Author Bill Crider, one of the loveliest people I ever knew.

The other day I picked up a used book from the bookshelf in the little library at the 55+ community in which I live. The novel is one of the over 100 Bill Crider published during his lifetime. Bill was the head of the English Dept. at Alvin Community College, which is a few miles from Galveston where I am from. I met him at my first Mystery Writers of America, Southwest Chapter, meeting in Houston. He and his wife, Judy, were two of the loveliest people I have ever met during the ten years I was active in that chapter. Both encouraged me every time I’d be around them.

I was one of those writers who would start a project and about halfway through come up with what I thought of as a better idea, drop the current WIP, and start a new one. At one point I used to kid that I had ten (10) unfinished novels in my drawers. The joke would have been funny if it hadn’t been true.

Bill knew that. Every time I went to a conference at which Bill was speaking, I would attend his section. I usually sat on the back row. I swear, in Bill’s talk he would always say that in order to get a book published, you had to finish the book. And he would pointedly look in my direction and grin.

Judy told the story of Bill’s first successes. Bill was a runner. He would write two pages a day, stop, and go for a run. While he was gone, Judy would read those two pages and make any corrections or be ready with suggestions when he returned. She said the most frustrating thing about this practice was that Bill would stop at the end of the second page. He didn’t make any exceptions for what point in the novel he’d stop, end of a sentence or a paragraph, no, he would stop at the end of two pages no matter where he was, even in the middle of a sentence! Judy had a sweet smile and an infectious laugh. When she told that story, her listeners were always treated to both.

Bill and Judy are both gone now, sad to say. The world was made richer by those two loving people. I think of them often when encouraging new writers. And then tell myself, if I’d just follow Bill’s example, I’d be better off for it as well. (and would publish more books!)

http://www.billcrider.com/

For a topical and, possibly, a polarizing read, check out Susan P. Baker’s latest mystery, The Underground Murders, No 6 in the Mavis Davis Mystery Series.