Never Too Old To Write

It’s Never Too Late – After retiring this man decided to write a book. In his lifetime, he had published two works and a couple of essays. One of his books looked at early poetry, and another was about reading maps, both thirty years before his retirement in the early 1970s. He finished the book in a couple of years and, of course, no one wanted to publish it. At 240 pages it was, too short for some publishers and one rejected it saying, “It has trees in it.” Finally, at age 75 the University of Chicago Press, as a favor to one of their old professors, agreed to publish it for him. This book would be the first ever fiction published by their famous press. How did it do? Well, Norman Maclean’s, A River Runs through It and Other Stories, did okay. Well, that is, if fabulous sales, a major motion picture, and a Pulitzer Prize nomination are okay.

There you have it – it truly is – Never Too Late

Writing by the Numbers – Another nice week, I have settled into a routine where I am writing three to five thousand words each week. For the year, I have written a bit over 31,000 words, through yesterday, and have written 33 of the 44 days this year. I am on pace to reach my goal of a quarter million words in 2019.

Reviews – I Can’t Make This Stuff Up – “To my dismay, the sample pages only contain the Foreward and Acknowledgement chapters, leaving me in the dark about the story.”   

The above was part of a one-star review I read about a very famous book. I wish this type of review could be taken off, as it has nothing, at all to do with the book.  (Note – I left the foreward, as I was using a direct quote – odd how so many misspell - foreword.

I once received a bad review for my misspelling of or misuse of a couple of words. The review stated they would go on to finish reading the book. This was at a time when I could not yet, afford an editor, still often my case. Did it really deserve a one-star if it was compelling enough to read on, and finish the book? Not in my mind, if I finish a book I will commonly rate it four or five stars. I rate on the story, not on a handful of errors I might catch. I finished a New York Times bestseller recently that I noticed a – the - where it should have been they. It happens!

From the Old West – The man who apologizes when there ain’t no need knows something you don’t.  

Photo of the Week –

As always, you can find all of my books here on Amazon

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Keep on Reading and keep on Writing

& 

Have a wonderful rest of February.

What is Historical Fiction?

Storytelling, lies, truth distortion, stretching it a bit, what is historical fiction? I just finished reading two books, one a modern day western, with historical flashbacks, and the other from the genre of historical fiction. In many cases I can’t tell the difference between westerns and historical fiction.

I often read through various online review sites and found some interesting reviews of the two books. Below is a summary of what I found – just the bad stuff.

1.    People complain that it doesn’t tell the whole story (It’s not a history book)

2.   It didn’t really happen that way (fiction)

3.   Plays too much with the facts (?)

4.   Varies from history (yep)

5.   Spelling and grammar errors (This should be fixed, but I did not notice much in my reading – might be some readers are looking for errors and not the story)

6.   Not enough research (This is what makes historical fiction great, an author can do as much or as little research as they want. Then run with their version of the story)

My point to this post is simple, it’s historical FICTION, not nonfiction. My Idea, at least what I like to read, of historical fiction is this – a story based on something real, a historical event. After that it’s up to the author. I am not crazy about mixed up time periods in historical fiction, but other than that I like every good story.

        What about fiction or westerns with no, real, to them, love them. Sometimes truth is better than fiction, but I can get completely lost in a great story. In the end it is still all about the story!

A notch in the Haystack Mountains of the Laramie Range Wyoming - This could be the basis for a good western story.