More than I planned on

Viewpoints

October 24, 2009

Garry Barker The Richmond Register Sat Oct 24, 2009, 08:18 PM EDT

Last week, I wrote the “Head of the Holler” column that sent the total to 2,100 since 1988 or so, more columns than I ever planned to write and more than anybody ever wanted to read.

There’s even a book labeled “Vol. 1,” but the follow-up volumes won’t come unless sales of the first book pick up dramatically, and that doesn’t appear likely.

All the people who pushed me for years to put the columns into book form seemed to vanish when the book finally came out, and sluggish sales probably mean the publisher won’t want to do Vols. 2 and 3.

Me neither, really.

I love writing, most of the time, but dread the editing and preparation that goes into a non-fiction manuscript.

Searching through computer files, converting text from one program to another, cleaning up all the trash that the computer generates and keeping track of it all is not much fun.

I’d rather publish fiction, and have three novels on hand ready to go.

And “Copperhead Summer,” the 1985 novel, has been revised and is ready for republication.

There were some mistakes in the book, and I cleaned up some of the dialect so people not from Eastern Kentucky can read it easier and without a translator.

As a writer, I feel mostly that I have been forgotten by the literary world, sort of shelved, but maybe they don’t know I’m still alive.

Barely.

The craft world remembers, and right now I’m working on an essay to accompany a retrospective exhibit of the work of potter Charles Counts, who passed away in 2000.

Charles was a Berea College graduate and a native of Harlan, Ky., so it didn’t take us long to make a connection when we met in 1965.

Charles was as good a writer as he was a potter and designer, and he never lost his passion for creating.

It may very well be that I have lost the passion that drives us to write, especially the creating of fiction, a passion beat down by the hassle of dealing with editors, publishers and marketing people.

Books today are an entertainment product, pure and simple, with little regard to true literary value. Most big book publishers simply crank out known quantities, celebrity ghost-written books and “how to” volumes.

For a regional writer, one who spent decades trying to capture the essence of life in rural Appalachia, it’s way too late to change directions.

Or to worry too much about it.

“Head of the Holler” won’t go away, though I have tried several times to end the long run in the newspapers, but in book form it does not seem to have the lasting appeal.

I no longer have the energy to get up at 4 am every day and write, especially if I am not assured of publication, so now I sleep a little later each morning.

And when I do feel like writing, there’s always a weekly newspaper waiting for more copy.

Maybe I’ll live long enough to get to column No. 2200.

Garry Barker is the author of Head of the Holler: Volume 1, from Wind Publications. Order at http://windpub.com/books/HeadOfTheHoller.htm or from Amazon.com.

© 2009

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