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Writing yields thousands of words

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The written word was forced upon me as a child. How many spelling tests did I endure in my early years of schooling. I was so frustrated by them in first grade they gave me my first lesson in character.

I just couldn’t seem to get the spelling into my head, so I would slip a piece of paper under my leg with the spelling on them of that week’s words.

Although I knew what I was doing was not proper, I didn’t really understand that it was cheating. I was just trying to gain approval by spelling properly. Instead, I received the life lesson of Miss Crumbley catching my efforts and I found myself standing outside the room awaiting being sent to the principal’s office where I caught a paddling. Then of course, she called my mother, and a few more licks found there way onto my behind.

I learned a lesson that has lasted a lifetime, cheating, no matter the reasoning, is not something a good person should do.

I eventually became a proper speller that I should have been all along. Amazing how a bit of a tanning gets one’s mind on the right track.

After a couple years, words from books became my constant companion. There was not a fiction or a history that did not interest me. As I grew instead of consuming the words, I began to see them flow from my pencil, pen or ends of my fingers as I typed. Eventually those words created something worthwhile. Articles that people wanted to read that appeared in a school newspaper, then organization publications, magazines and newspapers.

After a few years, they contributed to being what allowed me to construct books which have provided hours of enjoyment to readers, a creative outlet for me, and the blessings of some income.

My pastime of genealogy has provided a basis for the efforts as I have found a list of writers and poets in my tree who have shared in the same gene pool of inspirational talents. The great Geoffrey Chaucer, considered the father of English literature was one of my grandfathers. Among my cousins are names such as Clemens, Poe, Dickinson, Austen, Stevenson, Hawthorne and Ingalls Wilder. I often pray that some of the God flows He shared with some of them might find their way into my writing spirit.

My latest book has now hit the market. I embark on a new genre not non-fiction, not cookbooks, not autobiographies or murder mysteries, this one is religious as I created “Seeing Faith: A Devotional.”

My life experiences combined with the theological knowledge of seven pastors have yielded 31 lessons to fill a month or two-thirds of a year with an opportunity to find a closer walk with Jesus through the words He provided me over many years. I talk about lessons from friends in film, television, music, and people from the South and Appalachia and how they provided experiences for me which allowed me to see Jesus through them, in them and in their treatment of others. I pray the words are a blessing for all that read them.

That book is now finding its way into other’s hand and eyes and God is already providing words for the next written adventure, this time another foray into fiction, set in a Southern town with an amazing group of characters. The words keep flowing through the genes. Thank you grandfather, and thank you Lord.

Find out more about “Seeing Faith: A Devotional” at www.RandallFranks.com/Seeing-Faith or on Amazon.

Words can inspire in many forms

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Writing is a constant companion to me. It has been since my early days in school. Perhaps it is something in the genetic make up passed along similarly as in my more well-known cousins whose works have inspired the world – Mark Twain, Agatha Christie, Robert Louis Stevenson, Emily Dickinson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, T.S. Eliot, and Edgar Allan Poe.

My efforts to string words upon a page so readers can cast their eyes and evoke a stream of thought or create an emotion, pale in comparison to the least of theirs.

For those of you who have journeyed with me in my 23 years of creating this column, I thank you for sharing your time in my continuing opportunity to reach you with what flows from my heart and mind.

Many of you have delved a bit farther by reading one of my non-fiction books or even my mystery “A Badge or an Old Guitar.” This year I plan to take readers into a new place with my novella “Southern Crossing” and hopefully inspire with a devotional.

My tenth book recently came out and it was my third co-author. I spent a year with 93-year-old former Ringgold, Ga. Mayor Joe Barger and his wife Barbara. My earlier works in this area were with entertainers Ramblin’ “Doc” Tommy Scott and Violet Hensley. A foray into metallurgical engineering, his occupation, was a stretch for me although I easily grasp the area of government and politics he also inhabited for 48 years.

“I worked closely with Randall while I was mayor, I knew there was no one I trusted more to help me chronicle my 93 years and share Barbara’s and my story,” he said in an interview following its release.

Hearing this was uplifting to me. Joe and I served side by side for six years on the city council. I was his vice mayor. We didn’t always see eye to eye, but we found the best way forward for our city’s residents and businesses.

As part of the book, I spent weeks at the city hall. I read all the minutes from his 48 years in office and transcribed what I felt he might like to share and then we worked through the years adding context and stories about the people he worked with and those that lived in the town.

He was introduced to Ringgold by joining a college friend on a trip back home in the 1950s. He would later land a job with Combustion Engineering in Chattanooga, Tenn. which began his passion for metallurgy, he said.

Though the North Carolinian loved serving his neighbors, he wanted to write about his professional experiences as a metallurgical engineer to share some of his wisdom with future generations of welders.

“There were so many lessons that I learned as Combustion Engineering allowed me to develop new patents on so many applications to enhance what we did in nuclear energy development,” he said. “And there are many simple aspects of welding that I thought might help other young welders. I wanted to write some of that down.”

After serving in army intelligence during the Korean War, Barger returned to Ringgold to marry the love of his life and regain his position at Combustion, he said.

“My job took me around the world solving problems and sharing the success of what we were doing for Combustion in Chattanooga,” he said. “I couldn’t asked for a better company to work for or a better bunch of people to work beside helping light up the world.”

Working closely with Joe and Barbara on this book has been one of the greatest experiences in my life.

Their story is in many ways, the story of small town America. I think his book will be a great resource for anyone who might like to look back at what Ringgold was and how it got to where it is today.

“Testing the Metal of Life: The Joe Barger Story” by Joe Barger and Randall Franks is a 496-page book featuring over 550 photos and is available at www.RandallFranks.com/Joe-Barger .

From where do the words come?

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I looked between the lines in the book trying to see the meaning behind the words.

When I was in school, I was taught there was always a deeper meaning beneath the lines.

The construction of the sentences and their order held a greater importance than simply what I read.

That is one of the reasons we went through English and World Literature, wasn’t it?

Ever since I started writing many years ago, I have always tried to draw on those inspirations to find a unique turn of phrase. I tried time and time again to aggrandize with alliteration, to ease a reader into an unexpected message buried like a golden nugget glistening from beneath a light covering of soil along the creek bank just waiting to be picked up.

Beginning with pen, then the typewriter keys, and now the computer keyboard, the letters flow from my fingertips trying to inspire, amuse, engage, challenge, and reflect.

I look to those who brought me to want to write: Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, William Faulkner, and William Shakespeare and so many others.

They told stories of their times in a way that still resonates with readers as their characters jump off the page giving them a life. Those characters could almost pull up a chair and sit down next to you.

I have always wanted to write so the characters or real-life subjects seem touchable and real.

Articles, screenplays, books and columns have led me down an amazing path that allows me to search deeper within my soul while looking at the human experience and trying to find more than the words.

As I work on one book and soon begin two others, I wonder sometimes where I will find what is needed.

Within your soul, can you find words that are more?

Can you create a story that makes people laugh with ease?

Are you inspired by those you have met within your world?

Have you ever tried picking up a pen, or sitting down and putting your thoughts into words.

Who knows maybe you could be the next writer whose words span the ages.

Give it a try. Build upon the stories and things you know. Who knows, maybe you will be the next great writer.