Writing Places and Edward S. Curtis

 Confessions of a Writer of Westerns

January 10, 2022 

I am off to a pretty good start this year. I have not written too much, but I am picking it up. Last week around 3,000 words, this week almost 5,000, and I have edited through nearly 20,000 words of my new western mystery book. This is the first and longest of the three edits I usually do. After those edits, it will be off to beta readers – hopefully sometime in February.

Often writers, especially Indy and small house published writers like myself, have no set deadlines, leaving us open to changing gears, or directions, when we probably should not. By that, I mean we tend to stop what we are working on and start something else before finishing. I did this twice this week, had a great idea, and had to write it down. Most of the time, I write a few pages – in the case of these two book ideas, I wrote about three-thousand words. Now, I will leave both alone until inspiration strikes. If it does, I will let you know here.

My office, I did pick up a little before snapping this one. 

Reading – More looking at photos than reading, and very much enjoying – The North American Indian – The Complete Portfolios. This is the one-book compilation of Edward S. Curtis's thirty-year, twenty-volume work on the American Indian. Some day I hope to get a chance to look through one of the original books; sadly, not many around any longer.  

Reading Bookcase - constantly changing.

Weather – After the freezing temperatures of a week ago, this week has turned relatively mild. Most days start cool, low twenties or below, but reach around forty by mid-afternoon. Quite comfortable.

Quote of the day – "For one who reads, there is no limit to the number of lives that may be lived, for fiction, biography, and history offer an inexhaustible number of lives in many parts of the world, in all periods of time." Louis L'Amour

Beside my recliner in the family room - lots of writing gets done here.

Today's Photos – Self-explanatory – But I have an admission here. I bought another camera this week. Guess I thought six was not quite enough. Sigh – it's only money, they say - yikes!

Running in the snow

Have a great week. Keep on reading, and keep on writing.  

Well - It's A New Year

I mentioned here last week, on my first 2016 post, that I was going to attempt to keep track of both my writing,  the number of words, and reading, name and number of books. 

Watching the Bison - Research and Photo Ops
 Something I can do even when it's cold outside

At the end of yesterday, eleven days into the new year, I had written, 14,815 words, an average of 1,347 per day. That number seems to work out close for my goal of a half million words this year – hope I can keep it up. My reading, about the same pace as always is not bad. I have set a goal to read three books a month or 50 books this year. My biggest problem with reading is that I continually read more than one book at a time. Here is what I am reading now.

Time to read when the lights come on in our little town

1.   Fort Laramie – Military Bastion of the High Plains ( one-third through this one) by Douglas C. McChristian

2.   Cabin Fever – by B. M Bower (half way)

3.   Cowmen and Rustlers -  A story of the Wyoming Cattle Ranges – By Edward S. Ellis

4.   Force of Nature – by C. J. Box (Travel book on CDs listening, I have read it but I like the narrator and enjoy this as our present car book)

These books are different enough that I do not have any trouble keeping them separated in my mind, cluttered that it might be.

I should be able to finish all of these before the end of the month. I have stacked three books, as my next ones on my bookshelf, and will probably add at least one EBook.

Speaking of Books - Here is the Link to my Western

I am in my second edit of my YA modern western/mystery, and am through the first draft of an introduction to my new nonfiction book and working on the first chapter. Still not finished with the first phase of research for the second half of the book, which also keeps me busy.

Getting my ducks - er- a - deer all in a row

I am keeping busy and with the weather turning mild for the next ten days it looks like I will be able to continue walking. I have been out with my camera, as usual, and have taken a bit over two hundred shots so far this year. I will keep 70-80 percent of these in folders on my computer.  The random photos on today's post are 2016 shots. 

Nice color at sunset yesterday
 sun setting behind a post -- patching together an old fence

A good book may be hard to find

Seems to me like every book I have read recently is tooooo long. I see suggested word counts for novels are anywhere from seventy-five thousand words up to well over one hundred thousand words. I think there should be a new word count rule for authors—use just the ones you need. (Words that is) Too many pages of descriptions of meaningless places or things and too many pages looking for someone or something leave me wanting for a new book. The one good thing I have learned as I get just a tad bit older is that I do not need to finish every book I start, but usually I still do. Although most of my reading centers on historical fiction, westerns and murder mysteries in the novel category and historical journals and political pieces in non-fiction, I like everyone else, still prefer a real page turner. (Go ahead and keep me up late reading)
Long is not always better.
But a good read—I hope to never be without it.

Westerns--Alive or Dead

Well partners—welcome along and I hope we have a great ride. This is post # 1 of someone still writing about the old American west.

I live in the west, Wyoming to be specific, and have written both fiction and nonfiction stories about this great area of our country. From time to time I will be posting some of each. All comments are welcome; I will try to answer every one. I have read so much lately about the dying western.

Not sure it is the western that is dying, just maybe the readers. So how do we go about fixing it? Find new readers.

Right now, I am working on a contemporary young adult western, about 1/3 done, 20,000 plus words. I like it, hope someone else does, will finish by the first of the year. In the area of nonfiction I have just completed a short work of early Indians in Wyoming, concentrating on what is was like in the pre-1800s west.

Stay with me for stories of cowboys and Indians, and everything else, from trail dust to cowboy cooking.

See you in a few sunsets.