“The public is the only critic whose opinion is worth anything at all.” - Mark Twain
I often ask myself why it is that I do the things that I do. Why these strange and bizarre thoughts invade what’s left of the right and left side of the tattered cerebellum. Introspection is a healthy and kind word for this troubling phenomenon. Why some memories are strong or intense, and why some only resemble fleeting dreams of the early pre-dawn. I never seem to arrive at much of a very satisfying answer. Stumble on and don’t ask too many hard to concede questions. Maybe, as they often say, it is what it is, is about as good as it’s all going to ever get.
These questioning moments are probably some weird ego driven pondering sort of problem that I’m still at a loss to adequately decipher. I’m not much of a true believer in the oblique science of psychotherapy. Maybe that’s because I’ve seen it fail dramatically for others more times than I care to calculate.
My often confused friends, who have dabbled in that application of the science, more often than not, carried on uncured. At least, that’s my most humble and semi-professional impression of the implementation of the dark science known as psychotherapy.
But every now and again, I do crumble a bit, and actually ask for a little help. It’s a hard ask, and I find actually asking occasionally for some assistance is often less that cathartic.
The help loyal readers provide in responding to these WOMR renderings is simply considerable, if not immense. Many of you have kindly taken your valuable time to respond with positive and much needed honest feedback. Your responses appear to be generally well meaning, i.e., “Keep it up” level comments. I can’t begin to appreciate that enough.
Every once in a blue moon, I bumble across a professional outdoor writer who manages to blow me away with a story. When I find these genius level writers, I find myself in awe of their mastery of their craft and their studious and complete command of the English language. Moreover, there’s something much deeper than craft and word smithing. There’s a profound sense of art to it all. Art in the sense of painting and mental sculpture that transports you to some other place and a better time. It’s likely an artistic gift driven by a purer and higher intellect.
“Little Willy” King was an earliest outdoor writing idol of mine. A cartoonist extraordinaire for the Chattanooga Times, Little Willy also wrote and illustrated an outdoors column for the Sunday paper sports page. That was the only good reason I had for opening the paper in my youth. That column, in addition to Dick Tracy, the Phantom and P-Nuts were about the only reasons I could come up with for actually reading newspapers.
I devoured Little Willy’s columns, cutting out each one, revisiting and savoring each weekly story like fine wine until the next Sunday adventure.
Ted Trueblood, Elmer Keith, Jack O’Conner, Carmichael, O’Rourke, Zumbo, Grits and Hathaway-Capstick were other early idols, right up to the time I discovered Grey’s Sporting Journal.
Over the years I attempted “selling” some WOMR stories, but consistent rejection inevitably caused me to throw in the towel. Oh I went 10 good rounds, gave it a semi-valiant sort of effort, but eventually I just couldn’t answer the bell for the last round. Maybe it was just too many blows to the brain. Maybe it was not a stout enough heart. It’s another nagging question I still have never found a really satisfying answer for.
So the other day I stumbled up on a highly respected and profusely published outdoor writer’s web site, and after devouring a good bit of his lengthy work, I rather impulsively E-Mailed him and asked for his help. I’ve always subscribed to the use of a legitimate GURU when faced with any decent outdoor related delima.
I’ll decline to identify this true gentleman GURU out of respect for his privacy and a couple of other good reasons. While his help turned out to be incredibly helpful and thoughtful, it did in fact turn out to be a tad pointed. I still consider it to be much more helpful than painful.
Ok, that last thought about pain was a bit of a small white lie. It was about as painful as the time a young, tall blonde, high-school softball pitcher, wound up and splattered my nose all over my face, shattering it rather profoundly, after we struggled over the removal of her chest protector in the backseat of a 1956 Chevy.
I was absolutely astounded that the GURU I had asked for help actually responded!
The GURU replied; “ WOMR — I’ve made it a point, throughout many decades of bumbling along as an outdoor writer, to help others when I can. I’ll look at one or two pieces but will offer some thoughts right now while adding that I’m pretty merciless.”
- “I’ve never written for nothing and really resent hobbyists (to your credit you admit it) who are in effect taking dollars, if only a precious few, from folks trying to earn a few shekels. I’d suggest that if your work is worth reading the laborer is worth his salt.” (WOMR Note; I don’t consider writing as some kind of hobby, but I did screw up and use the word, and the GURU latched onto it. Any good GURU will do that sort of thing, My bad!)
- “Your E-Mail suggests a certain shoddiness inasmuch as their are multiple failures to use upper case. Precision in communication, no matter what its nature is the hallmark of a competent writer.”
With that initial ‘merciless’ response I blindly forged onward.
(WOMR Note; apparently the GURU never over-indulges in aiming fluid as he uses his thumbs to send an E-Mail. Aiming fluid, I must confess, can in fact, spawn serious amounts of shoddiness.)
I sent back a slightly less shoddy E-Mail as follows; “Thanks for the feedback.” I triple checked it for capitalizations before immediately returning to the aiming fluid.
The latest WOMR piece in the Chattanoogan, ‘Bone Valley - the Hard Way’ was written specifically with the GURU in mind. As best I could tell from his writing, he had spent many a day fishing on Hazel Creek. I thought his experienced perspective would somehow be invaluable.
I sent him the piece on Bone Valley and held my breath. “Send me in Coach, I don’t need no helmet!”
To my utter astonishment the GURU promptly responded; “WOMR — As I had previously indicated, this is a one time moderately in-depth look at your piece on Bone Valley. The comments that follow are in part general and in part specific.”
GENERAL
- “You’ll never get a piece this long published in a modern print magazine. That’s sad, but it’s reality.”
- “Any reader familiar with the area will wonder why you took the route you did; never mind avoiding the approach from Fontana, which involves maybe 45 minutes by boat and then a hike of 4.5 miles to Bone Valley. I personally was mystified.” (WOMR Note; Any time you can personally mystify a GURU it can either be bad or simply wonderful. This feedback sounded to be on the rather troubling side for some reason.)
- “Your mention of the book with an author and title that eludes you is a mess. There’s no such book from anywhere in the depression era, or if one with the kind of material you mention exists, I don’t know of it (and I think I’m about as familiar with literature of the Smokies as anyone you’ll find). Jim Gasque’s 1948 work, Hunting and Fishing in the Great Smokies. It has a solid chapter on fishing Hazel Creek but little of the ancillary information you mention. There are more recent books by Duane Oliver and Dan Pearce along with fiction by Walt Larrimore set in the Hazel Creek drainage.”
SPECIFIC
1.”It should be overanalyzes, not “over analyzation.” The sentence where this occurs, and many afterwards, have stylistic problems in terms of omitted words and, in some cases, almost a stream-of-consciousness style of writing.” (WOMR Note; I had to look this new kind of stream thing up and I’m still not sure what problem this stream-of-consciousness style presents, but this comment felt a little like a good left hook below the belly button somehow.)
2. “Native trout infested” — needs a hyphen; infested implies a problem (i.e., it’s the wrong word), and with the exception of specks the trout are truly non-native. They are stream bred, but no rainbow or brown is truly native in the sense of being indigenous to the stream.” (WOMR Note; Every last thing I ever thought I once learned about hyphens was completely erased by an extraterrestrial ship, driven by small gray non-humanoids, with a very loud radio blaring Janis Joplin tunes in 1969. Maybe it was 1970.)
3. “There was only one road (State Highway 288) and one rail line to Hazel Creek.”
4. “It is Plott, not Plot, hounds,” (WOMR Note; My sincerest apologies to the Plott family!)
5. “Hazel Creek has virtually no “plunge pools” — in fact, a strange characteristic of the stream is its lack of big holes (with the “Baptizing Hole” near the mouth of the creek being a notable exception.”) (WOMR Note; Maybe a good plunge pool is really in the eye of the beholder.)
6. “I think it’s the Oxford English Dictionary,” (WOMR Note; When I finish a few more aiming fluids, I may look this one up, just for kicks.)
7. “You should have said something about the species of trout you caught. Likely mostly rainbows until you were way upstream in the Cascades area.” (WOMR Note; I didn’t want to come off as some kind of ego tripping trophy hunter but we caught ‘em all and they were all trout monsters.)
8. “I will call unadulterated bull-#$%^ with your characterizing Kephart’s Our Southern Highlanders as a “decent start…on Southern Mountain culture.” Kephart was a plagiarist or very nearly so, his descriptions of mountain folks in the book are stereotyping at it’s absolute worse, and in many ways he was a despicable human being —- a sho ‘nuff sumb@#$% who would never look a man in the eye and repeatedly misrepresented things in his writing. I cringe every time I see his book praised. If you read Hunnicutt closely, never mind the fact that his book is about as lacking in polish as it could possibly be, you get a far better feel for the people and the times. He was indeed the “real deal.” (WOMR Note #1; Lack of polish is another ‘eye of the beholder’ sort of thing in my mind.) (WOMR Note #2; A sho ‘nuff sumb&^%$ aptly describes a man who won’t look you in the eye and plagiarizes to boot! I guess I already knew how long mountain folks could hold a decent grudge.)
FINALLY
“I like the fact that you go to some outside sources for quotations and the like, but don’t belabor the point; it verges at times on pontification (something I have to watch in my own writing).”
That was all the GURU had to say!
If you don’t want the truth, then you best avoid good GURUs.
I hope he doesn’t read this piece. He might very well label me as a sho ‘nuff sumb&^%%$#. I sure hope not! I’m not sure if I can handle much more constructive feedback right now.
Compared to the merciless GURU, I’m reminded of how easy my freshmen 100 series English professors at Tennessee Tech were on me with their calibrated eye and their dastardly red ink. Back then I thought the whole miserable bunch were seriously overly critical, as they single handedly tried to zero out my freshman year grade point average.
WOMR BTW; Compliments of Miss Google AI —“What is a major characteristic of stream of consciousness writing? The primary characteristic of stream of consciousness writing is its lack of structure. Sentences can become fragmented, thoughts can jump from one subject to another, and time can become distorted. Punctuations and capitalization may be used sparingly or not at all.”
This may be a little bit shoddy… but, “Take that you Tennis Shoe Tech SumB$%^&*$!”
One last thought; When you take the plunge in the professional GURU pool, prepare to meet the very hardness of truth. Always wear your helmet boys and girls!
Thank you GURU. I appreciate the help more that you will ever know!
-------
Send comments to whiteoakmtnranger@gmail.com