My Sunday column

Word wranglers

I interviewed David Cady for dalton magazine this week. Some of you know Cady as a longtime Dalton High science teacher. Others know him best as a football coach at DHS, first as an offensive line boss and later an offensive coordinator.
Not as many know him as a novelist, but that number is growing.
Cady’s book “The Handler” has been a popular read locally in recent months. It’s a hard-edged crime thriller set in the Deep South.
Cady talked about his novel and how it came to be in an hour-long interview in my cramped office. He talked about researching the book, finding the time to write it and then, most notably, how he continued to refine and retool it for the better part of a decade before finally seeing it published by Surge Books.
I admire his tenacity,
Writing can be fun, a pleasure and even a release.
But it can also befuddle your mind, decimate your patience and break your heart — all in the same day.
Writing a newspaper column doesn't seem like a tough task and sometimes it is a breeze. A fat idea parachutes into your brain and 90 minutes later you’re smoothing down the rough spots. Voila!
Other times, writing a column is like dragging a grizzly bear out of a cave.
The late, great Lewis Grizzard told a story about being propositioned by a hooker who promised to make him the happiest man in the world for $200.
OK, Grizzard said.
“Here’s the money,” he said. “Now, go write my column for me.”
If it’s that hard to write a newspaper column, 500-700 words on average for me, imagine the suffering that would come with writing a 100,000-word novel.
That’s what Cady delivered with “The Handler.”
How many times did he want to chuck it all and go bowling?
How many times did he agonize over a chapter, a paragraph, the right word?
Sometimes it comes down to a single word.
Years ago I had a news reporter here. I asked his advice on a crucial descriptive word needed for an editorial. I wanted to use one word. He suggested another. We talked about it, debating the merits — meaning, sound, etc. — of each word and I made the decision to stick with my original choice. He shook his head in disagreement, but that was that.
Or so I thought.
Months later I fired the guy after some job-related problems. It wasn’t a pleasant separation for either of us and he left a bitter man, so bitter in fact that he quickly penned me a letter ripping my parentage, my place of birth, my management style and last, but not least, the fact that I had put the “WRONG!” word in that editorial all those many months before.
Sure he was nuts. But that’s a common affliction among those of us who make our living herding words.
As for myself, I am the author of about a blue million newspaper columns and stories. I have also finished (mostly) a handful of short stories. I like to think of myself as a highly successful writer of fragments. Scattered in my files (paper and hard drive) are dozens of pieces of short stories, novels, screenplays, etc. Some of it is actually pretty good.
I have ideas aplenty and many of them are first class, if I do say so myself.
But converting those ideas into completed works is a bear, you know that same grizzly I mentioned earlier trying to force out of a cave.
I admire the David Cadys of the world, the folks who have the determination and discipline to bring the word herd in, no matter how bad a blizzard is blowing. Some are very talented, some can’t write a lick. But their sheer stick-to-it-iveness is to be admired.
I am not yet one of them.
But I want to be.
It’s time to finish this column and get home, grab a bite to eat and pop the top on a single can of liquid refreshment for the evening.
Then, it’s time to get to work.



Jimmy Espy is executive editor of The Daily Citizen.