Off and Running In 2018

Welcome site at the end of a snowy hike this week

No New Year’s Resolutions for me this year. I have tried them in the past but never followed through. I do like seeing others with resolutions and hope they do well with them. But, I do have hopes for the new year.

Unintentional Slow Down - After publishing four books in 2014-2015 and four more in 2016, I finished one last year. So here I go with my non-resolution, resolution – I need to get back to four again this year. Shouldn't be hard, as my faithful readers know, I have two finished, and being edited now, that means I need to finish the other two I have stated.

New Things in 2018  -  I do have a new Author Page on Facebook 

& I still have my long-time author page on Amazon

I have great hope that the new page will add to my author exposure, and eventually to more book sales.

Working On - The first week of the year most of my work has been on my nonfiction book. This one takes more time with footnotes and so many sources, but I am having fun with it. Not sure when I will finish, looks like it could go five or even six-hundred pages. When this one wears me out I will go back to one of my other projects.

An old-time dugout in the snow

Happy New Year and wishing you Luck with your 2018 resolutions. 

Think Spring

Now How Is This Supposed To End?

I see so many posts lately about writers block. Writers who get stuck and cannot seem to go on. Seems like I have so many projects going on that this is not a problem. If I get stuck, I just put it away and work on something else. Seems I always have several projects going and others shoved, temporally, to the back burner. But, the blocks do come.

Talking to High School Kids About Writing

Someone asked me recently how I could write, and why I do, in so many different genres? Well, the answer is I don’t. I write westerns or about the West. I do expand the area, maybe more than most, but at the heart, still westerns. Some of my writing’s lean more toward historical fiction, like my book, Commitment, because I use some actual people in real settings, but in a fictional story.  UnderWestern Skies, my book of Christmas stories meets every requirement of today’s Westerns. Except they are not all set in the old west, some are modern day and others are set in the 1950s or 60s. This book of western tales falls into several sub-genres, romance, a bit of sci-fi and in one case, just for fun, fantasy, but all westerns, not doubt about it.

 My chapter books for young readers are not in their truest sense westerns, but they fall into the fringes of my take on westerns. The books were set 60 years ago and in small town Nebraska, I call them growing up adventure westerns. They are high-interest fiction and written, in part, because of my love of reading and trying to encourage kids to read in today’s society, where we have a new culture dominated by two-minute YouTube videos.  The books titled, Melvin the E Street Ghost and, Then Mike Said There’s A Zombie in MyBasement, are fun, and I hope, catchy for the eight, nine and ten-year-olds they are meant for.

I also write nonfiction, but they are books about the west. The only one I have published is about the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Building of Guernsey State Park, is set in Wyoming and deals with the CCC created by FDRs New Deal. My works in progress, and I have two, (the ones I am not writers blocked from), are both about Wyoming, one dealing with Fort Laramie and another, a general look at the Indians and forts of early Wyoming. I think that makes these pretty much western.

At the beginning of this post, I mentioned writer’s blog which brings me to this. I have a novel I cannot finish. I have got it out and put it away, at least, a dozen times. It is a favorite of mine, I like the characters, the setting, and I even like the murder the book tries to solve. This one has a modern day setting and much of it takes place on a golf course of all places. Is it a western, absolutely, an unfinished one. Why is it unfinished? A bad novel writing mistake, I didn’t decide on who did it and why before I started writing, and now I don’t know. Someday I will figure it out – probably not today.

My Amazon Author Page

One last note, my new book, Ghost of the Fawn, is still on track to be released before the end of February, wish me luck.

Beautiful Winter Day Here

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.