The Accidental Novelist

I suppose I should be called the accidental novelist. Unlike many of my writing colleagues, I never penned stories as a kid or spent hours at the library checking out children's mysteries. As a teenager I enjoyed reading fiction, but it was mostly short stories in magazines like The Saturday Evening Post and Liberty. My Nashville high school had a student newspaper, but I never had any interest in writing for it. The closest I came to being involved in the literary field was as co-advertising manager for my high school yearbook as a senior in 1943.

I first wrote about my accidental entry into the writing game when I updated my website several years ago. I wrote an article titled "Reflections on The Writing Life—My 60-year odyssey with the written word." In it I told how I volunteered for Aviation Cadet training in the Army Air Corps after graduation in June of 1943. I was called to active duty the following January after turning eighteen. With the air war in Europe going our way, they didn't need as many new pilots, bombardiers, and navigators as they did when I signed on. With the rank of Aviation Cadet, I was shifted about the Southeastern Training Command, winding up in the summer of 1945 at historic Randolph Field in San Antonio.

After first serving as a guinea pig in the School of Aviation Medicine, where I was probed and prodded by candidates for Flight Surgeon, I was assigned as a clerk in the Transient Bachelor Officers Quarters. Another cadet and I

Classic Spanish design of buildings at Randolph Field, now Randolph AFB.

mostly checked in and out pilots there for an overnight stop. We also served as cashier in the Officer's Mess that occupied another part of the building. My partner, a cadet named Wolfson, had spent a year at Yale before entering the service. While we were chatting one day, he said, "Ïf I had it to do over again, I'd study journalism."

That somehow struck a chord with me. Up to that point, all I'd ever wanted to do was fly airplanes. But with the war winding down, it didn't look like that would happen. The more I thought about it, the more I became obsessed with the idea. Journalism schools only dealt with upper class students, so after my discharge I immediately enrolled at the University of Tennessee, intending to transfer to some place like Wisconsin or Missouri in my junior year. But the accidental nature of my career still ruled supreme.

When my sophomore year began, the executive editor of The Knoxville Journal took a year's sabbatical to teach a newspaper reporting class at UT. I immediately enrolled.Then I learned the university was bringing in a new professor to start a full journalism curriculum the following year. By then I was working on the student newspaper and was in line to become managing editor of one edition. But shortly after school started that fall, The Journal editor, who had returned to his old job, called me and a couple of other of his former students and offered us jobs as reporters.

Since The Journal was a morning newspaper, we could go to school during the day and work as reporters at night until the first edition was put to bed, as we journalists would say, around eleven o'clock. But it gets even worse...er, more complicated. While browsing the library near the newspaper office one day, I came across two books by Horace McCoy, They Shoot Horses Don't They? and No Pockets in a Shroud. I devoured them and became hooked on the mystery genre.

While going to journalism school during the day and working at the newspaper at night, I managed to squeeze in time on my little portable typewriter to write my first crime novel. I had filled in occasionally on the police beat and wrote a tale of a young reporter helping solve a murder. I gave it the title Time Waits for Murder, sent it off to a publisher, and soon had my first rejection slip.

I also wrote a spy story in the sixties, but it was 2002 before my first published book came out. My journey as an accidental novelist would take too much space to continue here, but if you'd like to read the full story go to my website where  you'll find the article I wrote in 2008. Incidentally, that 60-year odyssey is now up to 66.

The Fallout of Falling in Love

Falling in love has always been something I do quite easily. My first experience took place at the tender age of ten or twelve. She was the girl next door named Mary Frances (Faffy) Green. I just learned that she died last week in Florida. I used the term "fallout" in the subject of this little opus, which usually denotes something unfortunate. But in this case it simply means the result of an event. And for me that means it had an effect on my writing.

Faffy's older brother, John, became my best friend in those carefree days. We got into all kinds of mischief, and I wrote about  of some of our escapades in prior blogs. You can check out one at A Flying Dream Adventure. Faffy and Johnny had an uncle who was a pilot in the Air National Guard prior to World War II. I used his experience for a character's father in The Marathon Murders.


When I got into junior high, I fell in love with one of Faffy's friends, Marge, who I met at the Green's house. I had never been the outgoing type and was rather bashful as well. I would bring her packs of chewing gum at school and chat in the corridors or on the lawn at lunchtime. During warm weather when sunset came late, I would walk to her street, several blocks away, and stroll past her house hoping that she might appear at the door. She never did. I used that experience for a character in one of my books. Marge went on to marry a neurosurgeon.

In high school I got a little bolder with a girl named Dottie Wechsel. I carried her books as I walked her home some eight or ten blocks past where I lived. We would sit on the porch and talk, and I got to know her mother quite well. She worked downtown at a telephone answering service. I wound up doing better with the mother than the daughter. My problem was I had little money and was too young for a driver's license. A guy with his own car soon swept her away. But I used her last name for a character in A Sporting Murder.


My senior year I fell for a girl whose dad was a preacher. When he was moved to a church a few miles away in Northeast Nashville, I had to take a bus to First Street, on the east side of the river opposite downtown, then transfer to another bus to reach Ruth's house. Standing there waiting for the second bus, I got a generous dose of the soot that settled out of the smoky atmosphere of the central district in those days. My white shirt would wind up with black specks. We dated until I went into the Army in World War II, and the few times I got home after that. But when the war ended, I went off to college in Knoxville and she went her way back home. I used some of our experiences while writing about characters in an unpublished manuscript titled Hellbound.


In a bit of a switch, it was my writing that brought me to the lady who became my wife for some forty-five years until she died of Parkinson's complications. After (actually during) journalism school, I went to work as a reporter for The Knoxville Journal. As part of my job on the police beat, I made rounds at Knoxville General Hospital to check the records at the Emergency Room. I'd chat with the student nurses and soon fell for one named Alma Miracle. We married when I returned from Air Force service in the Korean War.


Sarah, the current love of my life, and I met in Sunday School and have been married nearly thirteen years. We enjoy a lot of friendly by-play, which turns up in my Greg McKenzie series in conversations between Greg and his wife, Jill. For a sample, check this exchange from Chapter 3 of Deadly Illusions.


I've used actual names here, but the ladies have gone on to identify themselves by their married names. At a any rate, there aren't too many people left who could identify them. I went to my high school alumni association's monthly luncheon today, and one of my classmates remarked that there were only three of us in attendance from 1943. The ranks are thinning.


But I'm sure falling in love will always be in fashion, and I'll keep remembering things from the past to write about.

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?