This holiday season, I’ve
decided to promote some of my writer friends and ask some of the questions that
folks ask me. Today’s guest/victim is:
Tom Woods
First, a little something about Tom.
Veteran sports writer
and copy editor Tom Wood has covered a wide variety of events, ranging from
Nashville universities to boxing, from the Iroquois Memorial Steeplechase to
the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games—for the Tennessean, where he also wrote a number
of entertainment features. After his retirement from that newspaper, he has
continued to contribute freelance articles for several news outlets.
At what age did
you start writing or know that you wanted to write?
I’ve been writing since I was five years old, a story about my
Grandmother coming for a visit. The story ended with a knock at the door and me
opening it wide. The final line was ... “And there stood dear, old Grandma.”
Not bad, considering my age. She kept it all her life and gave it back to me a
few years before she died. I worked on my high school newspaper in Atlanta and
on the college newspaper, yearbook and creative magazine at Middle Tennessee
State University. That experience helped me land a part-time job in the sports
department at The Tennessean, which I was able to turn into a 36-year career as
a sportswriter and copy editor. I primarily covered local universities. I also
wrote about boxing, covered the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and spent a couple of
summers writing entertainment features for the paper. The last half of my
career I devoted to writing headlines and editing. I'm enjoying creative
writing again.
Where do your
ideas come from?
Sometimes from the
news, sometimes from books/other media, sometimes … the universe? I often feel
like I’ve been led to an idea, being in the right place at the right time. In Vendetta Stone, for example, the novel
is completely fictional, and not based on a true case as I am often asked. But
I did get the idea for the novel from a Nashville murder several years ago. A
teen-ager was murdered in a restaurant robbery and the father was being
interviewed on the local TV newscast. The man was very angry and after the
segment ended, I turned to my wife and said, "Wow, he doesn't want justice.
He wants revenge." Then I added, "And so would I if something like
that ever happened to you." Then I thought to myself, "That's a
pretty good line," and couldn't let it go. An hour later, I was writing
and trying to figure out how Jackson Stone would go about seeking vengeance for
the murder of Angela. I don't have those skills, but Jackson does. It just took
off from there. But the point is, if I hadn’t seen those couple of minutes of
that particular newscast, I might never have gotten the idea for the book.
My
first Western short story, “Death Takes a Holliday”—gambler/gunfighter Doc
Holliday plays his last poker game against Death himself—came after reading an
anthology called “Stagecoach” while I was sick. Every story had a stagecoach
theme. All great stories, and after finishing, I thought, “I bet I could write
one of those.” I turned on the TV, and Tombstone
was playing. I’d always been fascinated with the Old West, particularly
Wyatt Earp, Doc and the Gunfight at OK Corral, and the story just flowed out of
me. Again, right place, right time.
Do
you base your characters on people you know or know of? Family or celebrities?
Having
spent my working career as a journalist, I was privileged to meet some great
characters in The Tennessean newsrooms. John Seigenthaler, John Bibb, Al Gore,
Larry Woody, Jerry Thompson, Gale Kerr, Sandy Campbell, Nick Sullivan, David
Climer—the list goes on and on. Wonderful reporters and writers, rich
personalities—and all with great stories to tell. And you get to meet and
interview some amazing personalities in the news business, both on and off the
field. And I come from a family of great jokesters and story-tellers, my dad
especially. He kept all us kids rapt with ghost stories and tales of growing up
in North Carolina. Ditto for the TV reporters and editors I’ve known over the
years. All of my characters have bits and pieces of all of us, but none
specific. You want your characters to live and breathe on their own.
How
much of you is in your characters?
A lot of readers think Vendetta
Stone narrator Gerry Hilliard is me—except with hair. We both worked (he
still does) for Nashville’s morning newspaper, so that’s a natural assumption.
Gerry has character traits of a lot of newspaper folks I’ve known over the
years. Ditto for the TV reporters and editors I’ve known over the years. The
biggest difference between me and Gerry is that I spent my career in sports,
not the crime beat. But there are overlaps in sports writing, when an athlete
gets in legal trouble or when he gets hurt (medical writing) or a new pro
franchise (business). Journalism is a great training ground for novelists.
My protagonist, Jackson Stone, is also a lot like me in that
we’re both Christian. We share similar values and beliefs, in some respects,
but differ in many others. He was a lot better athlete than I ever was, for
one. And as a former Marine, he’s a heck of a lot tougher than me. I could not
(and would not) do or make some of the choices he makes in Vendetta Stone. The book explores Jackson’s plan for revenge
against his wife’s murderer, how he reconciles his faith and his motives. And
he has to deal with backlash from the media, the police, his friends, co-workers
and family, and his Pastor and Church family. Brother Robert Armstrong uses the
Sunday pulpit to talk about the case. So there are a lot of subplots. But it's
basically a fast-paced revenge/redemption story.
If
you could live the life of one of your characters, who would it be?
Since
I’ve pretty much lived Gerry’s life as a journalist, there’s a new character in
the sequel I’m writing that I really like. His name is Mitch Westman and
everybody calls him Cowboy. He is a former Marine sniper who is descended from
a long line of Texas Rangers. His role was initially a minor one, but it has
grown substantially—so much so that I may do a spinoff with him as protagonist.
Cowboy’s had a hard life, but has lived it on his rough-and-tumble terms. We
have little in common, so it’s been fun exploring his personality.
Do
you plot out your stories or just make it up as you go?
I’m about 50/50 on plotting. Once I figure out
the basic plot—the start, then mid-point and the finish—then I let the story
tell itself on how to get from point A to B to C. Occasionally, I will run into
a brick wall when writing this way, something doesn’t make sense or whatever,
so I just back up and take the story in a different direction. Some writers
plot chapter by chapter; it’s just whatever style works best for you. I have
done more plotting for the second novel.
Do
you listen to music while you write and if so, what do you listen too?
I grew up doing my homework with the stereo
record player at full blast (driving my parents nuts). The volume’s not as high
as today, but I do like having background music. Mostly last century music,
generally 1950’s-70’s rock that I grew up on, some 80’s. I like new music, but
not when writing. Occasionally soundscapes or country or big band or whatever
it takes to get into the spirit of the scene I’m writing. When I was writing
about the serial killer in Vendetta Stone, I would play heavy metal, darker
lyrics. It worked.
Is
Writer’s Block ever a problem for you? If so, how do you deal with it?
Not really, because of my journalistic
training. I rely on the time-tested Five W’s and an H—Who, What, When, Where,
Why and How—to answer every plotting question. Who’s the protag, the love
interest, the killer? What happened to Baby Jane? When is the story set, last
week, next year or next century? Where is the setting, the sea, the mountains,
or in the dank basement of the house next to you? If so-and-so said or did
this, what are the consequences? Why did it happen? Answer those questions and
you’ll work through any blockage.
What
is your funniest/ awkward moment at a convention/signing event?
At one signing, a little boy came in with his
parents. They headed to the back of the store while he lingered over a book, thumbing
through it. I smiled and said very pleasantly, “That’s my book.” His eyes grew
wide, horrified, and he dropped the book and ran off to find his parents. I’ve
had people tell me they don’t read books; I usually answer, “Well, they make
great gifts for somebody in your family who does.” It works sometimes.
How
much do you write each day/week?
Not as much as I should. When writing Vendetta Stone, I was still at the
newspaper and wrote 2-3 hours before going to work, then wrote 8 hours on my
days off. Since I self-published, I have to do everything, from booking
appearances and doing promotion to keeping up with the financial end to, well,
everything. As one writer friend put it, “writing is art and everything else is
business.” And everything else cuts into the writing time. It’s been sporadic,
but I am cutting back on PR aspects until the next book is finished. I need to
write several hours each day to knock it out. Then the cycle will start all
over again.
Favorite
authors? What book do you read over and over the most?
I just finished re-reading I, The Jury by Mickey Spillane, one of
my favorites. Mike Hammer was as tough as they come. I loved anything by
Alistair MacLean, Mark Twain, Stephen King, John Grisham, Mario Puzo, Robert A.
Heinlein, Arthur C. Clark, and so many others. I enjoy re-reading The Godfather and Stranger in a Strange Land. And I am a big fan of Louis L’Amour.
What
is your latest project/release? What are you working on now?
Vendetta Stone (2013) was my
first full-length novel, and it is the first in a series about Jackson Stone
and his friends (and enemies). The sequel, tentatively titled Turn to Stone, is near completion and
will be released sometime in 2016. I’ve mapped out five books in the series,
but will keep writing about Jackson and his friends (and enemies) as long as
people are interested. I’ve written a screenplay based on Vendetta Stone, and it made it to the semifinals of the 2015
Nashville Film Festival screenwriting competition, so we’ll see where that
goes. I mentioned the Western short stories; I also have an ongoing Western anthology
project with four other authors.
Thanks Tom. You can find his books here:
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