The Writing Life with Brooks Eason, Author of the Memoir 'Fortunate Son'
Brooks Eason loves stories - reading and writing them, hearing and telling them. He
also loves music, dogs, and campfires as well as his family and friends.
Brooks
has practiced law in Jackson, Mississippi, for more than 35 years but has
resolved to trade in writing briefs for writing books. He lives with his wife
Carrie and their two elderly rescue dogs, Buster and Maddie, and an adopted
stray cat named Count Rostov for the central character in A Gentleman in
Moscow, the novel by Amor Towles. In their spare time, the Easons host house
concerts, grow tomatoes, and dance in the kitchen.
Books,
who has three children and four grandchildren, is also the author of Travels
with Bobby—Hiking in the Mountains of the American West about hiking trips with
his best friend.
Visit the author's website and check out his book Fortunate Son at www.brookseason.com
INTERVIEW:
What got you into
writing?
I
love the beauty of the written word, I love books, and I love writing, from
inappropriate limericks to short stories to the books I’ve written. When I was
in law school and was poor as a church mouse, I wrote and gave my parents short
stories for Christmas. The one for my daddy was about two football games and
two campouts when he was the Scoutmaster of Troop 12 in my hometown and I was
one of his Scouts. The one for my mother was about the creek where she taught
me how to fish. But I didn’t get serious about writing until I started my first
book, Travels with Bobby - Hiking in the
Mountains of the American West, which is about hiking trips with my best
friend. He and I started going on annual hiking trips in 1996, and we had so
much fun and saw so many magnificent places that I would spend months after we
got home telling stories about our trips. After a few years I decided to write
them. I had a very busy law practice then and the book was years in the making,
but it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience.
What do you like best
about being an author?
I
enjoy the act of writing, especially improving what I have written, revising
and revising again until I get it just the way I want it. I also really like it
when the book finally arrives and there it is with my name on it.
When do you hate it?
Never,
really. There have been a few times when I’ve lost something I’ve written and I
hated that, but I can’t recall a time when I hated writing or anything else about
being an author. I will retire from practicing law soon, my wife has declared
that writing will be my encore career, and I am looking forward to it.
What is a regular
writing day like for you?
I’ve
had a day job when I’ve written my first two books so I can’t say I have a
regular writing day. After I retire, maybe I’ll develop one.
Do you think authors
have big egos?
Absolutely.
It takes a big ego to think you have something worthwhile to write and that you
can write it well enough so that people should pay money to read it. I don’t
deny having a big ego. (My friends and family are nodding their heads in
agreement.)
How do you handle negative
reviews?
Having
a big ego and all, when someone criticizes something I’ve written, it’s
painful. My instinct is to disagree. But then I try to get over it and be
objective, if that’s even possible about my own writing. I sent a chapter of my
memoir to a retired English teacher. She liked some of it but had some pointed
criticisms. After wincing, I reread the chapter and decided she was right and
made some changes.
How do you handle
positive reviews?
Having
a big ego and all, I bask in the glow.
What is the usual
response when you tell a new acquaintance that you’re an author?
They’re
impressed and interested. Lots of people have a secret desire to write a book,
and they admire people who’ve spent the time and energy to do it. If the
conversation was lagging before they knew I was an author, it doesn’t lag
after.
What do you do on those
days you don’t feel like writing? Do you force it or take a break?
I’ve
never forced it. I write when I have time to write and when I’m in the mood.
I’m usually in the mood. Sitting by the pool on our vacation two months ago, I
typed the first chapter of a new book on my iPhone.
Any writing quirks?
I
can’t type. Is that a quirk? I’m a two-finger man. I changed from typing to
advanced science my senior year of high school because I couldn’t aim the
fingers on my left hand with any degree of accuracy and was afraid I would
fail. I wish I could type and hadn’t learned the Periodic Table of Elements,
which I forgot long ago.
What would you do if
people around you didn’t take your writing seriously or see it as a hobby?
I
have a doctor friend who’s also a successful author. He says his mother tells
people writing is his hobby and he tells her not to. I’ve been a lawyer more
than 35 years, and people I know are naturally going to think my writing is a
sideline or a hobby. I don’t care what they think if they buy and read my
books. My family and the people I'm close to know that I take my writing
seriously.
Some authors seem to
have a love-hate relationship to writing. Can you relate?
I
can’t really relate because I've never hated it, but I can understand that it
would be miserable if writing was your only job and you depended on it to feed
yourself and your family and you had writer’s block and just couldn’t produce.
I can see how that would make you hate it.
What’s on the horizon
for you?
Ah,
the horizon, it beckons. I plan to retire from practicing law at the end of
January 2020. I will drink a toast to myself on the last minute of the last day
of the last year of my law practice at a music festival in Key West. I’m
working on two books, one consisting entirely of conversations between me and
our hound dog named Buster - it’s not much like my memoir - and another based
on the two lives of my grandfather Harry Brooks. I knew about his second life,
when he married my grandmother and they had five kids and he was a revered
Methodist preacher who gave the invocation when FDR came to Mississippi to give
a speech. I learned only recently about his first life, when he married a woman
named Rose and they had five kids but he embezzled money from a school
district, ran off with someone a newspaperman described as a woman of doubtful
repute, fled to Europe, was busted by Scotland Yard, was extradited, tried and
convicted, served three years in the state penitentiary, during which Rose
divorced him and his family disowned him and after which he moved to Texas and
met my grandmother and lied about his age and place of birth and they lived
happily ever after because there was no internet and nobody knew. That’s a long
sentence, but it’s quite a story. I will also travel with my wife Carrie, camp
and hike with my friends, and spend time with my four wonderful grandchildren.
Like Jimmy Stewart/George Bailey, I have a wonderful life. I had a mild stroke
in early 2016 and the doctors thought I had a brain tumor. I didn’t, I
recovered, and I appreciate sunsets and songbirds more than ever.
Leave us with some words
of wisdom about the writing process or about being a writer.
Write
for the love of doing it, not for the money. Maybe the money will come, but
being able to write well is a great gift and a source of great joy even if you
never make a nickel.
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