A Trip to The Wild Animal Sanctuary

Today, a different kind of post. I took off a few days this last week, didn't write a word for six days. It was refreshing, but I missed it and am ready to write again. Maybe I will come up with something I like. 

In the summer we spend a lot of time making what we call day trips, fun, but we are back to sleep in our beds. We have been into the Black Hills, two and a half hours away, Estes Park, three hours away and taken many trips into the mountains 45 minutes west of us. Last weekend we made a most memorable trip. Read below and see what I mean. 

I most likely will never make it to Africa, but I did make it to the incredible Wild Animal Sanctuary in Colorado. The sanctuary is a huge affair giving the animals, all rescued, acres and acres to roam.

It is the oldest and largest Sanctuary of its kind in the United States.

The Wild Animal Sanctuary is located near Fort Lupton, Hudson, and Keenesburg, Colorado.

We spent an enjoyable afternoon there last weekend, complete with three grandkids in tow. Second trip this year and we will go back.

The Animals Seemed To Enjoy the Great Weather as Much as We Did

Take a look here – www.wildanimalsanctuary.org

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. 

Hartville Wyoming

We had a terrific time in Hartville Wyoming today.

Winter Photo of Harville, Wyoming Visitor Center/Museum

This weekend is the Hartville, Sunrise Reunion, and Hartville’s big Boot Hill Days celebration. The morning activity was in the old Hartville School now a completely re-done museum/visitor center.

I have now been to enough events selling books that,
evidently, I do them with my eyes closed. I have better
photos from today but this one is the funniest.

We talked with some old friends, made some new ones and had an all around great time. I signed and sold several books and handed out a bunch of my custom bookmarks. I love days like this.

The book I was signing and selling today - Click and take a look

We had to leave earlier than we wanted as we had weekend guests, but I am sure everyone had a great day.

I sat next to a Lady who's Grandpa had a business in this Hartville
Main Street building more than 50 years ago

For followers who do not know the tiny town of Hartville, it is quite a place with a rowdy cowboy and mining history. The town itself has been around for more than 130 years, making it Wyoming’s oldest city. Hartville was founded by Major Verling Hart who from 1880-1882 was stationed at Fort Laramie and several times was the fort commander. Hart, along with others staked out copper mining claims in the area. 

I took this shot of the Hartville Post Office last winter

Writing Goals

No Goals Reached

Another month and another dismal writing report. Not really, I did write some, but it was the fourth straight month I failed to reach my goal of 20,000 words. For many writers that would be a week or less of writing but for me it is running about seven weeks to get up to twenty thousand.

While not writing I found a website to make a Monet-like me.

I did take some time off

In my own defense, I did take a couple of nice trips out of state. Since making my goals seem to be pretty much unattainable anyway, I never take my laptop with me on vacation. Someday, when I reach the rich and famous stage, I will go away to a beautiful writing hideaway, laptop in tow. But, not yet.

Spent some time in Rocky Mt. National Park - always fun!

What I Finished

This month I did manage 24 blog posts, which by the way, had over 4,000 hits – thanks, readers. My word count for July was 11,601, and the blogs were more than half of all of my writing. I did get some editing work done and wrote a few pages in two of my, in progress novels.

Embarrassed to say - I am still at work on the final edit of this one

So Far

For the year I am a bit past 133,000 putting me on pace to fall about twenty thousand short of my quarter of a million goal. Who knows, once the weather turns cold, I may get my word count up. If I could just have a few 2,000 word days .  . . . . 

Part of our backyard, old-fashioned flower garden