Ronda Rich

Syndicated Columnist

Please, forgive me if you’ve heard this story before, either on page or in person. I tend to tell it two or three times a year.

Because I cannot get my head around such nonsense.

People often approach me, wanting to write a book. Only two times in 20 years has anyone ever inquired about writing a newspaper column. On those two, rare occasions, I have thought what a wise Mississippi newspaper publisher once told me.

“People come and tell me that they want to write a column on cooking or gardening or some such. I always say, ‘Tell you what.

You write 12 columns and bring them in so we have good inventory and you’ll have your ‘pitcher’ in the paper.’” “Funny thing,” he liked to say, “I haven’t had one person come back yet.”

This is true. Writing a weekly column is harder than it seems. I can say this after 20 years of this column as I am looking over the edge of having written over 1,000 columns that run roughly around 655 words.

Mostly, I am approached about authoring books and asked, “Where do I start? It’s a lifelong dream.”

“What kind of books do you read?” I ask, believing that is usually a good place to start.

I’ve had a couple of dozen people respond, “I don’t read. I just want to write.”

“To be a writer, you must first be a reader,” I reply, with a judgmental shake of my heard.

I had never believed differently until I read a review in TheWall Street Journal about Tracy Daughtery’s “Larry McMurtry: A Life.”

The review, written by a former editor of Texas Monthly (wonderful reading) says that in tiny Archer City, Texas, there were no books in McMurtry’s house and none in his town with the exception of a spinner rack in the drugstore that specialized in Mickey Spillane and provocative covers.

Yet, McMurtry grew up to become one of America’s most renowned storywriters of the 20th century. To picture that small, dusty town of his upbringing, you have only to close your eyes and conjecture up a scene from Peter Bogdanovich’s black and white but captivating — and long-remembered — “The Last Picture Show.”

Like a Texan before him, Horton Foote, McMurtry relied on his childhood town to feed the scenery for his books that became movies like Bogdanovich’s masterpiece and Paul Newman classic, “Hud.”

In the days when television networks still endeavored to deliver high-quality that could pass for cinema, his book, “Lonesome Dove,” would define the perfect example of a book turned into a mini-series. It was well-rewarded with a bushel of Golden Globes, Emmys, and the prestigious Peabody. Robert Duvall, the unforgettable Gus, won the Best Actor Emmy for that mini-series. Duvall is also the bridge between Mc-Murtry and Horton Foote (cousin to Civil War documentarian Shelby Foote) because Duvall won the Academy Award for “Tender Mercies,” a movie written by Foote and produced on a shoestring budget by Foote and Duvall.

Both Foote cousins were moved emotionally by the prettiness of words and an extremely strong sense of place. All three of these revered authors observed the dirt they stood on, which way the water flowed, and how the trees looked as the sun rose above the branches.

Though I will always be in awe of a man who could write both “Lonesome Dove” and “Terms of Endearment” – such remarkably different genres – it was this review that made me think of a commonality in their stories.

Each man leaned heavily into the sensibility of the land of their childhood and used it to craft their stories.

“It is the land that matters, Katie Scarlett,” commanded Mr. O’Hara in a sentimental plea.

I still believe that reading matters a great deal but now I also concur it is equally joined by a sense of place.

Ronda Rich is the best-selling author of “St. Simons Island: A Stella Bankwell Mystery.” Visit www. rondarich.com to sign up for her free newsletter.