AUTHOR PROFILE
Tom Ray devotes his time to writing fiction. His stories have been published in numerous journals and in the print anthology Unbroken Circle: Stories of Cultural Diversity in the South. He is a native of Knoxville, Tennessee, and a graduate of the University of Tennessee. After two years of active duty in the U. S. Army, including a tour in Vietnam, he entered U. S. government service as a civilian. He retired after working thirty-five years in the Washington, D.C., area, and currently lives in Knoxville.
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Tom's work appeared in Pond 79
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Why do you write?
Because I enjoy it. The mental effort to come up with the idea of a story is fun for me. Execution of the idea, both in terms of the substance of the narrative as well as the mechanics of forming sentences that people can understand, entertains me.
What other creative activities are you involved in?
That’s an embarrassing question for me. The answer is none. I tried to take up the guitar, but never got to the point of being able to improvise on somebody else’s tune, much less compose a song of my own. Dancing? Ballroom only, and I imagine I’m painful to watch. If you need to evacuate a room in a hurry, ask me to sing. Painting, sculpting, crafts—they don’t appeal to me, probably because I’m no good at any of them.
Who is your favorite author and why?
I must cheat on this because I don’t want to name only one favorite. My reasons for liking these authors is the clarity of their writing; the realism of their characters; and their ability to tell stories that maintain my interest. Two writers who come to mind are Elmore Leonard and Patricia Highsmith. Both have the talent to get me to cheer for reprehensible characters. Leonard has the added benefit of a touch of humor. On a completely different note, C.P. Snow’s Strangers and Brothers series kept me hooked as I read all eleven novels. He met all my criteria as he traced the development of the narrator from an uncertain provincial to a sophisticated functionary at the highest levels of government. I’ve read only one novel by Jean Rhys, The Wide Sargasso Sea, which is the work she is known for. That work alone makes her one of my favorites. Her description of life on a Caribbean island in the 19th century is entrancing, but, more important, she turns the novel Jane Eyre on its head. I wish my high school English teacher with a crush on Mr. Rochester had read Rhys’s take on that entitled, racist, sexist narcissist. Henry Green’s Party Going and Loving are strong on description and on drawing me into the lives of certain English people between the World Wars. I have more authors in mind, but will stop at Georges Simenon, who makes me feel sorry for murderers without getting me to root for them.
Tell us about the mechanics of how you write.
I begin with a person or situation I have observed, heard, or read about. My preference is small things, a heckler at a ball game, a drunk collapsed on a sidewalk, a pretty woman walking around a lake. I imagine a conflict that may arise from what I observed, and how it will be resolved. By the time I begin typing on my laptop I have a rudimentary outline in by head. The nature of that outline means I will be adjusting as I write, filling in gaps and traveling down alternate paths. In addition, I tend to correct myself as I write. That slows me down as I go back to change a word in a preceding sentence, for example, but I worry that I’ll forget to make the correction later.
Once the first draft is completed I use the Spelling and Grammar Tool in Microsoft Word. I have my own list, gleaned from various sources, of words to avoid. I review the draft to remove those words to the extent possible. Following that, re-read and re-write, re-read and re-write. I solicit comments from my wife and kids. I am fortunate to have friends who get together periodically to review each other’s work. When I reach the point that I’m sick or re-reading the story, I submit it to my friends. Their review will prompt more rounds of re-writing by me, until I’m once again sick of it and say the story is finished.
Once the first draft is completed I use the Spelling and Grammar Tool in Microsoft Word. I have my own list, gleaned from various sources, of words to avoid. I review the draft to remove those words to the extent possible. Following that, re-read and re-write, re-read and re-write. I solicit comments from my wife and kids. I am fortunate to have friends who get together periodically to review each other’s work. When I reach the point that I’m sick or re-reading the story, I submit it to my friends. Their review will prompt more rounds of re-writing by me, until I’m once again sick of it and say the story is finished.
Finally, what do you think about Carp, the fish, not our website?
How to cook a carp. Dig a hole. Place the carp in it. Fill the hole with horse manure. Build a fire on top of the manure. Let the fire burn down to warm coals. Scrape the coals away. Remove the carp, throw it away. Eat the horse manure. I’m not much of a fisherman, and don’t recall cooking a carp. While carp flesh allegedly tastes OK, it has a lot of bones, making it unpleasant to eat. I don’t find the joke particularly funny, but whenever I hear the word carp, I think of this fishermen’s lame joke.