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.
Friday, February 27, 2009
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.
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.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
No Cowboy Stuff Today
Today we have a new president number 44. I watched the inauguration and much of the additional coverage and was highly impressed with everything. If we could keep that same feeling of patriotism, togetherness and usefulness all year long everyone on earth would think—wow, they really are the greatest nation on the face of the earth.
Good Luck President Obama and God speed.
Good Luck President Obama and God speed.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
John G Neihardt
Today it the birthday of the great John G Neihardt, I have read “Black Elk Speaks,” at least a half dozen times. As a kid growing up in rural Nebraska we were fed a steady diet of Neihardt and I am sure that, at the time, I did not appreciate him as I do today. If you have never experienced any of his stuff, take a look, what a great writer he was. He was first published at 16 and last published at 90, a remarkable career.
He is a word sender. This world is like a garden and over it go his words like rain, and where they go they leave everything greener. After his words have passed, the memory of them shall stand long in the West like a flaming rainbow. —Black Elk
http://www.neihardt.com/jgn/index.html
He is a word sender. This world is like a garden and over it go his words like rain, and where they go they leave everything greener. After his words have passed, the memory of them shall stand long in the West like a flaming rainbow. —Black Elk
http://www.neihardt.com/jgn/index.html
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Back to work
Well it’s a new year and I am back to work. It was great to have 2 weeks to sleep-in, nearly overdose on food and football and just to relax. One of the few real perks of being a public school teacher. Next year will be my 40th in front of the class, wow. With a New Year comes New Year’s resolutions—mine, to write more. I have a tendency to get in and out of the writing groove and looks like right now, I am in. My YA modern western mystery is once again moving along. I am hoping for 40 to 50 thousand words and am closing in on 30 thousand right now and writing, at a pace of, nearly a thousand a day.
Just a little excerpt from the chapter I am presently working on. (First Draft)
Jimmy heard the shot, flattened out in the sand of the dry creek and tried to quickly scoot backwards down the washed out canyon. He had not made it the twenty feet to the bend in the old creek bed when a startling reality came to him, he had not heard a slug hit and there was only one shot, again. Were they trying to scare him off, again? Or had someone shot at something else, maybe not him at all. His mind started to clear as he rethought the last thirty or so seconds. He slowly crept back to the spot where he had watched for the past hour or more. What he saw was strange or as Robert would say, “there is some weird stuff going on—supernatural---wo-oow-wo?”
The older, stockier, of the two men he had been watching was hitching the pick-up to the back of his Suburban. In what seemed like only seconds he brushed his hands on the back of his blue jeans, lit a new cigar and appeared to be laughing out loud. He flipped his match stick into the canyon, climbed into the Suburban and headed down the trail, but this time north, not south.
Jimmy sat back down, to rest or maybe to think. Possibly he needed to do both.
Can not wait to see what happens next--I will have to keep on writing.
Just a little excerpt from the chapter I am presently working on. (First Draft)
Jimmy heard the shot, flattened out in the sand of the dry creek and tried to quickly scoot backwards down the washed out canyon. He had not made it the twenty feet to the bend in the old creek bed when a startling reality came to him, he had not heard a slug hit and there was only one shot, again. Were they trying to scare him off, again? Or had someone shot at something else, maybe not him at all. His mind started to clear as he rethought the last thirty or so seconds. He slowly crept back to the spot where he had watched for the past hour or more. What he saw was strange or as Robert would say, “there is some weird stuff going on—supernatural---wo-oow-wo?”
The older, stockier, of the two men he had been watching was hitching the pick-up to the back of his Suburban. In what seemed like only seconds he brushed his hands on the back of his blue jeans, lit a new cigar and appeared to be laughing out loud. He flipped his match stick into the canyon, climbed into the Suburban and headed down the trail, but this time north, not south.
Jimmy sat back down, to rest or maybe to think. Possibly he needed to do both.
Can not wait to see what happens next--I will have to keep on writing.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas to all and let’s not forget we are blessed every day of the year by friends, family and readers. My wish for you is that this Christmas will be your best ever.
God bless and enjoy the day like none other.
God bless and enjoy the day like none other.
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