November - After a Fast Finish in October

Packing and getting ready to head out for some R & R.  Reminds me of years ago when someone asked Willie Nelson if he was ever going to retire. His answer, “Retire from what, all I do is play golf and play music.” That’s much like me saying I am going for some R & R. All I do is write, take photos and play golf. I also watch way too many football games and am enjoying this year’s World Series.

Vacation - We are off to Branson, Missouri, we have been there many times and always enjoy the entertainment and the friends we will meet there. On the way a chance to catch up with brothers and sisters.

Writing - I have not done as much writing as I expected this month although I did finish one small project I have been working on. The small project/book is about turning 70, which incidentally will happen to this old guy in early March. I thought a thoughtful but humorous look at turning 70 might be fun to write and fun for others of us Golden Year people to read. It is a short read of 75, or so, pages and after some editing should be ready to go by Thanksgiving. I had hoped to get out my second book of Christmas short stories this year, but it looks like it will not be ready in time.

Sales - I started slowly this month and then everything turned around, and October became my second best ever, sales month. Thanks, everyone.

Work – Work – Work - I am still working on other projects, both fiction and nonfiction, just not very fast. Looks like my next finished book will be the fourth in my series of kids chapter books. There will be a fifth book, and then the series will likely end. My third Blade Holmes novel is still in the outline, thinking stages, but someday it will take off.  I am still researching my second Wyoming history book and will be into my third year with it soon, might need to speed this one up a bit.

Now for 10 days of travel and relaxing. See you soon – Keep on reading and keep on writing. The first thing to pack? Reading material.

Writing Update as Summer Cools Down

We spent some time in Rocky Mountain National Park this week, always a great place to visit.  I love being able to drive up above the timberline and a chance to see some stunning views of the Rockies.

Lots of Elk in the Park

Writing Update

Writing wise I remain a bit on the slow side. I am getting some things, ok, a few things accomplished. Most days I am able to write 250 to 400, or so, words. That’s not much output for me but not bad this time of year. Seems in winter I really crank it up getting quite a few days in the 2,000 range, but not now and this is not a call for an early winter.

Raven on a cloudy and cool day

What I’m Working On

Most of my work seems to be on my new, tongue in cheek, nonfiction book, the one I have not yet talked about here – soon, I hope. I also finished a few more pages in the fourth of my children’s chapter books. These books don’t sell as well as my others but are getting some nice comments from parents who have kids reading them or who have read them to their children. One thing I have learned, children’s books do not do as well as eBooks, should have known it, kids like books, seems they have enough electronics in their lives without books too.  I guess there is a bit of a consolation prize in that I do sell a few of these in softcover each month.

Me and my 12-year-old Grandson taking a look at a huge Elk herd.
By the way, I like this view of me :-)

What’s Next?

The great eclipse is only a couple of weeks away and we are right in the middle of it. I am doing a book signing at an event the weekend before the eclipse and then expect to stay home on the big day and watch the sun disappear from my deck. 

Snapped this one a few days ago - looks like he wants me to go away.'
So I did.

Getting an Amazon Best Seller or at Least in the Top Half

I spent some time this morning doing research as to how many books Amazon has for sale. Might have fit better into, messing around on the internet, but I’m going with research because it sounds like I was working. During this research phase of my day, I could not find anything from the last few months but did see that in 2015 Amazon had 17.1 million books, in English, available for sale. The same information listed more than three million, written in English, eBooks.

If this is true, an author with a book consistently listed in the top one million seven hundred thousand will make it to the top ten percent of books on Amazon. The same eBook would need to be in top 300,000 to qualify. To be in the top half of all books listed for sale on Amazon, it would take a book in the top 8,500,000 or the top million and a half eBooks. Sounds pretty good except that a book selling near the bottom of the top half of all books on Amazon would only need to sell a copy or two each month to qualify for that ranking, maybe even less than that.

My first six books - click to go to my Amazon Author's Page

Got my proof books for my two latest novels today. Will need to make a few changes to the cover of, The Ghost Dance, I didn’t like the white font. Otherwise, it looked fine. Hope that doesn’t take long. That book will be out to first readers in the next day or so – then some final edits, and it will be published. The other proof is for the third in the series of my of kids books – Yikes, My Neighbor’s a Vampire. It is fine and should be as this is the third time I have made changes. My thought is, keep doing it until I like it.

I liked how it looked on my computer, but too light here

Now I am in the final part of my first draft of a gardening, and murder in the garden, book. It is a bit different, I hope readers like it.

I also continue the painstaking research on my second nonfiction book, still hope that I will get it out before 2018, but not sure. I am also hard at work on the third of my Blade Holmes, historical fiction- mystery novels.

Pronghorn walking the foothills west of town

The days are warming, and spring cleanup has started in our backyard. We have also made a few nice drives giving me a chance to get out with my camera.

Young Bison Bull

Keep on reading and keep on writing. 

Mule Deer running the Pronghorn off

Guernsey State Park - Marsh Mt. Trail

Last week the weather gave us a chance for two nice hikes in the park.

Now more snow and it looks like we need a few more days of melt before we will be back on the trail.

Spring is not that far away with the famous Groundhog Day Holiday coming up.

No Prarie Dogs in the park, this photo was taken west of town

Write for the Love of Writing or For the Big Money

Is writing a business or a literary pursuit? Depends on who is asked and who is doing the writing. I read many posts each week about the business side of writing, something of which I am most deficient. That must make me one pursuing the literary side of putting together a good book. I write because I love to tell a good story, not to get rich – seems to be working so far.

Nothing to do with this post but I thought this one of a Bull Elk
 I snapped last weekend was pretty sweet

 I also read and get advertising matter from multiple sites dealing with selling books. Some of my newest finds deal with writing short, quick, inexpensive material that, supposedly, people want to buy. They even offer ghostwriting so that the author could put out as much as a book a day, for a rather substantial price, I am sure. This sounds like something that would never be good for an author, a publisher or any type of bookseller.

Forget everything else, because it will make you rich – I’m not so sure about this one either. The type of books that come out of these short book mills are mostly self-help. Books such as, build a fence in a day, build a table in a day, build a chair in a day, build a deck in a weekend, I’m sure everyone is getting the point by now.

I took a look at some of these types of books yesterday and here is what I found. All are priced at 99-cents, all are short, most less than ten pages, all are in an eBook only format, not odd, considering the length of the book. Many are no longer available, and lastly no reviews, although I have a couple of very good books without a review. One last thing I noticed, research to write one of these books would take about 15 online minutes. Oh, and everything in these books can be found for free in multiple places on the net.

When I am looking for a book I always check to see its length, I think something nine pages long, is a short and should not be called a novel or a self-help book.

Ghost-of-the-Fawn   In other news, it’s done, finally. Sometime this weekend I will download my newest novel, Ghost-of-the-Fawn. I like it, and its modern day setting, from Casper to Wyoming’s Wind River Reservation, the Medicine Wheel and Butch Cassidy’s Hole in the Wall. Oh- and well over 200 pages, which I think is a pretty good length, 52,000+ words for a young adult book. The good news, or better news, about it, for me anyway, is that adult readers said, no, this is and an adult book, they loved it. Hoping others will as well – Coming this weekend.

Meanwhile, Keep on Reading and Keep on Writing

Have a terrific weekend

Rewrite or Leave as Is

I've been doing some editing the past two weeks, everything I do keeps bringing me back to this quote.

“I have been correcting the proofs of my poems. In the morning, after hard work, I took a comma out of one sentence…. In the afternoon I put it back again.” ~Oscar Wilde

Sometimes it might be best to walk away

I am surprised at how many times I have rewrote something in the margin and later scratch that out and write in bold red  - LEAVE AS IS

The good news is the weather is great in Wyoming and my golf game is already getting to mid-season form. Almost time to plant the garden and do some more editing.

Becoming a Famous Writer

Combing over the nonfiction section of a book store recently it looks to me that famous people write lots of books. Most of these titles didn’t tempt me much, not much at all. Funny how, not many authors get famous, but many famous people fancy themselves as authors. It does do one thing for the writing profession, it keeps authors willing to research and ghost write busy.

 I have been told that the average self-published book sells less than 100 copies and that the smallest of publishing houses often sell less than 100 of a title also. That’s not many books, the competition is fierce, but I still believe that well written fiction or nonfiction can sell if properly promoted. Therein lies the answer to most self-published authors selling so few books, marketing. If someone is already famous and has instant name recognition the selling part is easy.

Seems like I saw more unknown authors that were trying to sell fiction and how-to books than nonfiction. Not sure why, just what I ran across in my most recent visit to a book store – and it was an independent.

Oh – did I buy anything? One paperback by a midlist author that I like, I have read a half dozen or more of her books. When I read unknowns, I always download from Amazon. My price range for these unknown author books, free to $2.99.

Just Looking for a Good Book

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Read a Lot - Write a Lot

       Read a post earlier today in which a writer said they didn’t read much, not before they became a writer or after. Seems strange to me that someone would write but not read much. Claimed they didn’t have the time. I believe writers need to find the time. Many writers read a whole lot more than I do, but I do manage more than 50 books a year. But I also read, maybe too many, blogs, magazines and newspapers. Some days I read so much I get no writing done, none at all.

Stephen King, who has sold a few books himself, once said. “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.”

My problem is I read too much, and write too little. But I have other income, outside of writing, and do not consider myself a full time writer. I do have a small income from my editing service and from the sale of a few small pieces each year.

Love Wyoming Sunsets - Easter Sunday, Guernsey State Park

I will self-publish three books this summer and see if my writer earnings jump afterward. Not expecting a move into a higher tax bracket, but as someone once said, “you never know.”

Professional Edit or Not

How many times do I need to write the same book? Have you, like me, ever asked that question? I have a novel that I have went through six times and am still not willing to attempt to publish it. Why? Because it is not ready. No, not because the book sucks. I feel like it is a very good story. But it needs work. What have I learned by this process, two things?

The best edit is still with a red pen on paper. The last edit is reading the text of the work aloud. I have edited, to death, on the computer and still recommend it for the first go through. On my new work I used a red pen edit for my second edit, a red pen edit by someone else for my third edit and a read through, oral edit for my final.

No professional edit? I don’t think so, not for these works. I may seek additional input from another outside, non-professional, editor but have decided to go it on my own. I have published numerous short stories and at times, must admit, when I read the published version, I found something I wish I had edited, either more or better.

Why all this? I tried, in vain, to find a professional editor and could not. They charged too much or too little, wanted to change too much or too little. Makes me sound a bit like Goldilocks from, The Story of the Three Bears, I just couldn’t find a, just right, fit.

Will it work? Not sure. Remember in the old days when people said, “Nothing ventured, nothing gained”? Guess I will find out. I spent years doing content edits and rewrites for graduate students while teaching in Laramie, but never edited grammar or punctuation unless it was so bad even I could see it. Until a year ago I still did some editing for two print magazines.



View of my little part of the world from Roundtop Mountain, three miles from town.

There is my unedited story about editing. My conclusions, do it the best you can, or until you feel good about it, then be done with it.

Cowboy Coffee

Have you ever ran across something that just doesn’t sound right? I read, not as much as I used to, about a book a week. Twice in the last five or six books I have had a cowboy ask for a cup of Java. Java, really?

Maybe some used the term, I live in Wyoming, have for decades, never have heard anyone ask for Java. Not very cowboy like. Now I live in modern times, so maybe it was different a hundred years ago but I don't think so. I did a quick search and could not find when the word Java was first used as slang for coffee. Someone in the old west may have asked for a cup of Java but my money says he was on vacation wearing a three piece suit with a gold watch chain and came to town on the train.

Cowboys liked their coffee, drank a lot of it. They drank it black and they drank it sweet. Wanna make your cowboy into a real cowboy, have him ask for a cup of Arbuckle's. Arbuckle’s Ariosa to be exact, but no one asked for it that way.

Using Photos In Nonfiction

 

Do I Use This House

Did you ever start something you thought would be a snap and it became a struggle? What a pain. I posted a couple of weeks ago that I had completed the text of my new nonfiction work. I have since given it a final self-edit and will soon be looking for a professional edit. So it’s ready to go? Well not yet. I have the part I thought would be easy. Putting in a few, 109, photos, most new, some historical.

Hey, Maybe This One

I marked in my text where each photo was to be placed when I did my final edit and I way ready to go. So what is the problem? I need to pull my 109 photos from 1,760 photos, now that is agonizing. I have something marked, for each, such as, photo of bridgework, I go to my photos and have dozens, okay just pick one. Still have high hopes of getting this done and for sale by the first of June. Being the eternal optimist that I am, I will get it done.

Or Maybe This One

Now I must get my camera, I have a few photos to take, some of these just will not do.

The sun is out it is a beautiful day in Wyoming - think I will drive down to the golf course and hit a few balls.

 

 

Paper or Screen - Editing

Editing can be tough, as those of you that follow me know, I have a western I have been re-editing for five years. Ok- so I am afraid if I publish it no one will read it. But I have still edited it to death, and do find an occasional mistake.

So which is best? Editing off the screen with all the fun little red marks from the editing program, or a red pen and paper? Give me the hard copy. Seems like I can find things I need or want to change much easier on paper. My non-fiction book was an easy edit, but only after I printed it out, then used my red pen to change, eliminate or add what I wanted.

I do not think it is possible to find errors on the screen as easy as finding them on paper. Maybe that’s just the old school teacher in me. It also is likely the reason I post these, then later, sometimes much later, am horrified when I find what I consider a grievous error. Oh the horrors!

I do use the spell check and editor on word, everyone should. I also use the screen to move large blocks of text around, much easier.

Maybe I am a poor screen editor because when I am on my laptop I also watch TV, mess with my phone, talk to others and constantly interrupt myself. Editing on paper, I sat quietly and did my edit. Yep, I may have found the answer.

One final thought. Younger generations that have always used technology to read and write probably are more comfortable editing on the screen. Now back to that game I was playing on Kindle, and maybe I should check twitter on my phone, oops, a bird on the feeder better check it out, looks like spring.

Where did I put my golf clubs?

Nonfiction Book Finished

Well, I have another one finished. This one is a nonfiction work on the Civilian Conservation Corps and their building of the state park in Guernsey, Wyoming. I still have photo work and footnote work left to finish but the text is completed and one proofing also is complete.

This one I will self-publish, because it is for a small local market, but it has been both educational and fun. I wanted to hold it to 140-160 pages (both text and photos) looks like I will be close, still fitting photos to size I need. The text will run about 26,000 words and 80 photos will make the book and the work of the CCC understandable.

The entire process has taken only about six weeks. Soon it will be weather for the garden, golf and hiking in the park, then my writing will slow down. Oh, and some fishing and lots of photography.

 

 

10 Tips to be a Great Writer

Elmore Leonard passed away a half year ago after a long and productive life. He wrote westerns and crime and western crime. I have always wondered why more writers didn’t write in these somewhat parallel genres. Westerns are almost always based on a crime and the solving of the crime. Move from the old west to modern and westerns and crime novels become interchangeable.

Leonard’s success may have been based on his well-known ten tips for good writing.

1.     Never open a book with weather.

2.    Avoid prologues.

3.    Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue.

4.    Never use an adverb to modify the verb "said”…he admonished gravely.

5.    Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose. 

6.    Never use the words "suddenly" or "all hell broke loose."

7.    Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.

8.    Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.

9.    Don't go into great detail describing places and things.

10.                 Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.

 My most important rule is one that sums up the 10.

 If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it

 

“And she thought if you don't have the desire to fight or wait for something there's no reason for being on earth.”  Elmore Leonard, Last Stand at Saber River 

Avoiding the One Star

Over the years I have come across many things that can turn a good novel bad. I am not a full -time professional writer or editor although I dabble in both. But I do consider myself a professional reader. With that said, her are, The Waring Rule’s for staying away for the dreaded- One Star Rating.

1.    Do not name every character in the novel, the bartender does not need a name if he is only the bartender. Neither does the guy sitting across from the protagonist at a poker game- if he is never again in the story.

2.   Some words are spelled differently in England than in the United States.  A Defense Attorney in America is different from a Defence Attorney in England.

3.   I hate a page with three sentences on a page and a next page with fifteen. A few long sentences are fine, but too many and it gets difficult to read.

4.    Comments from a few westerns I have recently read. Please be aware I am a professional historian-these may not bug everyone.

 

·        Fry Bread became popular in the 1860s with the Navajo who were given so little provisions it was one of the few foods they could make. It was never common in cafés or in non-Indian homes. And it was Fry Bread, not, Fried Bread. It tastes great, if you want to try it I posted a recipe on my cooking site some time ago. http://crazy-cooking.blogspot.com/2013/01/journey-bread-and-donuts.html

 

·        Early playing cards were not marked in the corners like todays.

·        Cowboys would never have ordered a steak rare

·        There were no blue jeans in the old west

·        The cowboy did not pull his fixin’s from his shirt pocket

 

As far as one star ratings, I don’t give them. If I can’t give it a three or better I don’t rate it. I also don’t give ratings to books that already have several dozen ratings. If you are anything like me, I only look at a few of the ratings, that’s enough.

 

 

 

 

Oh - How I Hate Prologues

I hate Prologues, there I got that off my chest or my mind, or as my granddaughter would say, “Whatever.”

I started reading a book this afternoon. I turned to the first page – there centered at the top – Prologue. This page then proceeded to describe the protagonist to me as he looked at himself in a mirror. And it described his thoughts as he looked in the mirror. Not sure if the mirror was bouncing back his thoughts or what.

I skipped the rest of the false beginning, ur, I mean prologue and went to the first chapter. And it started with a description of the beautiful day and how many colors the sky was that morning.

So there I was, I hate prologues and the beginning of the first chapter was a yawner.  I quit. Started a new book.

How did it start? “The old back wound ached and his shoulder still hurt all day long, but two years of healing and pushing papers at a Kansas City desk made the pain bearable. U.S. Marshall Blade Holmes tipped his head back and blew out a long cold breath, He watched the air turn to a misty white steam.  Hooking his thumb inside the collar of his deerskin coat he pulled it up tight under his chin, felt like winter might be in a bit of a rush to get to the Wyoming high country this year.

Yep, I’ll stick with this one. Where is he going? Did he get shot two years ago? Will he get trapped by a storm? I want to know. I need to know. As a reader I must know.

This is how I pick what I read, if it starts too slow, or I just do not like the beginning, I pick another. At my age I don’t want to waste time reading bad books when there are so many good ones out there.

Read on!

What Grade Level Are You Writing For?

Have you ever wondered what level of reader you are writing for?  Or for that matter have you ever wondered what level the books you are reading are meant for?  Seems there are a variety of on line tools, free of charge, that an author can use to check the level of your words and sentence structure. I checked some of my blog posts, fifth to seventh grade, and also typed in some of the stuff I was reading, two novels, both seventh grade. And how does that stack up, well average reading material is fifth to seventh grade so I guess what I am writing is at about the correct level. Think I may challenge myself to find some more difficult reading material.

Here are two great online tools to check up on yourself, try them out it is great fun. I tested this blog, complete with links, and here are my results.

http://www.writingtester.com/ , my readable Score was, 57/ 100, the higher the number the easier it is to read.  Grade level for this post, came in at a grade six.

The second analyzer is based on tried and true methods used in American schools for many years. This scale is based on the, Flesch Reading Ease Scale, a popular readability algorithm.  You can find this analyzer at, http://sarahktyler.com/code/sample.php, using this scale the same block post came in at a grade level of 6.3, very similar to the writing tester. Surprisingly when I added in the links the reading level for this analyzer went down to 4.54, interesting, not sure what that means.

This might be a waste of time but it beats the computer card game I was playing.

Crafting a Story From 75 Year Old Diaries

The following represents a week in the life of a farm wife, 1938, taken from my grandmothers diaries. I added only a little to clarify, where needed.

 

Day 1 - High of 18 washed clothes, they all dried. One of her sons stop

 

Day 2 –Cold all day strong NW wind went, cleaned hen house started to crochet baby booties for new grand son

Went to card party won high prize

 

Day 3 – Fourteen below zero froze in the house, what snow there is in piles, clear and windy.  Daughter-in-law over while her husband took sheep to sale

Lux Radio Theater, “Green Light”, grandma sick

 

Day 4 – Blizzard in morning, kept daughter home from school, did mending and crocheting, finished baby booties

 

Day 5 - Mended socks all pm, a son visited but was heading to town to a BB game, 8 below clear and cold sewed and ironed in morning, varnished table and chairs

 

 

Day 6 - Cleaned upstairs and downstairs baked bread, snowed heavy with west wind. Six above, cleaned upstairs bathroom and basement. Noted a granddaughter turns 2 today.   Her husband took three hogs to sell in town. Club in the afternoon, a son and daughter in law visited in eve.

 

 

 

Day 7 - Warmer with light rain went to card party.

Nice day should have washed but needed to go to town to get my new teeth, they have been out for 6 weeks but will wait some more, not ready yet.

Visited daughter, her daughter was ill. Turned cold, turned to ice.

 

 

Next time - a discussion of what could be learned from a week of very short diary entries, there is some pretty good stuff here.

Reading Like I Was A Kid Again

“Tom!”

No answer.

“Tom!”

No answer.

“What’s gone with that boy, I wonder? You TOM!”

No answer

You guessed it; I am rereading Mark Twain’s, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Authors often get into deep discussions about book openings, this one is rather unique. It really doesn’t tell us anything other than either Tom is not there or he is not about to answer. Simple, but it made me keep reading when I was a kid and it kept me reading now.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is an 1876 story of a young boy growing up along the Mississippi. The story is set in the fictional St. Petersburg, inspired by Hannibal Missouri,  where Twain grew up.

Tom Sawyer lived with his Aunt Polly and his half-brother, Sid. Tom dirties his clothes in a fight and is made to whitewash the fence the next day, as a punishment. He cleverly persuades his friends to trade him small treasures for the privilege of doing his work. This is the most well know scene in the novel and often portrayed on the cover.

Tom also falls in love with Becky Thatcher, a new girl in town, and persuades her to get "engaged" by kissing him. But their romance falls apart when she learns Tom has been engaged before. Shortly after being shunned by Becky, Tom accompanies his good friend Huck Finn to the graveyard at night. There the two witness the murder of Dr. Robinson. And the adventures continue.

So how did Twain write this story? I think this quote tells us.

“I conceive that the right way to write a story for boys is to write so that it will not only interest boys but strongly interest any man who has ever been a boy. That immensely enlarges the audience.”
- Letter to Fred J. Hall, 10 Aug 1892

Twain also ended this work in a most unconventional way, with a post script he entitled, conclusion.  This conclusion started with the words, “SO ENDETH THIS CHRONICLE.”

It was an early work, maybe he wanted to add this final touch instead of, the end.

If you haven’t read Twain for a while, might be time.

“The difference between the right word and the nearly right word is the same as the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.”   Mark Twain