We caught up with the brilliant and insightful L D Sledge a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

L D, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What did your parents do right and how has that impacted you in your life and career?

My father (always called him daddy) never uttered a cussword or had anything negative to say about another. He was not religious, although his mother, my grandma, was the superintendant for the methodist church in my tiny county town, Castor, in NW Louisiana.

He owned and ran one of the five stores in town, a general merchandise selling everything from hoop cheese to nails, from patent medicine and overalls to fertilizer, ice cream and sheetrock. I worked in the store every day after school and Saturdays until I went off to LSU in the spring of 53. In those days nobody was open on Sunday. He loved to fish and we went fishing every sunday. I don’t remember him ever giving me any “advice” or business direction—he had total faith in me and I wouldn’t hurt his feelings by doing something stupid. All he had to do is frown and I would get back in line.

He spanked me one evening when I was around 5 years old. The principal of the high school, daddy’s fishing buddy, had a little boy Mike around 4 years old, and we played together. He had a little wooden toy gun I liked and I took it. It was his favorite. He cried to his daddy who reported it to daddy.

Daddy asked where I got it. I lied, saying that Mike gave it to me.
He took me into the bathroom, put me over his knee and whacked my butt with a hairbrush. I remember not being able to believe my sweet daddy whipping me–it was so out of character. Then I noticed his eyes glistening with unshed tears. He said, “You lied. You stole Mike’s gun.” That is for lying. He put me across his lap again and whacked me again, and said, “That is for stealing.” The best lesson ever. And I never forgot it and those words followed me all of my life when I found myself literally unable to lie or steal. In business as a lawyer I exaggerated the injuries of my client and my opponent minimized them–justification prevarication.

I learned from him by example. He was and is yet my shining idol. He was trusted by everyone as a good man. He was Lawrence Leon and he gave me the name Lawrence David, yet they called him Laurie (a scottish man’s name and the name of a doctor and a judge and other men in that part of the country. I was Laurie David growing up, all the way through college was known as Laurie until I went in service and Laure became a woman’s name.

Though a little man in size, he was and is a giant in my memory. He influenced every phase of my life.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Reading has always been my passion, and that accounts for my bookshelves occupying most of the wall space in my home, containing thousands of books of every conceivable topic, from science fiction to street fighting, poetry and mortgages. I graduated from a small country school in NW Louisiana near the Texas border that had baseball and basketball, but no music, art, chemistry or sophistication, but I was lucky to have a PHD speech teacher. I was his “star quarterback”, by winning speech tournaments competing with AAA schools statewide in debate, after dinner speaking, theater and was the State champ orator. Consequentially I love the stage and giving public speeches. However, I was lost as to where I was and having no real direction listened to a family friend who encouraged me to be a lawyer—so I headed in that direction though I had never met a lawyer and had none in any branch of my family. I had read ‘ , and that gave me an idea, but at 17 I had no idea of what my abilities were except public speaking.

However, the first theme I ever wrote was my first semester at LSU in 1953. The professor’s belittling and invalidating marks in his grading rather than discouraging actually spurred me to learn writing. I didn’t have any idea what I did not know that was important. At the time I was just a raw country boy going to the city to become a lawyer and I had no real idea what a lawyer really did.

My undergraduate years became party time, and I really wanted to go to Europe so I used my law degree to join the Army Judge Advocate General (legal) with a promise from my congressman of an assignment in Paris. What happened was anything but my dream coming true. My congressman had a heart attack, I defended a soldier my first case and lost (In the military you don’t win court martials or the officers who referred to trial get in trouble.) My CO was an alcoholic and didn’t like me and I managed to get reassigned to Fort Benning, Georgia. where I won every case assigned to me to defend. I really never really wanted to be a lawyer but nonetheless I won every case assigned to me to defend and got married. I wanted to write and be an artist, not a lawyer.

I returned to Baton Rouge and set up an office and began winning every case and making money as a personal injury lawyer, hoping to grasp the gold ring as I spun around on the carousel of the law and get out so I could write. I stuck with it for 43 years, quitting three times in investments and businesses with the wrong associates, going broke each time and having to get back in to survive. I did manage to write some while practicing law but I still felt inadequate as a writer, and at the end of my practice in 2003 I had money to survive and began writing in earnest.

I moved to Cleawater, Florida. I would get up early every morning, pick a random topic, and write about it. My topics ranged from politics to fishing, to health and relationships. I have two large shelves filled with single spaced, 12 point, on ———. (names of the posts).

The East Coast Theatre began having readings of a famous pulp fiction writer, and I was in 8 or 9 productions to great raves, and was asked to be lead in two years productions of Night on Broadway here in Clearwater. We had two completely different productions in 2010 and 2011. I not only was lead but sang in one and even danced in the other.

I continued writing every morning, and finally it became routine and I would get an idea, and rather than being concerned about grammar, it just flowed, and one morning I realized I could write—I was a writer. Effortless. I learned to make sure I had my facts right, write it as it flowed out and then go back and make corrections. For the past 20 years I have literally been on fire, and that fire generated enough art canvasses to have an art gallery a year or so back and start with music.

When I was in the fourth grade, Mama took me to a piano teacher in a Ringgold, 10 miles distant from Castor, my home town in Louisiana. I took lessons for a year, quit, and started back on my own in the 10th, and baseball took over. But no more lessons. I learned to read music and was alone as there was no one else around into music and I continued to play, collecting sheet music during those interim decades. Then five years ago I picked it up again and realized I was good enough to play at nursing homes, and then good enough to play background at events, restaurants, etc. I played at a nursing homes and events during Christmas. On Feb 2nd, I played at the opening of an art gallery classical and pop for the middle age and older crowd. I love playing for others..

Back in 2000, I began ghostwriting and wrote a dozen or so for other authors, completing their books for them. The titles of a few of my work are below. Two years ago I began writing blogs and wrote 2 a week for a nutraceutical company, while writing one a week for an agricultural company selling a product that doubled crop production. I love raw research and it sometimes took hours to get the material together for a 750 word blog that had original material. Then suddenly 2 months ago I was let go. I learned later that both had CEO’s getting trained in AI and no longer needed me for one can get on Chatgpt and knock out an AI researched and written blog in 5 minutes and not have to pay an original writer. So I began to learn AI.

I refuse to allow AI to take over my creativity. It violates my sense of writers’ ethics. However, it is a good tool for research that can give one ideas he many never discover doing even digging it out alone. This can then spark one’s individual creative style and be converted into highly readable, instructive, inspirational or entertaining information.

Currently, I am narrating my several novels into audiobooks, and recently Audible.com published my New Orleans thriller, “Dawn’s Revenge.” I am marketing it to truck drivers and the market. I am now narrating “Nimrod’s Peril,” my fantasy that also has a screenplay (“Musette” being marketed by InkTip a Hollywood company marketing scripts to producers. I will continue narrating until they are all done, and perhaps I will narrate some of my short stories, as I have around 30 done, out of my list of 120 topics I hope to get on paper.

I gave a seminar on writing anything, and it inspired me to write a book on how to write anything, the original title being “Do You Have A Story That Should Be Told? This book will help you write it.” Available on Amazon. Name changed to “The Complete Writer’s Guide, Unlocking the secrets of every genre,” as the second edition which will fix anything needing fixing in the first edition with some needed additions.

I want to record my 100 page book of poems, Words In Flight, accompanied by music I will compose for those poems. I have done that with a couple of my poems in the past and it was well received.

I am a man with aspirations of creating as much beauty as possible during this turn around. I have managed to remove many of my distractions and realized that I am a communicator whose basic purpose is to reach, touch and change others, making them have a little respite from their daily introversions, pull them out to take a look around momentarily at least until they dive back in. Regardless of how stupid and bad people act, they are basically good beings, (Even Joe Biden) and it should be understood that they are trying to be happy. I do that with anyone I meet who is willing to look up into my face, and when I walk away they are a better person and hopefully have had a cool moment-smiling, laughing. I do that with the cashier at Walmart and the stranger walking beside me on the sidewalk. I do that remotely by my writing, art and music. When I am done I want to have left a memorable track.

I know this has become overly (perhaps far too long) and I realize there is much more I can say.

To back up some of my brags, here something about happy clients:

I wrote a book for Dr. Ernie Pecoraro:

Here is what Dr. Pecoraro said about my work: “I hired LD Sledge as a ghostwriter for a book about financial management. I can’t speak highly enough about his work! Besides being a great writer and a thorough researcher on the subject of the book, he was always open to suggestions I had on additions and changes to make the book better and better. He put long hours writing and rewriting to deliver far more than expected! He continually kept in communication with me and was very easy to work with. He made this an interesting and exciting experience for me. I highly recommend him to anyone that wants help in writing a book. He took my ideas and opinions and brought them to life with colorful language and detailed descriptions. Thanks LD! I not only got a great book out of your work but a great friend!” Dr. Ernest A. Pecoraro

I wrote “The Death Of American Healthcare,” for Advanced Medical Integration when I worked for that company blogging and article writing.

Recommendation for L D Sledge

Relationship with L D

L D came to work for Advanced Medical Integration (AMI) as a writer in November 2017. We integrate Chiropractors and MD’s, and other healthcare providers, under one roof who collaborate in treating each patient without drugs or surgery. LD worked on an hourly basis in our office until June, 2019 during which time he wrote several hundred excellent blogs, articles, and performed anything he was called on to do. He also created from scratch and wrote The Death of American Healthcare, a 365 page book for the founder and owner Mike Carberry. It is selling as fast as we can have them printed. It is predicted to be a blockbuster book that exposes the dark side of the American healthcare system.

His work

L D is an artist in the craft of writing in any genre, fiction or non-fiction. And he is fast. If he is assigned something, he has it done and polished faster than I would have ever expected. He is a brilliant researcher, creative and is able to create work that is readable, enlightening and entertaining. He is able to call on a wide range of life and business experience to integrate into his work that gives a feel of reality, and he can write in the “voice” of anyone he writes for.

Recommendation

L D can write rings around others we have seen. He is reliable, honest, loyal and a man of integrity. He produced assignments timely and stays in communication to make sure that he is producing what is needed and wanted as his work progresses. He is a man of rare talent and anyone hiring him to write would be lucky to get him. Any inquiries are welcome

.Jeremy Haug, CEO, AMI

Subject: Letter of Recommendation for LD Sledge

To whom it may concern,

I am writing to highly recommend LD Sledge for his outstanding contributions in writing blogs for our company. LD has been an invaluable asset, having authored over 100 blogs that have significantly enriched our content portfolio.

His dedication, creativity, and strong work ethic were evident in every piece he produced. His ability to tackle diverse topics with depth and clarity showcased a profound understanding of our company’s objectives.

LD consistently met deadlines and demonstrated a keen attention to detail, ensuring that each blog met the highest standards. Beyond his writing prowess, LD was a pleasure to work with, always willing to collaborate and contribute ideas to enhance our content strategy. His positive attitude and commitment to excellence have left a lasting impact on our team.

I have no doubt that LD would excel in any future endeavors.

Best regards,

Chuck Jacobs Special Projects Director Private Label Beauty & Wellness (CustomNutra

To whom it may concern,

I would like to highly recommend LD Sledge for his outstanding ability to create

interesting and engaging blog posts (in addition to his other literary skills.) LD was able

to take a highly technical subject and humanize it in writing blogs for our company and

make what some might call a boring subject entertaining.

He also did an amazing job in interviewing and highlighting in his stories how our

customers successfully used our products to enhance their business and their lives, His

strong work ethic, creativity, and dedication were evident in every piece he produced.

I feel quite confident in saying that LD Sledge will be an asset to any marketing activity.

Sincerely,

Sam Licciardi

COO

Harvest Harmonics International

My Novels and ghostwritten books:

All of my novels are for sale on Amazon

“Dawn’s Revenge,” A New Orleans Thriller; Available as an audiobook on Audible.com

“Nimrod’s Peril,” a fantasy; I am narrating this for Audible now.

“Heirloom,” New Oreans Thriller

“Command Influence,” Military Court Martial I defended and won while in JAG.

“Cajun Delectables,” A 114 page Cajun cookbook with 100 recipes and history of Cajun people.

Ghostwritten: “No Fail Hiring,” collaboration with Patrick Valtin, Int. Management;

“Riches to Rags,” a financial management book, Dr. Ernie Pecoraro.

“The Death of American Healthcare,” Dr.Carberry

“The Living History of Tibet,” Narkuid Ngawangthandup, (Kuno)

“Medical-Legal Handling of Traumatic Injuries for Judges and Lawyers,” Dr. Alan Johnston, Orthopedic.

“My Life in Israel,” by an 85 year old German Expat. Who moved to Israel when he was 2, and what he experienced in his adopted land that they converted from desert to garden.

This is just a partial list.

I have at least 3 million words in print, including the weekly journal of 500 to 1000 words per morning from the year 2003-2006, and on my daily “Rant for the two years preceding that, and then on “Typepad” which was similar to Facebook, where you write and sent stuff to friends online. In total it has to be much more than 3 million.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I went to a big University, L S U, after graduating from a tiny country school with literally no math, English (I had never written a theme) art, music, and almost flunked freshman English and math and had to transfer schools to Northeastern, and small college, so I could take business math and helped me skip algebra and math at LSU, and after summer school returned to LSU in the fall. It forced me transfer to the college of commerce from Liberal arts where I wanted to learn writing and art.

Then I sailed through college and Law School, and wanting to go to Europe and be a part of the Ambassador’s office, my girlfriend got pregnant and I had to give up my dreams of Europe that had driven me through law school as I was promised by my Congressman for an assignment in Paris, instead I had to return to Louisiana to practice.

I never wanted to be a practicing lawyer—but I excelled because of my ability to focus, and became famous in South Louisiana as a personal injury trial lawyer, (I was good getting clients and trying cases before juries (I tried over 200 jury trials and at least that many judge only trials, and lost maybe a half dozen.) I quit 3 times to write and do art and went broke having to return to law each time. Then my daddy died in January 1994, Jake, my beloved 13 year old was killed in a bike accident in May, and mama committed suicide around Christmas and my wife wanted a divorce. It wrecked me.

I left my office in the hands of a skilled paralegal and her lawyer boyfriend whom I gave free office space to cover for me. It took nearly 3 months to get my head straight, but I was in touch with them several times a week and returned to handle things monthly at least. When I hired a professional legal secretary, my paralegal quit and accused me of neglecting my practice (she was the only one complaining and learned was jealous of my success, and turned me over to the bar, knowing that I had political problems with one justice of the supreme court, having some data about her selling out to the highest bidder. Charges were brought that I had neglected my cases and clients. However, they were handled by the paralegal and her lawyer boyfriend until I returned, and nobody was injured. I never heard a complaint. The judge knew I could be silenced if she chased me out of state, and in 2003, 5 years after charges were brought I was disbarred for five years, with never a complaint having been made in 43 years of active successful practice.

In five years I reapplied and was given my license back by the committee, but when it reached the same supreme court judge she denied without giving reasons.

The years since 2003 have been riding an accusation of doing something that justified disbarment which usually required moral turpitude. Yet that was the court of last appeal and I had no way to fight it. I have had several opportunities that failed when it was discovered I had been disbarred. Humiliating to say the least.

This was one of the horrors I carried all of my life—first to lose someone deeply loved and second to suffer an injustice and be shamed publicly. Since then I have worked incessantly creating beautiful stories, art and music—helped hundreds of people over these past 20 years.

I have to admit, had it not been for the disbarment I would have never found my true love in writing, art and music and things aesthetic. The law simply didn’t have that kind of mind. That is why I quit 3 times and could have fought the process but was ready to get out of law and maybe should have made some noise and told what I knew about the judge—she knew how to shut me down and I didn’t care. My lawyer said they had no case and didn’t fight it. He didn’t even cross examine the paralegal or her lawyer boyfriend about the work they did for me while I was absent.

Then I saw a light and followed it and now have found myself. I now have hundreds of new trusted friends here (for example 5000 friends on Facebook), and I stand tall and proud and don’t look back in shame or regret—just with understanding.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

I start creating a product from a idea with no raw material other than my imagination and the end result is something I admire and inspires me as its creator, and having that satisfaction the feeling and moves on to others to bring them up—and gives them the taste of joy it gave me in its creation. It gives me joy like no other pursuit or effort can.

I quite frankly don’t see the bit about Mona Lisa’s fame (I saw the original in the Louvre’) , or Miles Davis or Coltrane, or the artists that just splatter paint on the canvas or play without rhythm or melody , etc.. I was at Guggenheim museum in Venice at the invitation of the Curator. It was at a gorgeous location, on a canal and I spied a huge, prize painting that sported only a brown smear at the top right corner. Skidmark. That is not art that came a beautiful personal spirit like the Pieta in Rome, or even some abstracts or melodies or poems that are just mind numblingly beautiful. It isn’t the pigmentation or brush strokes, it is the soul of the artist I am seeing.

I can play piano and when I really feel what the composer felt it makes me cry, something within me soars. Before my little show last Friday at the art gallery, I played Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World.,” and my wife was crying and so was I. It came from my resonance through the piano strings of what the composer meant to say. I believe a tractor or an old root dug from earth, can be beautiful art. Being able to see and feel things all around us can trigger that resonance within us waiting and ever ready to work its charm and let us feel its life. And that life is us. I look for that—it is inexplicably spiritually beautiful and can come at any time from a simple observation of wind in the trees, or a child at play, and I find my art in writing, painting and music evokes this regularly. It is my goal to re-create it in words, on canvas, or in music. I have made it happen, and I gotta tell you, when they get it there is no reward like it—that your candle touched his or hers and it kindled a flame that can be felt. It is my paycheck.

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