No Trouble At All

“Cotton” Ketchie talks
about his latest novel

by Scott Graf   |   photography by Glenn Roberson

Cotton Ketchie may very well be a modern day Renaissance man. The Mooresville native estimates he’s taken around 65,000 pictures over the last 25 years. He’s also an accomplished painter. But Ketchie has one more hobby – writing. He’s written two non-fiction books about growing up in rural North Carolina. His second novel, Trouble in Love Valley is due out this fall. Like the first, it’s largely set in Iredell County. We recently sat down for a conversation with Ketchie at his gallery in Downtown Mooresville.

When did you first start writing?

Gosh, I don’t know. Five years ago, six years ago, maybe. I used to write songs back in the ’70s. And then I didn’t start writing this type of thing until five or six years ago. I would tell stories all the time. People would come in and laugh. They’d say, “You need to write some of this stuff down.”

What is your writing process?

Things just keep coming in my mind. I really don’t write an outline. I don’t know how fiction writers usually write. I just write as it comes to me and the story just keeps on coming and evolving.

Why did you write a sequel to your first novel Little Did They Know?

Because I was threatened by my customers. “You can’t just let these characters just disappear,” they’d say. And my wife said, “If you write another book I’ll kill you,” because she was the editor. I was between a rock and a hard place.

Your stories include local settings like Mooresville and the North Carolina mountains. Why set your stories here?

People love to be able to recognize these places that they’ve been by. It has nothing to do with me. They say write about what you know. Well, that’s what I know about.

Will people who read your fiction recognize any of the characters?

The people I write about are fictitious characters, but they’re based on people that I’ve known growing up. I just kind of build on those people. They’re not really real people, but I got my ideas from real people.

Are there things that you draw on as a photographer and artist that also help you as a writer?

I think so. In the descriptions of people and the countryside, I try to write what I see. I can’t do it as well these writers who’ve written 50 books. I’m still learning. Robert Frost…he could paint a picture with words. I always wanted to do that.

How do you think the quality of your writing stacks up against the quality of your photography and painting?

It’s getting there. I think my second novel is much better than my first. The editor and the publisher didn’t have to slaughter it like they did the first one. It was much easier to write.

What are the differences in painting a picture and telling a story in a book?

I think one of the chief differences is in a painting you have to know what you’re going to do when you start a watercolor. In the fiction I’m writing, I have no clue where it’s going when I start that book. I build my story as I go.

How do you find the time to write?

I get up about 3:30 a.m. and work on Facebook a little bit. Come down to the gallery between 5:30 and 6:30 every morning…And then I write till my employees come in at 10:00. I retired to do what I want to do. I paint when I want to paint. I write when I want to write. And I do my photography when I want to do my photography. I get fussed at a lot because I’m not doing my painting more, but I’m retired — supposedly.

You say you’re retired, but what about your life resembles retirement?

The paycheck. (He laughs.) A person retires to do what they want to do. I can’t see me not being here. This is where I see my friends. I mean, this is the reason I live.

Do you ever get tired?

Oh yeah, I’m tired all the time. But I’m not tired of doing what I do. Sometimes I’ll take a nap and read. I try and read about two books a week. I go to the library every day. The library is my main building in Mooresville. I absolutely love it.

Any new projects in the works?

I’m writing a book called Mooresville: The Way I Remember It and Before. It’s going to have about 350 photographs in it. It’s going to be about the business section of Mooresville, what used to be in the buildings, how I remember it growing up.

How does the satisfaction that you get from your writing compare to the satisfaction you get from your framed work?

About the same. The correlation that I get is when I sell something that I created with my own hands from my own mind. And that’s satisfaction. Nobody else did what I did there. Nobody else painted those brushstrokes on that painting. I did that myself. And somebody wanted it. That humbles me. It really does.