Origins of a passion for writing

I have been drawn to writing as a creative activity since childhood.

It started by inventing stories in my head. It grew into imitation when in the 7th grade I read William Faulkner’s 1942 short story “The Bear,” and I wrote my own story of a bear hunt gone awry. In the 8th grade, my classmates and I started a school newspaper to satisfy my itch to try journalism and to make a little money for a class field trip to St. Augustine.

By the time I reached high school, I was involved in a writing circle with friends. We called it “The Story War.” We took turns writing stories about a common set of characters whose adventures intersected and intertwined in ways that tested our creativity and problem solving. Each of us had a main character, and in the pre-internet days, we circulated our stories to each other by reproducing them on dot matrix printers and sending them through the U.S. mail. There were four of us in the group — two in Florida, Dwayne and me, and two in Texas, Fred and Cliff. It occupied hours of my imaginings and fed my love of storytelling and creative expression.

A blue, three-ring binder with dot matrix printed pages is overlaid by a hand-drawn map in pencil, a stack of story pages and a table of contents. — Can’t you hear the crackling spew of ink from a dot matrix printer while the rotating wheels pulled the continuous form paper through? The seriousness of the genre is also clearly communicated by the choice of font.

In high school, I gravitated toward newspaper journalism as a way to earn a living as a writer. In the unsophisticated way a teenager thinks about careers, I knew I loved to write but thought writing books could be an undependable source of income. According to my logic, writing for newspapers would be a steady gig, and I could write books on the side.

After my introduction to journalism in 8th grade, I joined the high school yearbook staff in 10th grade and took journalism as an independent study in the 11th. The summer after my junior year, I applied and was selected for an internship at our local newspaper, the now defunct Lake Wales Daily Highlander. Each year The Highlander hired a rising senior to write a weekly column and help out around the newsroom as the intern’s schedule and skill allowed.

I loved writing the column and took it very seriously. I loved trying out the SAT words I was learning. Some of my early columns required readers to have a dictionary at their elbow in order to make sense of what I was trying to say. The high school administration was also not particularly fond of my more aggressive attempts at satire.

I was called to meet with the principal after one column in which I deployed hyperbole to describe the construction projects going on in the buildings during the school day. I posited that projects of such scale would cause much less disruption during the summer. When I sat down across from Mr. Windham, the principal, I saw my column on the desk in front of him, marked up in red. He took me through each of my factual errors. I don’t remember printing a retraction, but I do remember learning that a weekly column came with power and responsibility.

The summer after I graduated from high school, I worked at The Highlander full time. I mostly did clerical writing such as obituaries, but when the news reporters were on vacation, I covered the police beat, county court and city budget hearings. Because I enjoyed sports, I latched onto opportunities in that genre, covering Lake Wales Little League as closely as if it were Major League Baseball, and endured the editing supervision of sports editor Bob Perkins. He once told me while editing a particularly egregious story in which I erroneously substituted “aloud” for “allowed” throughout to describe how many runs a pitcher “allowed,” that “This isn’t writing, it’s typing!”

My time at The Highlander gave me an unmatched experience for someone my age, and by the time I arrived at college to officially earn a degree in journalism, I had already tackled a number of challenges many of my peers wouldn’t experience until their senior internship or even after they started their careers. I began writing for the student newspaper, The Tropolitan, immediately, and found myself in a Reporting 1 class my freshman year.

In addition to the writing I did for The Trop, as it was affectionately known, I also served as a peer tutor at the university’s Writing Center. All students who tested into the remedial English classes were required to attend a writing lab one hour a week at the Writing Center, and the tutors led the labs. It was more than a little awkward when I, as an 18-year-old freshman, handed out and graded assignments from 21-year-old upperclassmen. Working at the Writing Center solidified my knowledge of the rules of grammar and gave me an even stronger foundation for writing clean copy and editing others’ work.

During my time at Troy I also developed the habit of journaling. I incorporated it as a part of my daily Bible reading and prayer time. I have never gone back to read those early attempts to process my understanding of scripture or work through crises of faith, but the practice is still part of my daily routine to this day.

My journalism career progressed from The Daily Highlander and Tropolitan to The Destin Log and The Macon Telegraph before I moved into higher education and nonprofit communications. During those years, I had largely abandoned the dream of creative writing, but in the summer of 2004 after completing an MBA, I felt the creative itch return.

I had been ignoring the whole reason I had chosen newspapers and communications as a career in the first place. So during our vacation that summer at Santa Rosa Beach, I spent an hour or so each day working on a novel. I wrote the first five chapters of my work, tentatively titled “Leaving Macon,” and reconnected with my love of writing.

I finished the first draft in 2009, and at more than 140,000 words was too intimidated to do the work necessary to edit it down to the more appropriate 100,000 words or less most first-time authors get when they publish. I was also reading about the publishing industry trying to implement the advice of launching my own platform. The conventional wisdom of the publishing industry was that you would be more desirable to agents and publishers if you had a built-in following who would buy your books.

So in March of 2011 I launched this web log, or blog as it is more commonly known. I called it “New South Essays” and tried to brand myself as a commentator on life in the modern South. Because I felt that my novel was a work of contemporary Southern fiction, I thought this would give me access to the readers who might be susceptible to buying my book when the time came.

For three years I published a New South Essay each week. In August 2012 when I went to work for Georgia Tech, learning to communicate in a technical field and managing a large staff sapped all of my energy for writing. Plus, the demands of a growing family caused me to lose touch with my zeal for expression again. I put the blog on hiatus in the fall of 2014, and once again strayed from my love of writing.

During my time at Georgia Tech I satisfied my itch to write by taking on freelance writing assignments for Baptist publisher, Smyth & Helwys. I wrote several units of Sunday School lessons for its Formations line, devotions for its annual Reflections guide and started a blog called “A View from the Pew” which provided a lay person’s perspective on church life. With such a demanding day job, my writing dwindled to once a month, and my creativity shriveled.

I finally figured out my pattern in the spring of 2020 when the outbreak of COVID-19 rearranged our lives. No longer commuting two hours a day to downtown and back for my job with the University System of Georgia, I found I had more time in the mornings to write again. I was inspired to re-launch New South Essays on a monthly schedule, alternating writing weeks among A View from the Pew, New South Essays and the re-write on my novel. And when Carla gave me the unique anniversary gift in May of weekly memoir prompt Storyworth, I found myself once filled with excitement and energy for the written word.

What started as a spark of creativity has grown into quite a collection: two blogs, hundreds of newspaper articles, thousands of news releases and promotional pieces, speeches, media statements and an unpublished novel. Writing is a passion that draws me back whenever I wander away from it.

Here’s hoping I don’t lose sight of that truth again.

Even better than expected – part 1

My life is full and has surpassed my highest expectations in profound ways.

Carla is a beautiful person who chooses to share life with me through mundane, jubilant, and challenging times. Barron is a creative, goal-oriented and industrious son who shows gratitude and kindness. Harris is bright, engaging and is committing himself to a life of service to address societal problems. Carlton is finding himself in song and drama, flashing a keen wit and possessing insight and awareness beyond his years.

I wished for such a wonderful family, but they have exceeded my loftiest dreams.

The biggest difference between my expectations for life and reality is my career. The question “What do you want to be when you grow up?” had different answers at various points in my life. I went through a phase in adolescence when I adopted my father’s dreams of becoming a fighter pilot and having a post-military career flying commercial jets for an airline.

Well into adulthood, I wondered if I was called to local church ministry. I sincerely and diligently prayed for a revelation of that calling and have always been involved in church as a layperson performing every possible duty.

As early as the 7th grade, I envisioned a life of writing novels. I believed that newspaper journalism could pay the bills while I pursued writing books, which was less financially secure. Writing led me to pursue a high school internship at our local paper, The Daily Highlander, and once I began to understand how that world operated, I held ambitions of one day rising through the ranks of reporter to editor and running a newspaper.

That goal served me well through high school and college. I became editor of the Troy University school paper, The Tropolitan, in college as a sophomore and worked internships at The Destin Log, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Knight Ridder’s Washington Bureau and the National Journalism Center. A difficult job market in 1991-92 forced me to seriously question my career choice as I unsuccessfully interviewed for reporter jobs at The Birmingham News, The Anniston Star, and The Huntsville Times.

A young Lance Wallace wearing glasses and a polka dot black necktie and white shirt sits at computer terminal on a desk in a low-rise office cubicle in a busy newsroom. — What this 20-something cub reporter didn’t know about life at this stage could fill a Sunday edition of The Macon Telegraph.

I finally landed an interview at The Macon Telegraph in Middle Georgia, and the rest, as they say, was history. During my seven plus years at The Telegraph there were pivot points along the way that forced me to recalibrate my expectations and amend my goals. When I graduated from Troy University with a double major in print journalism and political science, I saw myself returning to Washington to cover politics. I thought I could one day work my way back to Knight Ridder’s Washington Bureau if I went to a Knight Ridder paper, excelled and earned a promotion to fill an opening in the company’s high-profile D.C. office.

I held onto that notion for about four years as I worked as a general assignment features writer. Editorial page editor Ron Woodgeard asked me to contribute to a series he was editing about Georgians on the Titanic, and during our closer work together, he asked me about my career goals. I told him I wanted to cover politics in Washington. He rather bluntly informed me I was in the wrong place to do that. He said if I wanted to cover politics in Washington, I should already be in Washington. I told him my plan, and he explained that political journalism didn’t work that way.

As I puzzled over Ron’s revelation, my fellow church member, Larry Brumley, who ran the University Relations office at Mercer University, asked if I would be interested in applying for a media relations representative vacancy on his staff. I had never seriously considered working in public relations, often deriding the PR majors in college as “paid liars.” With a chance to cover the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta, I told Larry the opportunities on my immediate horizon were too good to pass up. I remained committed to journalism.

As difficult as it was to hear, Ron Woodgeard had been right. Career panic set in, and I felt an urgency to move on from Macon. But by that point, my social life began to factor into my life’s plan. Carla and I had started dating, and our relationship was growing serious. Just a few months into our relationship, covering the Olympics combined with a newsroom shakeup by incoming Editor-in-Chief Cecil Bentley proved to be my opportunity to shift from general assignment features to the City Hall beat. It was my first shot at writing about politics at any level since college.

I thoroughly enjoyed covering Macon and Bibb County government and quickly acclimated to working nights attending council and committee meetings. I dedicated myself to increasing my profile at the paper and winning reporting recognitions. The awards never came, and though I covered the beat diligently, I exposed no major scoops or scandals. Ron’s words were becoming clear to me. The way to make it to the Capitol did not go through Macon City Hall.

Carla and I were not married long when the statehouse reporting job opened at the Knight Ridder-owned newspaper in Columbia, S.C., oddly titled The State. I interviewed, and it looked promising enough that Carla and I spent the day driving through neighborhoods there getting a vision for what life could look like for us if we started over somewhere else. The job evaporated, however, when the editor I was interviewing with gave up his desk job, returned to reporting, and took the position.

My goal then shifted from leaving Macon and covering D.C. politics to moving up the ranks and becoming an editor. A new, more aggressive managing editor had been hired, and he began pushing me to “leverage the facts” of the stories I was covering at City Hall to make them seem more scandalous. I wanted no part of that. Fortunately, I was able to transfer to our Warner Robins Bureau where I was assigned the Robins Air Force Base beat.

I didn’t mind the half-hour commute from Macon, and I found the base infinitely fascinating. When units at Robins started deploying on missions over Kosovo and to Kuwait, I was able to write stories with impact and emotion. I built solid relationships with the public affairs officers on base and really took to the assignments.

After about 18 months, more newsroom transitions opened an assistant metro editor position back in the main office. I applied and earned the spot, working side-by-side with my former features editor, James Palmer. We supervised the entire news reporting staff, and I began to see the writing on the wall. When I first arrived in Macon, there had been six such editors – a metro editor, two assistant metro editors, night editor, business editor, and region editor. There was just James and me at that point, and I knew more cuts were on the way. I began to seriously question if newspapers were a sustainable way to earn a living. I had always wanted to get my master’s degree, which seemed impossible with my schedule. I knew I would have to leave journalism if I wanted to further my education and set myself up for career advancement. I had put so many eggs in the journalism basket it was hard to figure out what was next.

One of my duties was editing the weekly business tabloid that published on Mondays. A feature of that publication was a weekly column written by Mercer University business faculty members. The column was supposed to be submitted by 5 p.m. on Thursday, so it could be edited on Friday and laid out before the end of the day. We printed the business tab on Saturday when the presses were available. The Mercer professors consistently missed their deadline and submitted work that required a lot of editing. Even though we didn’t pay for the content, the columns were more trouble than they were worth. I called Mercer’s public relations contact for the business school and told her we were canceling the arrangement. She begged for mercy and asked for me to come by for a meeting. It got me out of the office, so I was amenable.

The meeting went fine. The PR rep, Jennie Treby, let the assistant vice president, Ben McDade, do all the talking. In exchange for one more chance to continue the columns, Ben promised each submission would be on time, the right length, and free from errors. I had no reason to deny the request, so I agreed to continue the columns. When the cordial meeting ended, Jennie left, and Ben asked if I could stay a minute or two longer. He closed the door and told me that when his predecessor, Larry Brumley, left Mercer to work as the head of university relations at Baylor University, Larry told Ben he should hire me. I was flattered but shocked. I still was not ready to leave journalism. Ben said he had an opening and would like for me to think about applying. I told him I would.

Over the next several weeks, I did much soul searching. Leaving journalism was more than a job change, it was an identity crisis. I viewed journalism as a calling and had even served on the national board of the Society of Professional Journalists. I was an advocate for free speech and the First Amendment. I believed public relations practitioners were less than credible, and they mostly just sat around and waited on reporters to call. While I considered the opportunity, conditions at The Telegraph took an even greater toll. The problematic managing editor left, and James and I felt the crush of even more responsibility. I worked past 10 p.m. five days a week and was even coming in on Sundays after church to get the Monday paper out. Carla was in graduate school, driving two nights a week from Macon to Lawrenceville, about a two-hour journey one way, to take classes in the University of Georgia’s part-time Master of Social Work program. We were newlyweds in duration of marriage only. We barely saw each other during the week, and the stress of so much work, school and time apart had us seeing a therapist in our first year of marriage.

One difficult week of working at least 12 hours a day plus Sunday gave me the clarity I needed to make the career move and shift my ambitions. I took Ben up on his offer and left newspaper journalism behind. When I submitted my resignation, Cecil asked if there was anything they could do to keep me or if this was “a lifestyle decision.” I told him it was definitely the latter and didn’t look back.

The next phase of my life and career was uncharted territory.

Nelson Mandela and my historic misstep

Interns notoriously misstep so often that their ineptitude, no matter the field, is a cliché.

I lived up to that cliché when a false step during a journalism internship for Knight Ridder newspapers’ Washington bureau in the fall of 1991 became one of the strangest things to ever happen to me.

That internship proved to be an invaluable experience. It allowed me to cover real stories, receive professional editing and guidance, and, most importantly for a young journalist, have my byline on stories in big city papers like The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Miami Herald, The Detroit Free-Press and San Jose Mercury-News. It was heady and humbling all at the same time. I rode the METRO subway each day from the Eastern Market station on Capitol Hill to the National Press Club building full of hope, energy and disbelief that I could actually be doing what I set out to do. It was a dream come true.

One of the most newsworthy international events that unfolded in the fall of 1991 was South African anti-apartheid activist and political leader Nelson Mandela’s first visit to Washington. He had been released from prison in 1990 but was not yet the president of South Africa. The visit was more diplomatic than political, but the American media were eager to hear his story and learn what was changing in South Africa.

Nelson Mandela, left, shakes hands with U.S. President George H.W. Bush, right, behind two podiums with microphones. — Nelson Mandela met with President George H.W. Bush on his visit to the U.S. in 1991 shortly after his release from prison. He wasn’t smiling so broadly when I stepped on his foot. Photo courtesy of Politico.com

There were two media availabilities for Mandela during his visit – one at the State Department after his official visit and the other at an event at the National Press Club. A little before noon on that early December day, my editor, Reggie Stuart, called me over to his desk to assign me to cover Mandela’s speech at the Press Club upstairs. He told me the state department reporter would cover his remarks there, and I was to get some quotes from his speech at the Press Club to fill out the story. With almost no time to prepare, I frantically dashed back to my desk and started looking up anything in our archives, both print and digital, that might give me some context. This was pre-Internet, so research was more tedious and time consuming.

I lost track of time, and when I looked up, I had exactly two minutes to get to the Press Club. I grabbed a pen, my reporter’s notebook and my press badge and ran to the elevator. With seconds to spare, I reached the check-in table at the door of the meeting room, which was set theater style for about 300. I showed my credentials, signed in and stepped toward the door without really looking around me.

A rather large gentleman in a suit blocked the door. I attempted to get around him to the right, then the left before stepping back to allow him to move out of the doorway. When I did, my right foot landed on something solid. I heard a low moan.

I turned around, and to my horror, I saw Nelson Mandela. What I had stepped on was his foot. The big fella in the doorway? Part of his security detail. The security officer grabbed me by both shoulders and pushed me out of the way. I had stepped on Nelson Mandela’s foot. The man survived 27 years in a South African prison only to come to America for me to cripple him.

Overloaded, my brain shut down. Mandela limped a step or two before recovering as he made his way to the platform. The big guy in the suit glared at me, and I shrank with embarrassment, stumbling over to a seat on the back row. I sat, stunned, as the National Press Club president introduced Mandela who took the podium. It must have been a good speech. There was intermittent clapping. There was laughter. There was a standing ovation at the end. I honestly cannot recall anything that was said. I was in shock. I never opened my notebook.

When the event ended and the room began to clear, it hit me that I didn’t have anything to give Reggie for the story. I had blown it. This was going to be the end of my journalism career. At age 21, I was done.

Careful not to make physical contact with anyone else as I exited, I tried to come up with words to explain what happened. The short elevator ride was not long enough. In just a few minutes I found myself standing at Reggie’s desk waiting for him to get off the phone. When he put the handset back in the cradle, he looked up at me and asked the dreaded question I knew was coming: “What did you get?”

I hemmed and hawed and looked at my feet. Sweat beaded on my forehead. My mouth became parched, and words refused to form on my tongue. Reggie looked at me, puzzled, then let me off the hook.

“Ah, don’t worry about it. We already got the story from his visit to State, and it’s too long anyway. We really don’t have room for any more quotes.”

I nodded and ineloquently thanked Reggie for the opportunity. I went back to my desk, put down my notepad and plopped into my chair with an exhale of relief and shame.

It was one of the strangest things that ever happened to me, and it left an indelible imprint. It took me years to confess its occurrence, but I gradually overcame the post-traumatic hold the encounter had on me. I learned to laugh at it and not take myself too seriously. That story became one of the staples of my self-deprecating anecdotes from my journalism career.

I’m sure over the years the event has grown in my mind, and depending on the audience, I have been known to embellish. Truth is, there were no real consequences. My journalism career didn’t end before it started. Nelson Mandela suffered no long-term effects to his mobility.

The most important takeaways? I gained experience. I grew. I adapted. I learned to be on time and not take myself too seriously.

Oh, yeah, and one more thing: always, always, always watch your step.