Garg. Another great author passed.  Tom Clancy has died at the age of 66. Wow. When did 66 become “young,” anyway?  Just… Wow.

First a quick recap of who we lost this year.

• Tom Clancy – 66
• Elmore Leonard – 87
• Richard Matheson (I Am Legend and What Dreams May Come)- 87
• Ray Vance (Sci Fi) – 96
• Andrew J. Offutt (Sci Fi) – 78
• Nick Pollotta (Sci Fi) – 57
• Basil Copper (Horror & Detective) – 89
• Daniel Hoffman (Poet Laureate) – 89
• Rick Hautula (Horror) – 64
• Jan Howard Finder (Sci Fi) – 73
• Alan Sharp (Rob Roy) – 79
• Margaret Frazer (Mystery) – 66
• Sol Yurick (The Warriors) – 87
• T.S. Cook (The China Syndrome) – 65

This list excludes screenwriters, some excellent comic book writers, and a ton of journos, most noted of which would have been Roger Ebert.

And now Tom Clancy.

Shit.

I had a false memory that Tom Clancy was a Tech Writer like myself. Nope. He was an insurance salesman. His Baltimore home was near the Baltimore G&E nuclear power plant, which is where old submariners and carrier techs tend to transition into the civilian job market. Interviewing those submariners became the research for The Hunt for Red October.

Tom obviously had a lot more luck interviewing those guys than I did trying to interview Mississippi River Divers when I wrote Diver Down.

By all accounts, Tom’s success never kept himself from self-identifying as an average joe, deferring his respect to the military men and women who gravitated toward his writing.  But celebrity had its privileges.

“It’s like being cured of leprosy,” Tom said. “Before, it was always, ‘Oh, no, here comes Clancy, that insurance agent.’ Now it’s, ‘Oh, here comes Tom Clancy, bestselling author.’ But I’m still the same basic middle-class slob.”

Tom’s passing makes this dreary day even more depressing.

It’s Wordcraft Wednesday, so I’ll give Tom the last word.

“You learn to write the same way you learn to play golf. You do it, and keep doing it until you get it right. A lot of people think something mystical happens to you, that maybe the muse kisses you on the ear. But writing isn’t divinely inspired. It’s hard work.”