read new writers and I have tried to encourage them, and I don’t think that will cease until I’m in the grave, or burned to ashes and distributed under a rose bush for dogs and insects to crap on.
But, to tell you true, as one gets older, and I’m still in my fifties, so I’m not exactly packing my bags and getting my bus ticket from the grim reaper—unless he surprises me and thinks we should vacation early—but I am at an age when I have come to the conclusion that I will only read what I want to read when I want to read it, and writing introductions has become too much of a distraction from my own work. I am writing more now than ever before, and I want to be left to it. Time has become more and more precious to me. I want to write my work, not write about other’s work, and I want what spare time I have after work to be with my family and to read exactly what I want to read when I’m in the mood for it, watch the films I want, do martial arts, and so on.
That said, it should be obvious by now I wasn’t all that enthusiastic when I was approached by Wes Ochse’s editor with a request that I read Wes’s work and if I liked it enough, would I write an introduction to the collection?
My heart sank.
My first thought was: Not again.
I know, I have asked writers to write intros for me, and I’m sure Wes does not like to feel or like to think anyone would consider him going door to door with his hat in his hand asking for an introduction, as he’s not that kind of guy. He’s just an honest, hard-working, steadfast writer who loves what he does.
Still, I feel I have earned some removal from the hamster wheel of payback, if only a little bit. Though, to be pretty honest, out here in the wilds of East Texas I pretty much had to figure it out myself. All the good ones do. I suspect this has been Wes’s case.
Let me tell you. I read a lot of novels and short stories with the possibility of writing an introduction, and most of them I have to pass on because I don’t care for them, or know they’re good, but just don’t have the interest or enthusiasm in them that’s necessary to write a glowing introduction. I am the first to say that my impressions of these books could be wrong—vastly wrong.
However, there’s this. I had met Wes a few times and we always had really good conversations. He even dedicated this book to me and Ray Bradbury, and being in Bradbury’s company in any manner, shape or form is pretty high cotton. But, it also made the matter all the worse, because if I read the book and didn’t like it… Well, it would make me feel pretty miserable. It’s a little like giving a toast to your wife at your anniversary party, telling how she changed your life, and how much better it’s been since she came along, how she made it all worth living, and when you finish, you lift your glass and smile at her, and she says, “You know, for me, it wasn’t all that great.”
I could use the excuse I didn’t have time to read it, which is a polite way out, and often true, but this was Wes, and I like Wes, and he’s a smart man, so I said: I’ll read it with the understanding that I will only write an introduction if I like the work. If I don’t, I’ll pass, as I always do, even if I might feel like the disappointed husband in my above scenario.
This was agreed to, understood.
I also agreed that I would not go into the book’s contents blow by blow, but if I liked it, I would trumpet its arrival into the world. I agreed to gladly be there at its birth and wish it the best, and bring it a baby present in the form of an introduction, but I wouldn’t change its diapers or babysit or teach it how to read or walk or tie its shoe.
And then I got this.
The book.
And I was wowed. I mean that. WOWED. This boy, he’s good. And for all his nice words about certain authors and their work, their influences on his writing, he’s his own man.