About a week ago, there was a post on the Sevierville Speaks Out Facebook page. A gentleman was requesting local writers message him their word rate to write a local article, 2000-4000 words, twice a week. I was tagged by four people. So I thought, I’ll humor them. “Good morning” I wrote, using his name. “I was tagged by a few people on your post in Sevierville Speaks Out. I’m a native Sevier County resident. I worked at the Co-op downtown for 13 years, and now work as a secretary for {I’m not publicly announcing my location to potential stalkers}. I’ve met a lot of local color…some might say I AM the local color. 😁

I’ll be completely honest, I don’t have a rate per word. I have a blog that I started last year. Please feel free to check it out and you can get a clear idea of my style. Amysappalachia.com

I have written two articles for our local fair book, an article for 911 magazine, and the feature for the first installment of Sevierville Living.

I would be interested in learning more about your position. Thank you.”

The message I got in response five days later was clipped and standardized. “Hello.  We offer 3 cents a word.  If you are still interested, please send you name, address, and a sample writing the 3rd person to …. Regarding Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge area.”

No personalization. This tells me lots of things. One, they don’t care. Two, it won’t last long. Three, I already don’t like them, they’re obviously not local themselves or they wouldn’t reach out to the masses. Four, he didn’t proofread.

But at y’alls persuasion, I thought I’d give it a try. And here are my false starts:

They talk about how rich they are, but as she surveys her surroundings, all she sees is poverty. There are broken flowerpots and random pine boards scattered around…long past-their-prime couches that had migrated from the living room to the porch to the yard, after space was needed for the stacks of cardboard, boxes of glass bottles, and piles of newspapers. There are derelict appliances, battered automobiles…and a boat, she notes with some surprise. The boat has a tree growing on the starboard side in front of the steering seat. A goat wanders aimlessly, a dandelion dangles from its mouth. It eyes her with some suspicion…or is that just the natural expression for goats? She isn’t sure. This is the first time she’s ever encountered one in real life.

Hannah wasn’t even sure she’s even in America anymore, this is so far removed from Chicago. On the twisty road getting here, two people had waved at her. Well, she supposed it was a wave. It was kind of a peace sign flicked up for just an instant, but judging from the looks of the men who saluted, they weren’t of the hippie persuasion.

“What’s that smell?” She asked her hosts before she can stop herself.

They regard each other seriously.

But then I thought, I can’t start in the middle, it needs a background. So I wrote:

She didn’t know the mountains. People had warned her, though: don’t try to win over the neighbors, wait for them to bring you some jam. Weird advice, but Hannah was smart enough to take it.

It was three days after the last of her belongings had been delivered, and she was out in her yard, inspecting the gutters, when she saw it. A long black tail, attached to what she could see was a very long slender body. There wasn’t a shotgun in the house, but she knew she’d seen a shovel leaned against (according to what she researched via Google) the well house. She was just fixing to stun the snake when they ran up shouting.

“Don’t kill it!! Don’t kill it!”

A lady in a flower patterned blouse and a man in a blue checked shirt sped up to her, nearly tripping in the gravel in their haste. Once they got closer, she noticed their heavily lined, tanned skin and small, untrusting eyes.

Natives, she deduced.

No jelly jar in sight, they each offered her their right hands, which she shook reluctantly and without much force. This would be remarked on later at the Baptist church evening service.

But then I thought, well, they don’t necessarily want a story with a plot, they probably just want a description.

So, then this:

Sevier County:

It’s bluegrass festivals and southern gospel conventions. Country music up-and-comers at the theater shows. It’s sleepy, sweaty, sticky children. It’s moonshine tasting and horseback riding and mini golf. It’s waving when somebody lets you into a line of traffic, or asking directions at a gas station and getting five differing opinions from three locals. It’s a church on every corner and Big Orange Saturdays. It’s rain followed by sunshine as quick as a hiccup. It’s fudge and apples and fried chicken. It’s taking a backroad and stopping for turkeys to cross. It’s shopping for pottery and candles. It’s riding the tram and seeing the lights and catching a parade that has more tractors than convertibles. It’s tin roofs and overalls. It’s hearing the train whistle on a clear, still day.

It’s Dolly.

It’s all of this, surrounded by the mist and magic of the Great Smoky Mountains.

But then again, there was no person anything, so I started back with this:

Margaret Ann didn’t know any better. She thought everybody was this friendly. Maggie grew up in Sevier County.

No good. Again, telling stories. Am I over thinking this? And I liked the name Charlotte better but couldn’t bring myself to use it.

Should I just tell it like it is? That always worked for me before…but if the object was to draw people here…for some cabin company that probably bought the land for a song and proceeded to build a bunch of shoddily constructed cabins on it, essentially ruining the view for countless others, how can I sleep at night?

I can’t sell my soul. Especially my soul at three cents a word.

So, in summary:

I found it pretty much impossible to write something in third person about where I’ve been completely saturated my entire life. I could probably write about living in the city in third person, but not my hometown. I’m too close.

The difference between natives and locals are the natives don’t do the touristy stuff. They just don’t. They may be persuaded to go to Dollywood once a year– if someone gives them tickets. They don’t go on “Sevier County Days”, no sirree Bob. Too crowded. They might go to Cades Cove one Sunday evening, just as the sun’s going down, and count every deer they see, and put up with Dad’s relentless comments about “I wish I had my 30.06…”. 

It’s benefit auctions and pancake supper fundraisers for people you’ve known so long, you don’t remember how you know them, you just do. It’s tent revivals and baptisms in the river. It’s Douglas Lake when it’s sweltering and a moon pie and a mountain dew from the Dam Store on the way. Or maybe Greenbrier if it’s extra special hot and humid. It’s family Bibles proudly displayed and real Christmas trees cut off the back forty. It’s deer meat at Thanksgiving because it’s also muzzleloader season. It’s threatening to shoot the neighbors dog if it barks all night again and confederate flags on rusty pickup trucks. It’s fly swatters on top of the refrigerator and heading to the funeral home too often to count. It’s a fried bologna sandwich and sweet tea from the corner store consumed while you lay in the hammock and pretend to flip through a magazine, but really you’re not doing anything because it’s too hot to breathe. It’s being proudly defensive of our heritage but not flaunting it.

I started to write about my Sevier County, but then I decided I don’t want to share it. I didn’t realize I was so angry and defensive until I started trying to write something to submit and it made me feel dirty and untrustworthy and just flat-out wrong. Sure, the tourists keep the tax dollars flowing but they don’t bring life to our town. They bring impatience and waste. They bring their mannerisms and rules and want to change us. We don’t want trash pickup, we want to burn it. We don’t want a city park, we want our land taxes lowered so we can buy more acres of our own. We want to grow our corn to feed to our smelly cattle without you saying what we get to spray on it to kill Johnsongrass so we don’t have to hire a Spanish Armada to keep it weeded. We want to carry our pocket knife in the bank without being looked at like we’re a hoodlum.

We want our county back. And take your drugs with you. (You should probably leave the left handed cigarettes, though). And if we had coal mines, I’d want them back operational, too. 

And I don’t want to write in third person.