A Conversation with Lucy Adams Author of Tuck Your Skirt in Your Panites and Run

Lucy Adams is a wife, a mother, a carpool driver, an author, a freelance writer, a newspaper columnist and a speaker. None of her education prepared her for any of this. She earned a B.S.Ed. from the University of Georgia, an M.S. in experimental psychology from Augusta State University, a graduate certificate of gerontology from UGA, and completed all of the classes, but none of the dissertation (ironically), toward a Ph.D. in developmental psychology (also at UGA). Lucy began writing professionally in 2003, when she talked her way into a weekly newspaper column in a local paper.

 

In Tuck Your Skirt in Your Panties and Run (Palm Tree Press, 2011), she showcases her knack for unraveling a snippet of time, already frayed at the edges, and exposing the whole story, with all of its nuances. Using her same wit and self-deprecating humor as in her first book, If Mama Don’t Laugh, It Ain’t Funny (Palm Tree Press 2007), Adams surrenders to her reader true tales of massacred magnolias, communist pig roasts and 40 year-old bridesmaids, as well as an assemblage of many other mishaps, misjudgments and miscalculations.

Lucy agreed to answer a few questions for us:

Q: How do your family and friends feel about their lives being published?
I have to admit, there’ve been a couple of pieces I published that sent my husband over the edge. He has actually given me a list of things I can’t print about him in the newspaper. For example, I can never write that he “squeals like a school girl” or reference any of his clothing selections as outfits.
My friends laughingly say things like, “Uh oh, you’re not going to put that in the paper are you?” Back in the spring, I talked to a book club about how I handle writing about people I know:

But my children seem to go out of their way to supply me with topics. I even find myself lecturing them on not doing brainless things just to see if I’ll write about them.

Unfortunately, we usually don’t realize how entertaining the chaos is until the crisis du jour has passed. In the moment, I’m like every person – I’m surviving. I hope that in all the minutes that come between racing time to the grave, ha, ha, I’m teaching my children to laugh at themselves and take life’s ups and downs lightly.

Q: How did you get started writing?
My original plan, when I was 5, was to be an artist and live in my parents’ garage and take care of them in their old age. Despite my father nursing that ambition, I ended up being a writer and living down the road from my parents. An arrangement that pleases my mother very much, since she and my dad haven’t decided to get old yet.

My high school friends would tell you that they always knew I would be a writer. My college friends would tell you they were all surprised. My husband says I’m not the same woman he married; that it’s like my alien-inside took over.

I always wanted to write. I sort of gave up on it, though, after high school, seeking to do more practical things with my education and my life. It wasn’t until I was 34, with four children ages 6 and under and a husband who said we needed extra income that I got up the courage to act on it.

I typed up sample columns and went to my local newspaper and asked if I could write for them. Then I called back the editor again, and again, and again, until he said, “Yes, if you’ll quit bothering me. I’ve got work to do.”

Now, in my 40’s, going a day without writing is like going a day without oxygen.

Q: With four children and a husband you must be pretty busy. How do you find time to write?
I write in every sliver of time I can find. I try keep a notebook and a pen with me at all times, everywhere I go. Ideas suddenly come to me and I have to write them down or I’ll never remember them. Sometimes I don’t have my notebook handy when I get inspired on aisle 9 of the grocery store. I’ve written entire stories on the back of my grocery list. I’ve also been known to scribble notes on the backs of soup labels, on napkins, and flattened straw wrappers. Sometimes I dictate to my 14 year-old son when ideas come to me while I’m driving (deciphering his handwriting, however, is whole other challenge in and of itself). I jot things down while in waiting rooms, dressing rooms, and bathrooms. I have lots of scraps of paper stashed here, there, and everywhere with various notes. Often, writing a story is like piecing a puzzle together, literally.

Q: What authors do you admire and why?
All the female southern authors who came before me. And Faulkner, of course. Why? Because their voice and tone and story-telling is part of my heritage. They influenced not just my writing, but how I view the world.

Q: What do you hope readers will get from your books and other work?
My writing style tends toward the dissection of singular moments, unraveling them and uncovering their most basic but oft overlooked parts. If readers don’t get anything else from my writing, I want them to gain an appreciation for the miracle in the mundane. The majority of life takes place in the daily routine, not in big milestone moments. To really live and appreciate our existence and get the most out of it we have to find joy, inspiration, humor, meaning in the ordinary and arbitrary.