Miscellaneous items

Lately I've been studying how to write fiction stories in the hopes that I could then produce better stories. I can't say that I do now write better than before, since I'm still trying to learn how to do it. I am looking forward to some of it sinking in or rubbing off on me, but only time will tell.

I have been also studying up on marketing and selling for self-publishers or indie writers. I knew exactly zero on this subject when I began writing and over the years have picked up on a few tips, but they don't seem to be helping me much. I'm sure my reading will help me on this subject, but I'm not certain about the doing of it yet.

And, I've also been checking up on some events that maybe I could afford to attend this year. The Tucson Festival of Books is out and I don't want to travel around the country carting a trunk full of books, so maybe I will just sit this year out. I have been contacted by someone looking for writers who would enter their books in some events like the Chicago Festival of books, but I think he was just trying to make some money by selling spots that are not very cheap for a three-day event. He called me again to see if I wanted to enter my book, Blood and Blazes in Upamona, at a special price, but I can't afford what he said. I tried selling a few times as I've said once or twice before and here is proof:

You can see Blood and Blazes in Upamona is to my right in the pic. But that day was a waste of time,
since nothing was sold. I may try an event here in Arizona if I'm feeling well enough, we'll see. I'll probably sell some at the church a couple blocks away later this month.

Enjoy the Spring weather and sell lotsa books!

Wanderlust Creek and Other Stories by Elisabeth Grace Foley

I've had this book on my Kindle for PC for a few months, but hadn't got around to reading it until now. I thought Ron Scheer had written a review of it but I went back through his blog posts and couldn't find it. I knew that he could do a much better review of it than I could, because he had a really nice way with words, more formal yet not, just a great use of the English language. The book cover still shows on the front page at his Buddies in the Saddle blog. I followed him up to the end and am sure sorry he is no longer with us.

Anyway Elisabeth Grace Foley is a fine writer of short stories that she tells with grace and charm, even though some of them in this book are action-packed and bloody. She tells and show us the feminine side of life in these hard times of the West. The women had to endure much hand-wringing and worry over the men they loved and this is brought out in the final story, Wanderlust Creek. There are women in the other stories, but the woman in this one is more fully described in showing the type of life some women had to live through. This story is at the end of the lot.

The first story is Single-Handed, about a gunslinger that has a messed up gun hand from a fall that broke his wrist and must face an up and comer gun slick who challenges him. Does he live or die?

The Rush at Mattie Arnold's is a completely different type of story, being the tale of a small town cafe owned by Mattie and showing the daily routine she and her daughter goes through feeding and dealing with their clientele, both humorous and serious at the same time.

A Search for Truth is a story of cattle rustlers and ordinary men and women caught up in it. A fine story.

Another fine one is The Mustanger's Bride. Can a mustanger make a good, settled-down husband or not? Her father doesn't think so, but she ain't goin' to give 'im up.

Room Service is an interesting story of disagreement between father and son. I knew the young man was in trouble when he checked into the hotel and just had to keep reading to find out what was going on. 
 
Ms. Foley writes historical fiction and the Mrs. Meade Mysteries series. Her favorite authors she says on her profile page are O. Henry, B. M. Bower, Booth Tarkington, Jane Austen, Agatha Christie, Leo Tolstoy, Mary Stewart, P. G. Wodehouse, A. A. Milne, and Angela Thirkell. You can read her blog at www.thesecondsentence.blogspot.com.

Tired of It!

I'm getting tired of not having any writing time over the past few days and weeks. I kept up with most of my blogs, but hardly any production on my novel. I have now about 110 pages of the first draft done and am getting ready to begin on the ending part, but just haven't had any time for writing. As I look back on it, where did the time go?

For one thing, it's income taxes. My little income is very taxing, but Uncle Sam says I have to send them something every damn year so they can build their bridges and streets. I have just about completed this year's submission and hope to finish it within a week. And another thing, is all the time I spend eating. I probably waste half my time for writing, stuffing the large, disproportionate, misshapen mid-section of my body with various chips, dip, bread, meat, cheese, veggies, etc . not to mention the time it takes to travel from and to the many restaurants.
And, there is still the continuing normal everyday "stuff" that takes up my time.

Anyway, here is another short excerpt from the draft:

--------------------
The Merik house, which they saw from the trail was another quarter-mile set in a clearing surrounded by cedars and pine trees on the flats. Approaching a gate, the Kid and Bobby were jolted out of their silence by shots from a rifle that whizzed by a couple of feet over their heads.

"Hold up there, and don't come any closer!" a female voice carried through the darkening night. "Who are you and what do you want?"

"This is Kid Ferry and Bobby-Chase-the-Lord!" the Kid yelled. "We came to see about a cabin that we heard was empty. We need a place to stay for a while. We're comin' on in."

"Don't try any tricks or I'll let you have it with this rifle!" said Daphne Merik. "Come ahead slow and stay on your horses!"

"If you shoot you'll kill the new sheriff of Idle Springs or his deputy," said Ferry, nearing the front of the house. "Trace Schneider said you may have a cabin we could rent, and we're desperately in need of a place to take off our boots and grab some shuteye."

"It is you, all right, Mister Ferry," said Daphne, rising from her position behind the bushes planted along the front of the house next to the hitch rail. "I'm sure glad it wasn't that useless gang of thieves of Serge Castinat. Two of 'em came by here and threatened to burn us out if we didn't pack up and get out of Idle Springs. Pa told 'em we weren't going anywhere and they knocked him down jumped on him, and hit him some more. I don't know why anyone would want this place."

"Why don't you put down that piece of artillery and we'll dismount and take a cup of coffee with you," said the Kid, "Or if you haven't had supper, we'd sure like to join you. How's Mister Merik doin'?"
 
"Pa's in bed licking his bumps and bruises them cowards put on him, but he'll be up and around in a day or two," she said and opened the front door. "Come on in and I'll warm up some beans and throw in some bread and a cantaloupe fresh off the vine. That's about all we have to eat right now."

"Sounds like a biblical feast to me the way my stomach has been growlin'," said Bobby, rubbing his midsection. He removed his hat and followed her into the cabin behind the Kid.

"Can I talk to your father a minute, Miss Merik?" said Kid Ferry. "Maybe he can help identify those skunks that beat him up."

"He's probably sleepin'. His room is down that hallway there, the first door on your left. If he's awake, he'll talk to you."

The house was an oblong, five-room affair with the front room taking up the area from wall to wall. The hall was on the right side of the house that led past three rooms and to the kitchen. The kitchen was the same size as the front room and held a wood-burning stove in one corner on which always sat the coffee pot. A large dining table and eight chairs made up the bulk of the furniture. Against one wall were the cupboard and a smaller table for food preparation or other use for which there was a need.

Bobby followed the lady of the house to the kitchen, where she told him to take a seat at the table. She disappeared through the back door and returned carrying a cantaloupe and some raw potatoes.

"They was the Castinat twins, Willie and Wylie, that beat me up," said Mister Merik from his bed. His face was white where it wasn't bruised or cut. "They both had beards coverin' their faces them cowards. I was just finished milkin' my cows when they rode up saying they wanted to parley. They began cussin' at me tellin' me I better hightail it out of Idle Springs. Wylie yelled that his father wanted this no-good ranch for his cattle. And when I told 'em I wasn't movin' fer anyone, they both climbed off their horses and Willie knocked me to the ground. They both jumped on top of me and I couldn't do nothin' with Wylie holdin' my arms pinned to the ground and Willie hittin' me with his fists. I was about to pass out when Daphne shot at them and missed. They ;jumped up and shot back, but nobody hit anything, thank God. They hopped on their horses and rode away. Daphne said she thought she winged one of 'em, but couldn't tell for sure. She helped me up and led me to my bed and here I lay That's about all there is to tell you, Sheriff."

"Why them dirty polecats, pickin' on a ole man," said Kid Ferry, looking at the bed at the beat-up face of Merik. "First thing tomorrow, me and Bobby are goin' to make a call on the Castinats. How many are they anyway? I thought we was up against only that Serge after Bobby shot his brother. We heard he went back into town with a gang. Who are they, Mister Merik?"

"Probably Willie and Wylie and their cousins the Barnetts. There's a passel f them, too."

(Copyrighted material.)
-----------------

NOTE: The Header picture is a photo of the cliffs that are on the northwest side of Sedona. Rocky, the tour boss, took us to a ranch there that was now abandoned, but is an attraction for tenderfoots. An interesting and picturesque old place with remnants of the ranch house still standing. 

The Texan by James B. Hendryx

I'll start right off by giving this novel five stars, which it deserves in my opinion. I say, if you like stories about a cowboy from Texas now living in Montana and may be or may not be looking for a wife and has a French-Canadian metis for a partner, this book is for you. Oh, yes, and it is written in the vernacular of a cowboy that twists his words and prolongs the sentence endings by adding typical colloquialisms of an earlier time. It reminds me of Wolfville by Alfred Henry Lewis and is just as humorous.

The story begins in a saloon in Las Vegas, New Mexico, where he meets the half-breed, and quickly moves on to a small town in Montana. There is a train wreck nearby and the regularly scheduled train has to pull aside and wait for the tracks to be replaced. On the train are two easterners, a man and a woman, and the woman wants to experience the real west, but the man only yearns to return east. It so happens that they've come upon a day of celebration and a perfect excuse to partake of some local color. The man (called a pilgrim throughout or a tenderfoot by the cowboys) stays on the train and the woman walks into town and gets ready to watch the rodeo. She finds a seat on a pile of lumber just as a breeze carries way her white handkerchief. The Texan and another cowboy happen to see it flutter to the ground and they race to pick it up and that's the first meeting of the Texan and the lady.

The story moves on with the pilgrim getting himself in a terrible fix only to be saved and taken from the town by the Texan with the woman tagging along.

The tale becomes more complicated as it wends its way to the end and it kept my attention to see what was going to happen next. I found it to be funny, suspenseful, interesting, and a break from the usual modern day western. Mr. Hendryx certainly did a fantastic job putting all that old cowboy talk together.   

A Hard Life

In Crossing Purgatory by Gary Schanbacher we have a man who suffers terribly over the death of his wife and two boys who died from cholera in 1858. They lived in Indiana and the man was a landowner and farmer, but he wanted to increase his holdings so he pays a visit to his father to get some money. When he returned from this failed mission, he found his sons already dead and his wife critically ill and he feels guilty that he failed them for naught. He heads west with a small wagon train in the charge of a Captain Upperdine and is amazed with all the vacant lands just setting there waiting to be farmed.

But he cannot get over his guilt feelings and has nightmares over them and worries continually that he should never have left his family alone. He manages to make friends with the Johnsons, Obadiah and Hanna and their son Joseph and a freed black man. Prior to reaching the confluence of the Arkansas and Purgatoire Rivers, they are attacked by Missouri raiders and Obadiah and the black man are killed with Joseph injured and Hanna taken advantage of sexually. The man has more guilt for not showing up soon enough, but he does run the attackers off and save Hanna and Joseph.

Upperdine has a wife and many acres of land not too far away from the last incident and the man, Thompson Grey is his name, decides to hang around there and see if he wants to continue on west in the future. He helps a Mexican family take care of Upperdine's and the Mex's farmland and continues in his funk unable to get his past out of his mind.

There is much more going on in this story, but it is a portrait of one farmer and his devotion to the land that reads to me like a Russian story; one dark, depressing, yet inspiring and positive that you hope will end on a positive note. This is an e-book published by Pegasus Books LLC and distributed by Open Road Integrated Media.

The author, Gary Schunbacher, is a terrific writer here and I delighted in reading the book. It kept me enthralled all the way through, even though there isn't much dialogue, just enough to keep the plot moving; a stirring narrative of one man's struggles to maintain his sanity in this barely populated land..

Tough Country by Frank Bonham

Cowboy rancher Jim Canning is released from Huntsville Prison and returns to his hometown of Frontera, Texas. He plans to regain his land and become an upstanding member of the little community that found him guilty of assaulting Ed Wingard and permanently injuring one of Ed's hands that was now practically useless. Although he acted in self-defense, the jury found him guilty.
The land he was going to reclaim was once the Wingards' ranch, but Mott Wingard lost it in a poker game to Canning's father, who named the land the Three Deuces Ranch. When he left for Huntsville to serve his time, Jim leased the land back to Mott Wingard, Ed's father. Mott Wingard doesn't want to give it back to Canning and that's where the rub comes in and partly to get back at him for maiming his son.

The story is written in a gritty style and even the sheriff is against Canning, so it seems. Sheriff Hawk Adams is a rough, tough hombre and takes his duties seriously. It appears as if everyone is against Canning except the doctor's daughter Ann Neeley, and he has an uphill battle with the town to restore his good name.

Frank Bonham, the author, is one of my choices for the best western writer. His stories are written in a gritty style that keeps things hopping right along with lots of action. Tough Country is a Dell First Edition pocket book, the one I read, published in 1958. 

Escape to the Country by Patsy Collins

Escape to the Country is not exactly a western; it is not even set in the U. S. West, but somewhere in the United Kingdom. So, it certainly doesn't qualify as a western, but it does have a farm with the usual suspects - cows, pigs, sheep, chickens, mud, lotsa mud when it rains, and bulls as tall as a human.

What happens is, this young lady named Leah Tilbury is accused of wrong-doing on an account she manages at her work at a company called Prophet Margin. The company suspends her while they investigate, and she leaves London and her boyfriend, who works for the same company, and visits her Aunt Jayne in the country.  There is a bit of crime involved in her life, but her story is mostly a romance when she meets a fellow called Duncan on the neighboring farm. She gets stuck in the mud, literally, with a borrowed pair of Wellington's that are too large for her and she can't pull them out of the mud. This Duncan fellow espies her and rescues her by lifting her and her boots out of the mud and sets her down on dry land. The story revolves about this romance and her life with Aunt Jayne and life on the farm. She must find herself free from fraud at work and free from her boyfriend that she shares a flat with for the romance to blossom into something else. There are some surprises along the way and a fine ending that wraps things up nicely.

I plead guilty to reading this mostly romance story and also to maybe reading one or two other books classed in the romance genre for which I will not apologize. I found Ms. Collins novel entertaining, humorous, and well written overall. I thought there was some repetition or over-explaining in the narrative, but not enough to detract from the story. Her style was consistent throughout and she takes Ms. Tilbury through her trials with Duncan and the office problems and a crisis with her Aunt in a way which kept me engrossed and glued to the book to see what would happen next.

Patsy Collins, of course, lives in the U. K. and writes in the very English language of which she is accustomed to doing, well-educated with a wide vocabulary and great enthusiasm. She enjoys traveling around in her van with her husband of a few months and taking photographs of the scenery in addition to her writing and blogging on the net. She has written numerous short stories and a few novels and won many prizes for her writing. On her blog, she provides links to many competitions and tips on writing. Check out her blog at patsy-collins-blogspot.com titled Words About Writing and Writing About Words..

Nemesis by L. J. Martin

The last in this set from Western Fictioneers is Nemesis by L. J. Martin. It is a revenge story that takes a little while to get going and picks up steam when it does. A man named McBain sets out to find the killers of his sister's family. There were her husband and two small daughters and herself that were rubbed out that day by the ruthless killers and McBain had made up his mind to find those skunks and kill 'em all, all five or six of 'em.

He rides into the small town of Nemesis near the ranch where the killers had come from, and soon found himself to be the town sheriff for killing the Everette brothers, even though they weren't the ones for whom he was looking. He didn't get along too well with the County Sheriff Wentworth, with whom he shared his office, but being a lawman, he had better access to the killers on the Lazy Snake Ranch owned by Mace Dillon. Dillon wanted the land that his sister's ranch sat on.

I really enjoyed this story as McBain finds the men he is looking for and gives them the justice he thinks necessary. It carried me right along and had a surprise or two as the author got closer to the end. I recommend it to all readers of westerns.

(Note: This set of novels looked as if it had been published in a hurry as the proofrerading part of the editing process was not carried out to perfection. All-in-all, it didn't detract too much from the storylines of the set, and I can't say they weren't entertaining.)

Texas Glory by Robert Vaughan

The battles for a free and independent Texas is woven into and around the events in the life of a man named Hunter Grant. It begins with Grant in Texas seeking contracts for cotton produced in Louisiana and he gets involved in the Battle of Gonzalez that sent Santa Ana packing back to Mexico to get serious about kicking the Americans out of Texas.

Upon returning to his home in New Orleans, Mister Grant gets stuck in a duel with a Mexican Colonel, a friend of the family of the girl he plans to marry, and things begin getting complicated when the Mexican doesn't show up for the duel and Grant's best friend is required to stand in for Colonel Sanchez. Another friend of Grant's, Sam McCord leaves for Texas, and unbeknownst to McCord, leaves a pregnant woman behind.

Grant is hired to find the young woman and bring her back home after she takes off to find McCord and marry him. And the situation tends to get further complicated as Santa Ana is building up his forces to make a run on the Alamo and Colonel Sanchez is with him. And the fight takes place at the Alamo and again in the Battle of San Jacinto afterward. Grant falls in love with the young woman, but cannot talk her into returning to New Orleans and she marries McCord who is killed in the Alamo.

Mister Vaughan writes a detailed and compelling story of the Texas confrontation and the love affair that maintained my interest throughout even though I found it to be a little long and wordy in the details. I would still recommend it to all readers of the Western genre and give it four stars.  I liked Brandywine's War better, but it takes place during the Viet Nam war..

Another Year Bites the Dust!

And it is time to wish everyone a Happy New Year!  May it be prosperous and productive for you!