“Gotta write! Gotta write!”

“Gotta write! Gotta write!”

This past Friday I was sitting on the couch, wanting to break out and tap around the living room when those in Singin’ in the Rain did, not even contemplating anything other than turning my mind into mush for two solid hours when Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly) began performing his Broadway portion of The Dancing Cavalier for his boss, R.F. Simpson, and I realized — with a pang — how closely the acting and writing worlds resemble each other.

For there Gene Kelly’s character was with his hat brim bent like a hobo’s, these thick-framed “nerd alert” glasses, a canary-yellow vest, a tattered brown suitcase, but the one thing he was carrying — which stuck out more than any of these — was an exuding sense of please-oh-please-take-advantage-of-me-at-every turn. While spouting the phrase, “Gotta dance! Gotta dance!” he flitted up to a row of doors with “Agent” stamped across them and began pounding away. He was denied entrance at every turn until the last door swung open, and the agent ushered him into a world teeming with scantily dressed women, corrupt mob figures, poker tables, and just about everything else that — in the ’50s when Singin’ in the Rain was filmed — portrayed a life fraught with degradation.

Upon entering this world, Don Lockwood turned into quite the chameleon: changing according to the colors of the characters surrounding him. He began wearing the slick tuxedoes and swarthy grins of the mob figures. He danced with a woman who slurped on cigarettes longer than her white, stilt-like legs. But after said stilt-leg woman’s affections were bought by the mob’s abundant wealth, he found his “Gotta dance! Gotta dance!” dreams as crushed as his heart. Before the Broadway scene ended, another wanna-be actor appeared in front of those “Agent” doors while wearing the bent hobo hat and exuding sense of please-oh-please-take-advantage-of-me-at-every turn; thus perpetuating the cycle of naïve dreams soon to be ground to dust.

Well, I’m certainly not at the point where I’ll begin pounding at literary agency doors through the mailing of query letters, but I know from those who have already done so that I will be faced with rejection after rejection once I begin. I also know that I’m extremely naïve and trusting and probably tote this around like a flashing neon backpack. I can only pray that if an agent ever ushers me into that literary world, I will not become caught in the goop of glam and glitter but will hold fast to who I am and where I have come from.

This brings me to two wonderful women and writers who have done just that, River Jordan and Shellie Rushing Tomlinson. Just this week they embarked on their Southern Wing and a Prayer Tour, and I had the pleasure of meeting up with them at The Loveless Cafe in Nashville a few hours before they did. Immediately after arriving — just a tad behind schedule (it is The Wing and Prayer Tour, after all) — River and Shellie embraced everyone as if they were their long-lost relatives rather than just fellow writers and words lovers.

Over the course of our meal, rather than talking about their tour and new books, Shellie and River asked those at the lunch to share a little about who they are, and what they’re currently working on. River offered tidbits of encouragement to the writers; and Shellie, with tears in her eyes, said how honored she was to be there among us.

On the way home, stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic, I called my mother. She asked how the lunch went. I said, “If this writing stuff ever takes me anywhere, I want to be just like them.” (I’m not the most poetic on the phone.)

And I meant it, too; for River Jordan and Shellie Rushing Tomlinson have both walked into that literary world, have seen the glam and glitter it can provide, yet have remained true to who they are and where they have come from. Due to this, their dreams have not been ground to dust, but have been made stronger because of the foundations they’ve built them upon.