKinty has called "Another masterpiece of crime fiction from Hallinan." Tim bides his time between Los Angeles and Southeast Asia, where he is now hard at work on his next book. I thought these worthy of repeating for those who (like me) call themselves writers.

Writing Resolutions

Okay, I know that resolutions are made primarily for the brief flush of accomplishment that always accompanies good intentions, however remote the possibility of their being carried out. I make a new set every New Year and watch them recede behind me, forlorn and abandoned, by the middle of January. But I made the resolutions that follow in August of last year, and I'm still following most of them most of the time. And, for me, they work, which is to say that pages actually do emerge from wherever they come from, and pile up on my desk in an extremely satisfying fashion. And I also find that keeping these resolutions active does two important things: It actually makes me write a little better, if only because it keeps the world of my book open to me from day to day, and it reduces the anxiety that (for me, at least) always accompanies creative work.

So here are my August 2008 writing resolutions. I promised myself that I would:

1. Write daily, and by that I mean seven days a week. I will take a day off only when it’s absolutely unavoidable and never, under any circumstances, take two days off in a row.

2. Read widely, not just the kinds of books I write, but classics, science, history, biography, poetry, drama — remembering, as Nero Wolfe says, “The more you put into a brain, the more it can hold.”

3. Live consciously, remembering that everything in the world, even the things that are most unpleasant (and maybe especially those things) are all material.

4. Take chances every time I write. Try to write things I haven’t written before and don’t know how to write. Take myself off the map of the familiar.

5. Avoid glibness and try instead to bring the words from the heart. Remember that clever isn’t the same thing as smart.

6. Follow my characters rather than trying to push them around like chess pieces. Remember that plot is what characters do, not a box to jam them into.

7. Remember that the book I eventually write will not be the book I thought I was going to write. Have the courage to take off in new directions as they present themselves, and to discover, as you do when you travel, that it's possible to get on the wrong bus and then discover it's the right bus after all.

8. Be grateful that I’m allowed to take part in this internal miracle, in which whole worlds appear inside my head, usually one vivid glimpse or one turn of phrase at a time, and I have the freedom to chase them down and try to get them on the page.

9. Be open to criticism from my circle of first readers, without getting defensive; remember, if nobody likes it, it’s just barely possible that there’s something I didn’t get on the page.

10. Write hot, edit cold: when I am writing, keep the thermostat on high; be open, fecund, and grateful for everything that comes through. Rewrite only when something obviously better presents itself. When I am editing, be cold, assessing, and gimlet-eyed, willing to sacrifice even the most precious of my babies in the cause of the book’s greater good.

I could easily list ten more, but ten is the tradition. So I'll add an eleventh in the guise of a closing paragraph. In the first chapter of his new memoir, What I Think About When I Think About Running, the great Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami quotes a marathon runner as saying, “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.” I need to keep that in mind whenever I write.

What that means to me is that there are going to be times when writing hurts: when the words won't come, when the story seems to end in a blind alley, when your characters all turn into people so awful that you would come back from the dead just to prevent them from attending your funeral. All of that is inevitable. What's optional is internalizing that, handing it to the writing demons so they can make me doubt my idea, my characters, my talent. The trick to writing (for me, at least) is the same as the trick for running: keep going anyway. The pain may be there, but I can run (or write) through it as long as I don't turn it into suffering.

And get the next word on the page, which is all that really matters.

Thanks for that sage advice, Tim. And just to show that I have followed it somewhat, here's a link to the opening chapters of my new book, The Surest Poison.

How do you start a book?

I’m in the process of working on the plot for my fifth Greg McKenzie mystery. So far it has been mostly ideas stirring around in my brain. That’s been going slowly, I suppose, since the brain deteriorates with age. Doesn’t it? To paraphrase an old folk song, "the old gray matter, she ain't what she used to be."

Oddly enough, the first idea out of the box did not deal with character or setting or plot action. Well, setting, in one of its narrow aspects. We're talking about time. The series has been moving at a leisurely pace through the calendar. Designed to Kill took place at the first of November, Deadly Illusions followed with the first blush of spring (does spring really blush?), and The Marathon Murders sweated out the steamy days of August. So, I reasoned, the next adventure should occur at Christmastime.

Wouldn’t you know, in Greg years, it’s still 2004. If I could do that, I wouldn’t be quite 80 yet.

Okay, back to the plot. As all my fans (both of them) know, I am a seat-of-the-pants plotter. I don’t outline the whole story in advance. I take a basic idea, brief my characters on it, and shove them out the door. Heck, why should I do all the work?

The problem is I have to come up with more characters than Greg and Jill McKenzie, my indefatigable pair of senior sleuths. That’s where the fun begins.

With a one-paragraph plot summary on paper, I quickly came up with job descriptions for four possible bad guys. And just as quickly I spotted the one who really “did it.” I started out by giving him an age, then began to delve into his background. What about his early life would make him an interesting character? How did he become what he is today?

Okay, this is a mystery, and I’m not giving you any clues. I did a lot of Googling and bounced around the Internet quite a bit to track him down. I even used one site to pick his name. Hmmm, come to think of it, when I first began searching stuff online, Yahoo was the big thing. But you don’t hear of people Yahooing. They’ve been sort of left in the dust, haven’t they?

The subject of the plot is not one in which I’m particularly well versed, so I also searched about for some basic information on the business. I’ll give you a little hint there. It concerns professional sports. I decided my best bet to start my research in that field would be with a TV sportscaster. Interviewing one of the local guys will be my next step in the process.

I haven’t decided how Christmas will fit into the plot, but I’m sure Greg and Jill will be able to handle that. They’ve carried the day through four books so far. I have unlimited faith in them.

Sometimes I start a book before I’m ready with a full-blown plot by sitting at the computer and writing a first page. It may not be the same first page I end up with, but it gets the window open and the curtains blowing. I’m close to that point now. I’d better wrap this up and get me a cup of hot coffee. I think I here the Muse plodding up the stairs.

Words: the building blocks of knowledge

Does that sound profound, or what?

I've always loved dealing with words of the written variety. At spoken words, I'm not too great. This has been increasingly true over the past few years as my voice has deteriorated from a chronic cough and other things we won't go into now...

The love of words is something writers like to play around with. In this case, it's a game called tag. You might think playing tag a bit juvenile for a guy less than ten months away from 84. If I'm gonna be involved in all this bloggishness, though, I suppose I'd better play along.


My colleague Ann Parker provided the adjacent pile of letters and tagged me with this setup:

List at least five things you do to support and spread a love of the written word, and tag five people. (If you list something that touches youngsters, you get a bonus letter!)

So here goes:

1. I write mysteries that I hope will encourage people to spend some time with a book and be entertained.

2. At book signings, when someone stops by with a little Janie or Johnny who enjoys books, I encourage them to keep reading and follow their dreams if they aspire to be writers.

3. I support libraries and booksellers whenever I get the opportunity and take part in as many book fairs and festivals as I can.

4. I've done radio and TV interviews discussing the merits of reading and writing.

5. I appear at book clubs whenever possible and try to spread the gospel that reading is fun and fashionable.

Okay, Ann, I did it. And I earned one extra letter. I think I'll take a Q. It seems to be a rather lonely letter and, like me, doesn't get much respect. I also have to tag five other people. Let's see...

Christina Rodriguez
Heidi Thomas
Joy Delgado
Katie Hines
L. Diane Wolfe

And if you really love words, check out those in an excerpt from The Marathon Murders.