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.  

Christmas Slowdown - But, Not Much

 December 20, 2021

Writing –  My writing slowed down a little this week. Too much Christmas shopping and a couple of doctor appointments slow me down. Only a few over 2,000 words for the week. When I set goals, I wrote well over 300.000 words each year. Without goals, I write about half that. I still have not decided if I will set a word goal for 2022 or continue writing as I have been the past three or four years. We will see. 

I am doing heavy editing on my long-finished historical mystery/western. Trying to rework the second half – love the first half of the book.

As often happens, a new inspiration – yes, I started another book. Mostly notes and thoughts so far.

 

Reading – David Baldacci’s Memory Man. Off to a good start, and so far, it has kept me interested. Looks like a good one 

 

Weather – Cold and wind this week. A few days of blustery snow. All in all, typical December weather.

Quote of the day – “Any word that doesn’t advance a story slows it down. Which is reason enough to avoid expletives. Contrary to popular misconception, the term ‘expletives’ refers to a whole class of empty words, not just gratuitous profanities. Most expletives simply fill out the syntax of sentences. The most common is ‘there are, ‘there is,’ ‘there was.’ ‘it is,’ ‘it was,’ and son on.” -  Jack Hart

 

Today’s Photos – All shot on my walks this week. 

Have a Merry Christmas, everyone! 

Writing - But No One is Counting

Seems I have had a burst of energy this week, more writing and much more editing. Now the weather is warming, and I can set some goals for spring. Oops, just looked out and it’s snowing – again.

Five Days Ago

I have, at times, posted a, what I did this month blog at the start of a new month, so what did I do in February? Quite a bit. First, I quit counting how many words I wrote. I have kept track of everything for two years and did again in January of 2017, then stopped. I got mixed reactions from writers who counted or did not count their words. Some thought it necessary to keep on task, others said they wrote what they wrote. My wife thought that I was getting a bit too hard on myself if I missed a day or two of writing. She was right, I put a lot of pressure on myself to write every day and to stay on pace for my quarter of a million words each year. Now I am writing, but no longer keeping track of numbers, kind of a relief and I don’t need to keep my calculator at hand.

I did go back and check to see how much I blogged last month, not bad, 11 on my blogger sites, three on Wordpress and five on Google plus. I had been away from Wordpress for a couple of years and decided to give it a try again, not gaining much traction and not sure I will continue posting there on a regular basis. Google Plus seems to have a lot of people, but I don’t get too many comments on Plus, nothing like my regular Blogger site where I have much more traffic.

This Golden Eagle Backlighted by the Setting Sun Yesterday - Spectacular Bird

I did get the review copy of my third kid's book, made a few changes on the cover and ordered another. Should go live later this week. That will be my seventh book and will be followed shortly by my eighth, as I will order the proof this week. Then I hope to finish the first draft – almost there – of my book on gardening. Busy days!

Meanwhile, keep on reading, writing and thinking of spring.

As We Left the Park Last Evening

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

Self-Editing, What I Have Learned

I have always believed that editing is hard work, for me harder than writing. For many, to self-edit is almost impossible, but I think it can be done. I recently had my eyes opened by a simple fact – if you are self-editing, order a proof of the book and edit from it. Editing from my computer screen is the most difficult for me. Printing a hard copy and editing from that is a bit better but still not as good as looking at the book.

Talking about my CCC book

Which brings me to publishing eBooks, not sure that I could self-edit and publish eBooks without an editor. I have my readers, and I self-edit, but most of what I find are in the book proof.

 So what have I learned from this? Read the work in another form to finish the self-edit. This helps in finding, too long paragraphs, and too long sentences and misused words. I also read my novels and nonfiction works out of order, random chapters, last chapter first, and then skip around and read, and I read the chapters slowly. Some suggest reading the entire work backwards, this works, and for many works well, but not for me.

One of my chapter books for kids - fun read

From my self-editing experience, I have found two tips to be the best. First, know when to stop, sometimes I put in a comma or hyphenate a word then re-edit and take them out – Stop already!

Second, read aloud, hear yourself. And now I have a third, look over a proof of the book.

 If I were to put a fourth here it would be, now you are finished, send it off to an editor.

This is the proof of my western, still finishing final self-edit

I am not like writers that believe all works must be professionally edited. There are so many editors selling services it is important and hard to find a good one, and one who charges a fee that is affordable.  It takes quite a few sales to make back a thousand or more dollars in editing costs. Everyone that writes expects or hopes to have a best seller, but if you believe that the book will sell only a hundred or fewer copies stick with a good self-edit and get on to your next book.

So far my best selling book - several hundred copies

Re-writes and a Walk in the Park

Doing some re-writes on all three of my books. Hope to have all ready to go again in the next week or ten days.

 Celebrated the completion of finishing the first with a walk in the park. Well, that might be a bit of a stretch as here I am taking a break.

Or maybe I was just enjoying the view.

Now back to work. But first some early spring beauty.

The first wildflowers are starting to show blooms

Beautiful and Creepy

With a bit of good luck, my next post will fill you in on my newly finished books. And some links.

Why We all Hate Commas

 Using commas, oh my.

I read today that writers do not use nearly as many commas as were used in 1900. I remember being taught that if you forgot all the rules, which most of us have, to place a comma whenever you hear a pause. Today this seems to be a little used and mostly forgotten comma lesson. Why? Because that leaves too many of the dreaded comma’s. There is a relationship between pauses and commas, but it is not strong enough to always use a comma for a pause.

Best advice I read on commas is that if you are not sure leave it out. Now that’s pretty good.

I am reading a new grammar book taking a look at how comma use has changed. Hope it helps. My undergraduate minor was in American Literature nowadays I wish it would have been in English.

 Not really.

My photo of the day

Relaxing this evening in the beautiful North Bluff Castle at Guernsey State Park

Orwell's Writing Tips

Like many great writers George Orwell spent quite a bit of time talking about, and writing about, writing. Orwell lovers who also write have probably ran across this before ---

“A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: 

1.  What am I trying to say?

2.  What words will express it?

3.  What image or idiom will make it clearer?

4.  Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?”

So with that in mind I thought I would take a random, and this is random, short paragraph instead of a single sentence, from a work in progress. With this particular project, a modern day western, I am about 30,000 words in. Here goes.

Detective Ron Hafner, Chief Holliday’s only plain clothes officer, had the site cordoned off with yellow crime scene tape before seven AM. Hafner and Holliday paced around the body, measuring, looking carefully at everything, Hafner taking photos. Holliday stopped for a few moments and smelled the air. He reminded me of a scruffy Calvary scout from some late night black and white smelling the air for buffalo, horses or the enemy. I made a mental note to ask him what in the hell he thought he could smell out there. As I contemplated sniffing the air myself, the Pronghorn Flats ambulance arrived with sirens screaming.

 “Shut off those lights and turn that dammed siren off, we don’t need to hurry with this guy,” Holliday shouted at the two EMT’s as they jumped from the ambulance. 

Now let’s look at Orwell’s four steps and plug them into my few sentences.

Step 1. What am I trying to say? – In this case I am still introducing three of the main characters, the Sheriff, his deputy and the narrator, the novels protagonist.
Step 2. What words will express it? Tougher question. I am trying to play with a bit of small town police work, efficient but small town.Step 3. What image or idiom will make it clearer? I like the picture I have painted, might be a bit prejudiced here.Step 4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? They are looking at a fresh dead guy, should be fresh enough.
Not sure anyone today will take the time to look at each sentence this way – takes too much time. Writing today often includes deadlines, and deadlines frequently mean the closer it is, the faster the writing becomes. Have any of you read a book you loved, for the first half, and then felt like the rest was rushed to get to the conclusion? Seems I find way too many of these.

If the writing is too bad to fix - put it to a good use