The Ocean Was Salt: How I came to write it Like most writers, I started writing in first-person, covering every bad baloney sandwich. Soon, I found myself in over my head, drowning in an ocean of characters whose names and ages changed monthly. No plot would simply attach itself like magic to the Deep Hidden Meaning. Pat Conroy encouraged me to start another book which kept overlapping with the first, resulting in years of hard work that lies snickering on a shelf in my studio. Sometimes the manuscripts talked to me: “What you gonna not finish today?” One solution came to me in dreams: Abandon this, become a painter. If I were to follow that dream, however, I would not start with the Sistine Chapel. I would limit myself to a canvas no wider than arm’s breadth and focus until I understood clearly each stroke and how it fits into the overall configuration. Another solution: Take the best scene from an embryonic novel, zoom in to a short story and polish until you get it right. I started that experiment with “Feeling Salty,” from the first novel whose second draft was still not right. I didn’t know many characters intimately yet. I cut the woman--who is central to the novel, but clutter in this story. I’ve had three professional critiques, and numerous friends have looked over it. I sifted, chose the suggestions I liked, and the story took a life of its own. I liked the satisfaction, the completion of writing–and reading–a short story. Belle is a woman whose toughness I can only fantasize about. The often thankless role of every campus’s “first lady” made me think of feminist issues before I understood the term. I’ve never shot a doctor. Fortunately, I’ve never faced cancer or surrendered to Alzheimer’s, but people I love have. Perhaps the greatest joy in writing is the healing, not only of yourself but of that distant reader we want to reach. Once, my daughter told me a woman out on Pea Ridge, someone I never knew personally, cried when she read a piece I had written about Normandy for The Birmingham News. That’s when I knew why I was finally answering the call to write I had heard as an adolescent. At sunset, I often look toward that ridge and give thanks. I want to touch readers at their heart’s core about lonely children, survivors of racism or sexual harassment. When I read Sena Naslund’s blurb, I was elated that readers might glimpse compassion. I enjoyed capturing the way you can love a man whose eyes are the color of strong tea–even against the dark backdrop of racist terror. Love begets victory. One day my grandchildren will read this and know what I learned from poets like William Meredith and Richard Harteis...and from sea gazing.