Friday, February 27, 2009

For the over 40 crowd

If you love old westerns go to this site, you will love it. http://oldfortyfives.com/thoseoldwesterns.htm

Sorry, but if you are less than 40 years old this might not bring back the memories it does to us older types.

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Good Guys and Bad Guys

What makes a good read? I am on the final pages of my second western novel and just realized that after two books and a hundred thousand plus words there have been no: draw downs on main street, bar fights, serious injures from getting thrown from a horse, drinking red-eye till they can’t see scenes and no fat rich guys ruling the west like the mob. But they do have good guys and bad guys, romance and card playing, some shooting and second guessing about life and what I believe are really good stories.

Monday, February 2, 2009

Reading & Writing

It is often hard to balance reading with writing. I try to read as much as I write. Most writers I know write a lot and read a little. This usually happens when an author fears he/she will start sounding too much like the novels they are reading. This might not be all bad. I read about a book a week, light by Stephen King standards, but quite a bit by the standards of most writers, or for that matter most readers. I just finished another of the late Tony Hillerman’s great Navajo mysteries. If someone told me I wrote or sounded a little like him I would take it as a complement.

I spent only a few hours writing this week—three hours on my YA mystery and four hours on my nonfiction work on early Indian tribes in the west. About the same seven or eight hours I spent reading. If I could get away from the TV I might get more done. But working nine to eleven hour days at a regular job plus working Saturdays keeps me starved for some time to relax.

I enjoy the process of writing but find if I am too tired it soon turns to crap. Then it is time to read, relax or sleep.

Reading and Writing since 1954 and Mrs. Brandenburg’s first grade class at Central Ward elementary.



Comming soon a new page from my nonfiction work.