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

Writing the Blogs

Have you ever noticed how bloggers come and go?

I started blogging toward the end of the year in 2006, eleven years ago – how time flies.

Over the years I have followed many bloggers, and I often see some very good ones go away. Sometimes bloggers give up because they run out of material. Others give it up because it becomes too tough to keep up a schedule. I had two very good blogs I followed, where sadly, the writers passed away.  One other I loved reading, I fear the writer just became too old and gave up on it. Often blogs disappear with no explanation, all of the sudden they are just gone. I appreciate and look forward to the blogs that I have been following for many years. One thing I have found is that those who last do not try to post too often. I have followed a few who were able to keep to a three or four posts each week schedule for a while, sometimes even for a couple of years. Seems that, after a while, it gets too hard for most everyone to post that often.

My Office - A Great Place to Sit and Write

In my nearly eleven years I have posted, over 1,000 times, matter of fact, this one is 1,090.  To do that I post on seven, yep 7, sites. I keep all of them active, but my posts numbers are vastly different, depending on the site. Some, like this one, I post, on average six times a month. My cooking site I post once or twice a year. Other sites, as often as every five days or as seldom a few times each year.

Nothing is worse than telling myself, “Hey you gotta write something today.” I try not to do that, and most of the time I look forward to posting and always look forward to seeing what others post each week.

Today I thought I might give readers a look at all the other interests I have where I post, at least occasionally. So here they are

Wyoming Fact and Fiction  - By far my most popular site with nearly 3,000 openings last month is my Wyoming Fact and Fiction site.

 http://wyoming-fact-and-fiction.blogspot.com/

I taught history of the American West and Wyoming history for more than four decades at the Jr. High, High School and Community College level. I am a professional historian and love to read about, study, contemplate nearly everything dealing with the Oregon Trail, Indian Wars, Gold Rush, the building of the Railroad and anything else about the old west of America.

Inside the Sleeping Area at Fort Laramie - I am at work on two books about
Fort Laramie, one a historical fiction,the other a nonfiction 

Confessions of a Writer of Westerns – This site, gets a bit over a thousand hits a month and maybe more comments than any of my sites.

http://confessionsofawriterofwesterns.blogspot.com/

Like No Place on Earth – We are blessed to live three minutes away from a fantastic, 8,000 plus acre state park, Guernsey State Park. I even wrote a book about it a couple of years ago. This site gets about 600 views each month

http://visitguernseystatepark.blogspot.com/

The Incredible, Civilian Conservation Corps built, North Bluff Castle at Guernsey State Park

My Wyoming Garden and Other Lies

As a certified Master Gardener, not sure how I made it through, it may have been a slip-up by the garden people, but somehow I did. I just have to write about growing stuff, at least once in a while.  I also use this sometimes for other things I have on my mind and is the reason it has a rather unusual web address.

http://stuff-i-made-up-yesterday.blogspot.com/

Old Guy Who Went to Play Golf – Mostly stuff for senior golfers. I still play a lot of golf and on occasion feel the need to write something about it, not often, but I do put up a few each year.  http://oldguygottothinking.blogspot.com/

Crazy Cooking In Wyoming

Believe it or not, this one is also in its eleventh year. I don’t post but once or twice each year on this one. Seems like I ran out of things I knew how or liked to cook. Still, has quite a few readers.

http://crazy-cooking.blogspot.com/

Old Trails Publishing

The one you have been waiting for, my last one. It is also my newest, and I use it to keep followers aware of my books and upcoming new releases.

http://oldtrailspublishing.blogspot.com/

There you have it, that’s what keeps me busy, out of trouble, and my wife from having to chase me out of the house. I do also, post on additional sites on Google Plus, but that is a story for another day.

 

I snapped this one Friday - a two and a half hour drive from here. Great day in
the hills with family. 

Writing My Way

Scrivener for Writers

I really admire writers who are in the now, and using Scrivener. I gave it a look, but decided I was an old dog, and not up to learning any new tricks. It appears to be a terrific program. Anything that helps a writer do what many find, including me, most difficult, organization. It is a word processing program with an outline feature that many authors rave about. It also reportedly offers templates for different types of writing.

Keeping track of the action - chapter and page

My, Most Old Fashioned Way

So why am I blogging about something I don’t use? I thought it might be interesting to some of my Younger followers to see how this old guy does it. My way works, and makes sense to me, but it is a long, long, way from new age.

This notebook keeps track of my day to day writing

Why?

The point? There are many ways to write, it is the final product, the story, not the way one reaches it that is important.

References used for my nonfiction

Every Blog Post Needs a Humorous Analogy

I remember hearing a story, years ago, about a professional golfer who was upset with his caddy because he put his bosses clubs into his bag in order. The pro wanted them stuck in randomly, said it gave him time to think about the next shot as he rummaged through the clubs looking for the one he wanted. Maybe that’s why I use my way, I like rifling through my multiple notebooks looking for the one I need.

Random notes to keep track of, well, stuff

And On That Note

Writing, for me, is a seven step process

ü Planning the story and characters

ü Writing the first draft, quickly with not too much backtracking

ü Checking and polishing the first draft for gaps, of people, or places and for obvious mistakes – I call this shaping the story, checking and modifying back story to make sure it agrees with the narrative of the main story.

ü The hated revision, or in my case revisions – go through the book page by page, rewriting cumbersome or odd sounding sentences. I also check voice here and rewrite, were needed, passive voice

ü Self-editing, a take your time, and do it write process. I use an extra grammar editing program here. I will talk more about it in another post. The program is called Grammarly and suggests changes, some I make, others I do not.

ü Proofreading, I self-publish and order two books for this step, one for myself and one for a reader, usually my wife. They are generally passed on, along with a different color of ink to additional readers.

ü Finally polishing it all up, getting it ready to sell, the old, make it the best it can be here.  If you have the money, and I recommend it if you do, this is also the time to send it to a professional editor.

There you have it – write on! Oh, and do not use too many exclamation points.

When the work gets to be too much or I am lost as to what comes next
I head out to one of my favorite places, only a few minutes away and a
wonderful place to contemplate life and writing.

The Westerner, The Virginian and Good vs. Evil

In Robert Warshow famous essay, “The Westerner,” he talks about the classic genre western. Warshow says it is, “always around 1870 and the hero is the last gentleman.” That was so true of the old style one dimensional western, and I liked and read a lot of them. They are still popular enough to remain in print today and provide a living or part of a living for many western writers.

Warshow goes on to say that, “The Westerner comes into the field of serious art only when his moral code, without ceasing to be compelling, is seen also to be imperfect.” This really brings to mind the first of the great moral dilemma westerns, one that in fact came out before the rubber stamped Hollywood versions of the old west. The book and movie was the, “Virginian,” a story where the protagonist must decide what to do when it is all about bringing the bad guy to justice and the bad guy is an old friend.

Take a look at what you are reading—is it an old time good vs. evil, Hollywood story, or is it more compelling, with the hero chasing not only bad guys but maybe a few inner demons as well?

 Warshow also compared the western to the gangster movies of his generation (the 40s and 50s) and one could do that today comparing recent western movies to new gangster genre movies and Television series.

“The gangster's world is less open, and his arts not so easily identifiable as the Westerner's. Perhaps he too can keep his counten...ance, but the mask he wears is really no mask: its purpose is precisely to make evident the fact that he desperately wants to "get ahead" and will stop at nothing. Where the Westerner imposes himself by the appearance of unshakable control, the gangster's pre-eminence lies in the suggestion that he may at any moment lose control; his strength is not in being able to shoot faster or straighter than others, but in being more willing to shoot. "Do it first," say Scarface expounding his mode of operation, "and keep on doing it!" With the Westerner, it is a crucial point of honor not to "do it first"; his gun remains in his holster until the moment of combat.”*

*  http://quotes.dictionary.com/author/robert+warshow?page=1#dETLrchdcPXoLSsy.99