When you read this, the Bride and I are with Joy and John Gilstrap in France. I hope I can get an idea to use in a novel and write this trip off. John might. He has a history of visit different places and setting his Jonathan Grave books there.

Much of my travel within the states is for research. The Bride and I have visited Alpine, Texas, and the Big Bend region several times, and each of those trips provided settings and information that wound up in all four of my Sonny Hawke thrillers.

I’ve been up and down the Rio Grande and Red River here in Texas, to get an idea of what the world looks like on both sides of the borders. We’ve been through East Texas, in order to see the country I planned to write about and that trip also showed up in a Sonny Hawke thriller.

Within the next month or two, we’re heading up into Eastern Oklahoma to see where the Comanches lived, and to visit a number of sites I’ve read about. Most of that will be go into the western horror series I’m working on.

A year ago, Joy and John Gilstrap came to Texas and we took them down through Fredericksburg where Germans settled and brought their culture to the developing territory over 150 years ago. From there, we traveled down into the Big Bend region to soak up Marfa, Alpine, and Marathon. It wasn’t a surprise when parts of John’s Zero Sum were set in that hot, dry country.

Besides that, I believe he also mentioned the heat, and flies, something an armchair researcher might miss. Especially the flies.

The purpose of all this is to urge writers to get out and see the world, then use what you’ve discovered to flavor your books.

It doesn’t have to be international travel. This is the first time we’ve been across the Pond, but we’ve been to Mexico and Canada, and those memories are right there, waiting to be plucked out and used in a novel someday.

Will I set a novel in Paris, Normandy, or the Champagne region? I doubt it, but maybe someone I’ve met there will spark a character, or a benign incident on a train can be reimagined as a thrilling scene.

Just think. Texan. Hat. Barn coat. Lucchese boots. France.

Mix well. Maybe it’ll fizz over.

I’m sure John will come back with ideas of his own, and the stories will unfold.

Decades ago, Bill Fries and Chip Davis wrote a spoken song that was recorded by C.W. McCall (he recorded Convoy). Since I’m short of time and packing for the trip, I’m posting this fine piece of writing entitled Aurora Borealis. I wish it was mine.

“One night, many, many summers ago we were camped at twelve thousand feet up where the air is still clear, high in Rockies at Lost Lake, Colorado. And as the fire down burned low and only a few glowing coals remained, we laid on our backs all warm in our sleeping bags and looked up at the stars.

“And as I felt myself falling out into the vastness of the Universe, I thought about things. I thought about the time my grandma told me what to say when you saw the evening star. You all remember:

Star light, star bright, first star I’ve seen tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight.

“The air is crystal-clean up there; that’s why you can see a million stars, spread out across the sky, almost like a gigantic cloud.

“I remember another night, in the black canyon of the Gunnison River. And we had our rubber boats pulled up on the bank an’ turned over so we could sleep on ’em. And we were layin’ there lookin’ up at the stars that night, too, and one of the guys from New York said, he said, “Hey! Look at all that smog in the sky! Smog clear out here in the sticks!” And somebody said, “Hey, Joe, that’s not smog; that’s the Milky Way. It’s a hundred billion stars. It’s our galaxy.”

“And we saw the Northern Lights up there once, on the summit of Uncompahgre, fourteen thousand three hundred and nine feet above sea level. They were like flames from some prehistoric campfire, leaping and dancing in the sky and changing colors. Red, gold, blue, violet… Aurora Borealis. The Northern Lights. It was the equinox, the changing seasons. Summer to fall, young to old, then to now.

“And then everyone was asleep, except me. And as I saw the morning star come up over the mountain, I realized at last that life is simply a collection of memories. But memories are like starlight: they live on forever.”

Wish I’d written that. Life is just a collection of memories, and we’re making them with a writer friend I met the very day I got into this business.

Y’all get out and travel!

I just finished a three-day inaugural city-wide event in Garland, Texas, which featured my first Tucker Snow novel, Hard Country. This great honor was calledOne Book – One Garland, and was a gathering of readers and book clubs that culminated with a meet the author night, an in-conversation interview between myself and a former student who is now the Director ofCommunications for one of Texas’ largest school districts, and my typical avant garde writing workshop.

My workshops aren’t hands-on critique, practice events, but adiscussion of writing, research, the challenges I’ve experienced and overcome, and tips to polish would-be authors’ work. It was a fluid discussion that hopefully answered most of the questions from over thirty attendees.

I surprised them at the outset. “What do you want to know or hear about?”

Those who’d been to workshops tilted their heads at me like a dog looking at a new pan. This was something new.

That opened the dance to a variety of questions about writing, and comments on Hard Country. One lady made my head swell enough to need a new, larger hat. “I was impressed by the amount of detail in your books. I’ve read most of them since I discovered your work and wanted to say the specifics in your novels makes me part of your story. I grew up in those areas you write about, and the wonder how much research you do to make them so realistic and interesting.”

I had to think about that one. Growing up in the areas I write about brings that sense of reality she was talking about, and the little tidbits I learned growing up adds to the rich stew of fiction. And speaking of senses, writers should use all five in their novels without making it obvious they want readers to smell, feel, or see. But what she thought was weeks of research boiled down to reading and listening to the radio.

The idea for one major twist in Hard Country came fully formed from listening to the radio, and a program by local radio host Ed Wallace, who talked about that for a few minutes one lazy Saturday morning before moving on to another topic.

It happens when my protagonists discover that vehicles now are so advanced they download all the information on your phones the minute a driver starts the engine. That info includes online purchases, music preferences, and internet searches. They also gather information about driving habits, braking, speeding, and even each time a driver swerves in their own lane of travel.

The initial plot for Hard Country (and more realistic details) came from years of dealing with a meth house across the gravel road from our family ranch. More reality on this subject came when the meth-heads stole my brother-in-law’s farm truck and it downloaded the contents of their phone, allowing law enforcement officers to trace the theft back to the theft.

The attendee at the workshop was most interested in facts and wondered how much time I spent researching everything I included in the novel.

Not as much as you think, though she thought I’d absorbed tons of material. You can spend as much time as you want in research, but it’s easy to disappear down a rabbit hole and waste valuable writing time.

We don’t have to become experts on automotive downloads, or as in the case of the second Tucker Snow, The Broken Truth, naturally occurring radioactive materials, or NORM, which comes from drilling for oil in west Texas. I stumbled across that interesting aspect of my story when we purchased land in Northeast Texas and found there were mildly radioactive drill rods on the property. Other than a discussion with an experienced NORM board member and a few minutes on the internet, that’s all I needed, except for imagination.

You can put too much information in a novel, to the point the pace slows and readers skip paragraphs or pages. Years ago, I got tired of reading Tom Clancy and Dale Brown, because I felt I was reading training manuals. All I need is a little info to make the story real and valid in a reader’s mind, and told the lady in class I collect just enough facts and anecdotes to make the story real.

In the case of my contemporary, traditional, and horror westerns, the history I include comes mostly from reading both fiction and nonfiction books on the old west. I read Larry McMutrty’s westerns of course, and all of Louis L’Amour’s novels. But more recent works helped shape the reality of West Texas, North Texas, and Eastern Oklahoma, in the case of The Journey South.

I gleaned details from Empire of the Summer Moon by S.C. Gwynne (nonfiction), Mike Blakely’s Comanche Dawn (fiction), and Buffalo Trail (fiction), by Jeff Guinn, and Comanche Midnight (nonfiction), by Stephen Harrigan, to name only a few. Within the past couple of weeks, I’ve collected more historical information from two fascinating books, The Beauty of the Days Gone By, Jason Stone (and I can’t recommend this excellent book enough!) and Charles Goodnight by J. Evers Haley.

Another workshop attendee mentioned my character backgrounds and wondered if I spent much time writing full biographies on those I create. The answer was no. They walk on at the right time, fully formed, and I discover their histories and backgrounds a little piece at a time as the plot progresses.

Think of it as meeting someone at a cocktail party, asking a few questions, and the listening as they reveal their own histories and backgrounds. However, we discussed those authors who prefer to create extensive biographies to further their understanding of the characters they’ve created. Either works, and both are effective!

Of course, the one writing rule I emphasized was that there’s no rules in writing, and they all wrote that down.

Have you ever been involved in some intense situation and your account doesn’t match up with others who were there and involved?

The human mind and memory is a curious thing. When I’m with the family members I grew up with, it’s always fascinating to hear their stories about growing up, but each of us remembers the anecdotes differently. They spin these tales, I watch their lips move, and wonder what the hell they’re talking about.

Case in point. Let’s talk about eye witnesses, but not from a legal standpoint. Let’s simply discuss what we see, and why it’s different, likely resulting from different backgrounds and worldly experiences.

John Gilstrap and I were in Indianapolis a few years ago, along with our wives, attending Magna Cum Murder, a small writing conference full of heart and camaraderie. On that October day in question, the four of us were having drinks outside a grand old club on Monument Circle, enjoying the company and cool weather.

John made dinner reservations at a steakhouse within walking distance, but we’d been out there for a couple of hours and it was necessary to visit the hotel’s facilities first. I’m not sure why we both decided to go at the same time, and I really don’t want to discuss that here, but….

…his wife, Joy, and my bride, Shana, continued their conversation as we left. The current Columbia Club was built in 1925, and the restroom at the far end of the grand lobby of marble and tile was some distance from the front entrance, monitored by traditionally well-dressed doormen.

I reached out to Gilstrap, who two-fingered his version of that clear Indianapolis day and sent it over. I promise, the skies were bright and blue, we all agree on that.

*

Murder At The War Memorial

The lobby of Columbia Club in Indianapolis reeks of Old Money, from its elegant carved wood moldings and soaring ceiling to the dark wood bar to the massive walk-in fireplace. That golden eagle in the corner once stood guard over Abraham Lincoln’s funeral bier. It is the perfect location for a mystery writers’ conference, and so it served for one of my annual favorites, Magna Cum Murder. The conference started on Friday, so Thursday was all about arrival, checking in and meeting up with new friends. My wife, Joy, doesn’t always go to these things with me, but a few years ago, she came along because my buddy Reavis’s wife, Shana, was accompanying him. You haven’t seen trouble until Joy and Shana knock around together.

Somehow, Rev and I found the bar before the ladies did–by the span of a couple of drinks and a dozen war stories–and because it was such a nice early autumn day, we partook of our libations on the patio in the front of the hotel, across the street from the towering War Memorial obelisk. From this vantage point, we could watch the valet parking team do its work and wave hello to writers and readers we’ve seen year after year at Magna.

Finally, the ladies joined us, and after a little while, those early libations caught up with Rev and me and certain biological realities kicked in. I’m not sure which one of us excused ourselves first, but the trip to the men’s room became a dual effort.

We left our wives at the table to catch up with each other.

The restrooms at the Columbia Club are not conveniently located. It’s a bit of a hike to get to them. So, having left the ladies alone for five, maybe seven minutes, as Rev and I are heading back to the front doors, I notice a lady and a little boy on my left, pressing themselves into a corner by the luggage closet, and the valets are in the opposite corner. How odd. Then, when we stepped out into the sunshine, I glanced at the table where we’d left our wives, saw that their chairs were empty, and then, from across the street, at the base of the obelisk, I saw two men running, one behind the other. The one in the rear was a cop. The cop yelled, “Police! Don’t move!” Then took a shooter’s stance, fired, and the runner face planted onto the concrete. In that instant, I thought he’d shot with a pistol, but it turned out to be a Taser. That explained the quietness of the report.

Like most violence, the whole scene transpired over maybe ten seconds. I said to Rev, “The ladies missed the whole show.”

He replied, “No, they didn’t. They’re in the middle of it.” He pointed to a scrum of activity centered around a screaming lady, and sure enough, there they were.

*

His recollection ends here for the purposes of this discussion, but different viewpoints and proximity, as well as several minutes of extra knowledge, can sharpen the event.

“Eyewitnesses can provide very compelling legal testimony, but rather than recording experiences flawlessly, their memories are susceptible to a variety of errors and biases. They (and that’s all of us) can make errors in remembering specific details and can even recall whole events that did not actually happen.” Cara Laney and Elizabeth F. Loftus, Reed College, University of California, Irvine.

*

John’s view ends his story at the perfect place. Now my Bride picks up the narrative.

She is a former degreed journalist and as an old-school newspaper reporter, deals in facts, less emotion.

(She quickly came over from the dark side and moved into public education where we met.)

If she hears a story, or half of one, she’ll ruthlessly drill down until she discovers the truth. Both daughters can vouch for that from teenage experience. The truth is, I’d prefer to spin my stories when she isn’t present, if you know what I mean…

*

“Well, since the girls were there the whole time, we saw and heard much more.

“The screaming and yelling moved us toward the melee to see if we could help. The man, who was not wearing dark clothing, was hitting a woman who was crumpled on the ground next to a raised wall. I believe he was wearing a t-shirt. I guess his pants were dark. He then ran across the monument area looking for another victim. As we moved toward where he was going, we saw a man with a white dress shirt with blood on it standing near a man who was hurt and laying on steps. He was obviously trying to make sure the assailant did not return and cause more harm to the man on the ground that he had apparently targeted earlier.

“We later learned the blood on his shirt was that of the victim – he was a doctor trying to render aid. Later that night we were told that the victim sadly did not survive. Also near the area was a group of people who had come down to bring food to the homeless. All were prepared to intervene in some way, but the police arrived quickly and confronted the assailant. He did not heed their warnings and kept moving. They tazed him as he moved away from them, but the direction was not toward where we were standing with the guys at this point. If we were facing north, he was running east.

“It was all very unsettling. Joy later mentioned that she would not have felt as confident in our moving in closer to the tragic events unfolding if she had known I was not carrying protection. I normally do, but since we were with the guys, I was not. Lesson learned.”

*

We’re all susceptible to erroneous accounts for a variety of reasons. I think mine differs because like John, I’m a storyteller and have related this event over and over, likely embellishing it because of audience reaction whenever I give a talk. Or maybe because I simply like my version better.

*

The girls were settled on an outside settee as two fairly well-known authors headed for the necessary room. After the hike back, strange activities at the front doors caught our attention. I woman huddle with her little one (age between four and eight) to our left, burrowing into the luggage coat section. The woman gave us a fearful look, and ducked back down as if an artillery barrage was about to ensue.

Exchanging puzzled looks, we pushed past a tense-faced doorman and into the covered entrance where I heard shouting.

Orders came fierce and strong. “Stop!”

“Get on the ground!”

Men and women screamed.

A huddle to the right across the street caught my attention and action to our left moved fast. A man raced in our direction, in my memory wearing dark running clothes, and one of two pursuing officers shouted again.

“Stop!”

The brain slows. Too much information. Something bad.

I looked past the assailant and down the barrel of what I thought was a handgun as the closest officer took a stance and fired. Instead of the report of a firearm, the fleeing suspect stiffened and fell hard on his face. Tazed.

Blinking, I looked to the left to see another man down, surrounded by good Samaritans who’d gathered to render air. That’s when time kicked back and concern swept over me.

 John frowned. The ladies missed the whole show.

*

As they said, they didn’t. The instinct to protect others kicked in and both our wives rushed in to help defend others against a demented criminal who’d just been released from jail that morning.

Misinformation can corrupt memory in the aftermath of an event. When more than one person witnesses a crime and discusses it with others before officials arrive, they are likely to have noticed different things because witnesses have different personalities and that individuality shows up in recollections. Together they reinforce those shared memories and contaminate them with information from others.

The differences here are subtle, but collecting the three accounts…(and forgive me, because due to time limitations writing this at the last minute, I didn’t get Joy’s take, which had a little twist that made her participation even more interesting)…shows the reader that eyewitness testimony will never be exact.

The Old Man told me growing up not to believe most of what I hear, and only half of what I see. The older I get, the more I realize how smart he was.

With a book deadline looming and getting ready to leave for Bouchercon, I haven’t spent much time thinking about the subject of today’s blog, but it came about at a book signing. Tuesday, August 20, was the release of my second Tucker Snow novel, The Broken Truth.

We had a packed house at the Paris Texas Public Library, and I did my usual talk about the subject matter, the characters, and writing in general. Without a set speech, I discuss whatever comes to mind, and and I drifted off into a promo for Comancheria, the first book in my new western horror series (2025).

And here we burrow into a rabbit hole and all its branches.

I mentioned the entire novel came from a dream, and in fact, I dreamed another one a week or so ago. Coming awake at two in the morning with the entire plot in mind, I crept out of bed and into my office where I wrote for three hours, just to prime the pump and I wouldn’t forget.

A hand went up at the back of the room at the signing, and may I say, it was a packed house. “I loved your second book, Burrows. It was one of the creepiest books I’ve ever read, and I was an undercover narcotics officer. I know creepy.”

Humbled, I toed the carpet.

“So where does your creep come from?”

“Everywhere.” I looked around the room, noting folks were hanging on every word. That’s a weirdness (creepy feeling for some) for writers, because folks are there to hear you, and buy your book. You have to be entertaining on several different levels.

I once went to a book signing where the author spoke so softly the forum’s director came up with a new microphone, thinking the first one was defective. The lady changed mikes, and her voice was still barely a whisper. Then she read about a hundred pages of her book, at a level that had people fiddling with hearing aids turning them up, or changing batteries there on the spot.

NOTE: Be Loud. Be Proud. Be Entertaining!

Anyway, my creep comes from inside this empty head of mine. I confess, and won’t go into a lot of details here because I’m running up against a departure time, but we had a real live ghost (get it?) in our previous house. John Gilstrap can vouch for the fact that our family believed it, because the first time he stayed with us I had to warn him about…Casper.

I know. How original.

Casper played jokes on us, changing the TV channel, talking in familiar voices on the other side of the door, ringing bells (we don’t have any in the house), cutting through rooms at the edge of our vision, or making shadows under doors when no one was there (that’ll poise a finger over 911 on your phone). We felt he was a lot of fun, once we got used to his antics, but I’d neglected to tell my little brother about him.

He stayed with us for a few days, and one afternoon he called me at work, breathless, and on the sheer edge of a full blown panic. “What have you not told me about this house???”

“Uh, what did you see?”

“I saw a little boy in the hall, and when I asked him why he was in the house, he ran into Chelsea’s bedroom. I went in right after him and looked.” His voice lowered. “No one is in there, and all the outside doors are locked. What the hell!!!???”

“That was Casper, and don’t worry. He just likes to have fun.”

I explained the presence in further, and he never stayed with us in that house again.

I’m always casting around for something different to add when I’m writing. I continued my answer with the gentleman at the back of the room when he asked more about Creep Factor.

“There are a lot of other things I want to write about, but haven’t found the right place. For example, how many of y’all have The College Dream? You know, the one in which you can’t find you classroom because you haven’t been there all season, and it’s time to take the final. Or you come to class without pants, and have to take the final. Or you’re wandering in a building on the last day of school, and know you’ve blown the whole semester because you forgot about that class?”

Hands went up all around the room. So is that creepy? Is it something to raise the hair on a reader’s neck if properly presented?

I also want to write about the Mandela Effect. That’s the one where we’re convinced scientists have torn a hole in the fabric between universes and the world has changed, only slightly, and our memories argue with reality. “The term was coined in 2009 by paranormal researcher Fiona Broome after she and others realized they had false memories. Broome became convinced that Nelson Mandela, then the president of South Africa, had died in prison in the 1980s, but he actually served a 27-year sentence and was released in 1990.”

Do you remember how Mr. Monopoly wore a monocle? I say he did, but today’s reality says otherwise. Or is it the Berenstain, or Berenstein Bears. My auto correct insists it’s Berenstain. Did Mickey Mouse wear suspenders? Did Curious George have a tail? (My good friend’s son has a Curious George tattoo he got over thirty years ago. I’ll have to take a peek…ooohhh, story idea! His tattoo does have a tail, but today’s reality says he doesn’t).

And my own personal recollection is O’Farrell’s Ice Cream Parlor because I went there many times when it was in business in the Dallas area, but wait, if you look it up, it’s just Farrells. And now the spelling is different: Parlour vs. Parlor.

There’s a world of ideas out there, and many full of Creep. I’m afraid I don’t have the time to explore everything, and to write about all that interests me, but I’m sure gonna give it a try as long as these fingers stay limber enough to type, and as my old grandmother would say, “I’ll get it done, the good Lord willing and the creek don’t rise.”

Here’s a fun link to the Mandela Effect. If you want to know about the ghost we had, and all of his antics, look me up at Bouchercon in Nashville, where Gilstrap can vouch for me. We’re both here all day today, August 31.

https://www.forbes.com/health/mind/mandela-effect/#:~:text=What%20is%20the%20most%20famous,Mickey%20Mouse%20as%20wearing%20suspenders.

As I type this, two ginormous generators on an equal number of gooseneck trailers across the street roar so loud I’m forced to wear the ear protection usually reserved for shooting large firearms. On the backs of those same trailers are four five-hundred-gallon tanks full of water and some foamy solution designed to remove paint from brick.

The house across the street is the target of my ire, along with the steady hiss of pressurized water spewing from the ends of two power washing wands wielded by a pair of very wet workers. It’s part of an ongoing saga of renovations over there, and as John Gilstrap can attest from the last time he visited over a year ago, the residence in question looks like someone with no sense style had been watching wayyyy too much HGTV.

I think the house was a front for nefarious businesses. Honestly, I believe they were cooking meth over there. Strange things went on behind those closed doors after we moved here five years ago. I seldom saw the same people more than a couple of times in the four years after we bought this house. Strangers came and went. The blinds were always closed, and it usually looked as if no one lived there.

Then it sold, and the new owners brought in 30-yard dumpsters, and stripped the interior down to the studs. Ignoring the architectural styles of the neighborhood, they remodeled everything into some ghastly ultra-modern Scandinavian design with a wide glass front door the size you’d find at one end of a car dealership’s showroom.

Without approval from the HOA, they sprayed the exterior bright white, making it the only painted residence in our neighborhood of naturally colored brick. It stood out like a sore thumb, required Ray Bans to look at it in the bright summer stun, and still hasn’t sold eighteen months later, because the HOA (and this is the only time I will give them props) put a lean on the house until certain conditions were met. Namely, strip off all that garish paint.

That’s what they’re doing right now. Power-washing the paint off a 5,000′ two-story house brick by brick.

The noise and aggravation is one more thing to endure this month, and this leads us to the root of today’s rant and recommendation.

Through this summer, I hammered out the first 40,000 words on my latest western horror novel, Buck’s Lament, and on a creative roll, retreated to the Cabin for a week by myself to gain another fifteen. Coming home, I went to town on the downhill side of the manuscript (Texan lingo meaning to do something in a detailed and enthusiastic way).

On Monday, words flowed into the laptop from my fingertips. The story moved forward with startling twists as the plot continued to develop on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. During those four days, all those subconscious connections James Scott Bell was talking about a few days ago here on Killzone found themselves and i wrote with feverish glee at how well it read.

Those who know me can tell you that I don’t outline, so it was all stream of consciousness, and it worked!

Then I stuck on some bit of western history, and went to the Google for the information. Typing key words into the search engine, I found a safe link I’d used before and hit Enter.

A dozen screens popped up, one over the other so fast I couldn’t read them, before it froze up and refused to respond. On top of that, a warning came up that I didn’t quite understand. Trying not to panic, I dialed up the makers of my laptop. For the next hour, we discussed my dilemma and technical support finally suggested that I should shut everything down and reboot this infernal machine.

It worked, and all came back…except for what I’d written the last four days. Seven. Thousand. Words. They were just gone.

But that can’t happen! My iDrive automatically backs up to the Cloud. It should all be there.

Sick at my stomach, I again reached out to tech support and the helpful expert figuratively shrugged. “I can’t tell you what happened.”

I called a friend who lives on computers. He came over and three hours later, delivered the bad news. “For some reason, you were disconnected from the Cloud. Nothing has backed up since Sunday.”

With a sick feeling in my stomach, I swallowed down a wave of despair. “So it really is all gone.”

“I’m afraid so.” He went to work, beating back all the electronic gremlins he could find and got me going again, but for days afterward I couldn’t make myself type a word. All those descriptions, the twists, and especially the Pulitzer prize-winning dialog, was gone.

Following those twenty-year-old footsteps in my own imaginary ashes when an electronic hiccup took my entire first novel, I spent the next week re-writing those seven thousand words from memory. I’m sure I missed many details, but the scenes were still fresh in my mind. Maybe these new pages look like the ones floating around somewhere in an electronic heaven, but I’ll never know.

I wish I could tie my troubles in a gunny sack and throw them over the edge, but that’s just the line from a Guy Clark song.

So, the purpose of this discussion is to urge you all not to rely on just one backup method, no matter how good they say it is. I won’t go into the myriad methods to save your work, because I can’t tell you what’s best.

An exterior hard drive?

Had one. It failed.

Download to a thumb drive.

Check. Did that, but it also failed and when I bought this machine, they said the Cloud would never let me down. I know it wasn’t the electronic netherworld, it was a strange disconnect between this infernal machine and that little storm cloud icon at the top of this screen that I never would have imagined.

One of the support techs I spoke to on the phone said to use Time Machine. “You’ll never lose your work again.”

Probably should, but I don’t have the time or inclination to learn more technology. Then again, that’s what they said about the connection between this device and the Cloud.

My grown daughters insist I should use Google Docs. They say it will never fail. I’ll give that a look once I’m finished with this manuscript, but not right now.

I save as I go again, even though it’s supposed to do that for me, and at the end of the day I send the entire manuscript to myself through email. That one has never failed me.

I hope this never happens to any one of you, and I also mean the generators that I’m beginning to think will be outside my office window until the end of September.

—

May I offer a suggestion to writers who are struggling with a manuscript?

I’ve talked with a number of folks who tell me they’ve been massaging a book idea for months, if not years.

“I’ve been working on this manuscript for five years and have about twenty thousand words. It feels like I’m going slow, because I keep going back to improve a paragraph here, or rewriting these sentences after I finished Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls. And then I read James Lee Burke’s newest novel, and his descriptions are beautiful, so I went back…”

As one who says there are no rules in writing, I wait for Budding Author to finish.

“And because I have to write between taking the kids to school, my job, picking the kids up and hauling them to practice, I kind of get lost where I am and go back and read what I’ve written. That’s so depressing, because everything I have on paper needs work, so I go back and tweak it again –––.”

“Can I interrupt?” I grab Budding Author’s shirt for a good, old-fashioned shake, slap, and backslap.

“Please.”

“I assume you know the absolute basics of building a house.” We’re nose to nose as I continue. “You’ve seen them going up, right?”

“Of course.”

“So what do they first?”

“Draw up blueprints?”

“Good enough. They have an idea of how they want the floorplan to flow.”

“I suppose.”

“Bear with me here…” Slap, slap, slap. “The floorplan comes first, along with mental images of what a builder wants. From there the architect draws the foundation plan, then plumbing, electrical, elevations, everything necessary for construction. The foundation is the first step on site.

Budding Author raises both hands to glory. “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

The next shake is for emphasis. “Visualize this. The floorplan is your idea of a story.”

“I can see the whole thing like a movie in my head, I just need to write it down.”

“Well, you see bits and pieces that flow, and that’s just fine, but all that visualization comes together on top of the foundation. Slab or pier and beam, it doesn’t matter, but it must be solid and square.”

“I’m getting the idea!” Budding Author’s eyes brighten even more.

I refust to turn loose of this person’s shirt, lest they quit concentrating. “Next comes the framing. All those wall have to go up to support the roof which is the first step to completion. The roof protects everything under construction below.”

“I thought we were talking about manuscirpts.”

“We are! But here’s what builders don’t do. They don’t finish the living room before moving on. There’s no electrical, plumbing, or sheetrock before the rest of the house. There are no windows when the rest of the house is still nothing more than sticks. No trim, fixtures, or paint. No carpet or flooring while they’re still framing the bedrooms. No furniture, drapes, pictures on the walls, or the installation of that sixty-inch television. Are you getting this?”

“Kinda. So what do the builders do, then?”

“They press on with the whole project as a whole, working forward to completion, and then they add all those final touches.”

“I get it! You’re saying write the damn book to the end and don’t get caught in that whirlpool of going back over and over to make the pages perfect before moving on to the next!” The light bulb goes on over Budding Author’s head and that excited individual dances with glee, tearing away from my grip.

“You’re right. Plow forward until you reach the end and then go back to edit, and edit, which is all the finish work in that house we were talking about.”

Budding Author rushes away to work and I smile in satisfaction, because it took me a good long while to learn how to get the first draft done by pushing forward to follow the story while it’s still fresh in your mind and evolving.

Follow the story. Write the book, then get out the paint and polish.

So, Hopeful Author, you came up with a great plot and over the course of several months, or years, you’ve hammer out 30,000 words in fine order. With the first act written, polished over and over, and massaged into a form you can live with, the next phase begins.

It’s the pesky second act that gives me headaches, and not because it’s hard to write, but because the whole world seems to slow down, and the words come slow. You might have experienced it also, when the universe conspires to keep you from writing, and all those carefully crafted characters develop minds of their own and refuse to move, lounging around, drinking coffee and puffing cigarettes.

“I can’t think of anything to write when I get to that point!”

This was a comment I heard the last time I talked with a group of writers. The young woman’s voice was full of tension, and frustration.

“I have a suggestion.”

The assemblage waited, pens poised…and in one instance, a woman held her fingers over the home keys on her laptop’s keyboard.

“Start a new chapter and throw a couple of your characters together. Start a conversation, or give them a nudge, and see what happens.”

Raised hands.

“That’s all?”

A voice came from the back. “What if it doesn’t go anywhere? I will have wasted those hours.”

“If nothing else, you’ve finished an exercise in creative writing. Delete those sentences, or pages, and give it another shot.”

Frowns. Eyebrows came together in dark lines over hooded eyes.

“Does that work?”

“It does for me, and remember, there’s nothing concrete about creative writing.” I quoted Miss Adams, my high school English teacher who still whispers advice in my ear on occasion. “Put words on paper, and those words will lead to others.”

Another question from under a raised hand sent us off into a new direction. “I keep working on this scene, but it won’t develop.”

“Maybe you’re trying to make your characters do something that’s not necessary at that time. It could be you’re wanting them to go against their fictional codes. Listen to your subconscious. Stop trying to make them do what you want, and approach it from another direction.”

“I didn’t know there would be so many complications.”

“None of us did when we started out.”

I experienced a similar lag this week. I finished the first act of a novel contracted with a new publisher, satisfied with the plot and excited about where the story was going. Then it happened. Act II refused to move.

I went back and read those pages and realized I hadn’t utilized a character to her full extent. It was time for her to walk on stage. We needed to hear her story. Putting her into an uncomfortable situation with little support from anyone she knew, I watched Victoria’s back stiffen with resolve and she moved the story forward in a direction I hadn’t anticipated.

The story is rolling along today, and the tension is rising as fast as this summer’s temperature. Don’t let that second act slow you down. Once you’re through to the other side at around 60,000 words, it’ll be a downhill race to the conclusion.

Write away!

The full-blood, six-foot-six Cherokee speaker held up a bound document two or three hundred pages deep. “This is the Dawes Roll and it’s gold for anyone looking for their Oklahoma ancestors, or who have questions. I had a lot, and still do, but now all the old people are gone and I can’t ask them. This helped me find a few I didn’t know about.”

I perked up at the session, though I’d been listening carefully to his discussion of the Trail of Tears and his grandmother who loved to tell stories.

“Please feel free to come look at this when I’m finished.” Now in his late seventies, John Grits continued to tell the story of his people and family to the attendees at the Western Writers of America conference, and my mind went back to so many things I wish I’d asked my old people.

They weren’t much storytellers, but I learned to sit quiet in a living room, on the front porch, out in the yard, or at the stores in Chicota, Texas, and listen as the adults talked. From the old men there, who Miss Esther called the Spit and Whittle Club, I learned about farming, the weather, cattle, stock prices (which didn’t register much at the time), hunting, fishing, and “adult” issues which were vastly more interesting.

The family get-togethers I mentioned provided some information, including the story about an old man who stayed with my grandparents when Mama was little. He’d been captured by Indians (they never said what tribe) and somehow escaped one night. Tiring, he crawled into a hollow log. Laying there in the darkness and holding his breath, he counted the steps of each pursuer who placed a foot on the downed tree as they raced after him. I recall it was over twenty.

I know nothing else about the incident she related, and have often wondered about the rest of her tale.

Miss Esther told me her mother burned to death in front of her while making soap when my grandmother was little, I know nothing else other than she’s buried in a cemetery in Grant, OK, (which Miss Esther often said), but I never asked her exactly where or drove her up there to point out the plot.

I do have a fading photo of her and her siblings along with my great-grandfather on the porch after the funeral. It was 1913 and kids are barefoot, though their clothes look somewhat fresh, and the looks on their faces are blank from that great tragedy. I want to know more now, but the opportunity is long gone.

That leads us to the next regret. Family lore says we have some Choctaw blood, but there’s no marriage license between great-grandma Minne and Miss Esther’s daddy, Ed Gentry. With that missing piece of the puzzle, we’re stymied, which leads us back to the beginning of this discussion.

After John Grits finished his presentation, I borrowed his Dawes Roll and looked up Minnie Roberson. A four-year-old was listed, and two lines underneath was my grandmother’s first name, but it was Esther Roberson (maybe someone she’s named after?), but the dates didn’t seem to add up, and those folks were from northeast Oklahoma.

The National Archives explains “The Dawes Rolls, also known as the “Final Rolls,” are the lists of individuals who were accepted as eligible for tribal membership in the “Five Civilized Tribes:” Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminoles. Those found eligible for the Final Rolls were entitled to an allotment of land, usually a homestead. The Rolls contain more than 101,000 names from 1898-1914 (primarily from 1899-1906).”

So…we might be Cherokee, or Choctaw (a tiny, tiny percentage), or not. The names I found might not even be them, but that’s not the point here, either. This discussion isn’t primarily about the rolls, or ancestry, but is a way for me to urge y’all to talk to those who are still around and record their lives, and your family stories.

With today’s technology, it’s as easy as pushing a button on your phone and leading them to tell what the remember. I know, we had tape recorders back in the day and I didn’t use them because the tapes and pushing all those buttons was intrusive. People looked at those devices like I’d put a live snake on the table.

But a deft push on a cell phone screen is so common no one will notice, and if they do, quickly forgotten, and you might be able to hear stories that wouldn’t come out any other way. Be careful, though. My own grandmother didn’t want to talk about some of those old times because, “We all have skeletons in our closets and should leave the doors closed.”

Like so many people through generations back, it never occurred to me that I should have been looking to find out more about those who’re already gone. I also want to know the stories they told, what they lived through, and what they knew about their own grandparents, relatives, and beyond.

Before people started writing these things down, information was passed down in the form of tales and recollections around the campfire, and in front of the fireplace and stoves. They also spun them under the stars, and I got some of that in the evenings beneath the dripping mimosa tree, or the sweet-smelling sycamores while lightning bugs flashed around us.

Now we have air conditioning, cell phones, and computers, and don’t go visiting like they did. People are more interested in television programs, movies, inaccurately titled Reality TV, or those damned devices in our hands.

It became easier to watch television and no talk, and soon there was no need to entertain each other with recall about what happened when my ancestors crossed the red River from Oklahoma and Arkansas, or on Dad’s side, through the southern states and up from Houston to Lamar County.

Folks, it’s a crying shame that most kids know a quarter of their family history that should have been passed down through the years, mine included. My grandparents all married right after the turn of the twentieth century, survived scratch farms, this country’s involvement in WWI, the Great Depression (which made them who they were), WWII, and even Korea, before I came along, but I don’t know enough about what they went through, what they liked and disliked, or what they knew of the Armstrong/Wortham/Vanderberg/Gentry stories.

John Grits admitted he only knows a small piece of what his own family experienced in those horrible times for his people, and laughed when he said his grandmother always knew there was a foot trail on their Missouri property, but not the story behind it.

Only a few years ago this man who’s closing in on 80 found out that trail down behind the house where he was born and delivered by his own grandmother was the Trail of Tears his people survived. His great-grandmother had walked that trail herself, but apparently assumed her daughter and family knew.

The stories that are getting away from us will be lost forever unless you, and I, record them in some way. Gather those stories and cherish them, and for your writers, it’s a fountain of ideas for future works.

I spoke at a book club event this past week and a nice lady who organized the meeting at a local public library took me to task on not releasing a new book in the Red River Series in the last year or two. She caught me the moment I walked into the building.

“I’m tired of waiting.”

The event began at two o’clock, and I walked in ten minutes early. She sounded like my late father-in-law who insisted being at least thirty minutes early to everything.

I squinted at her, trying to see if there was some family relationship. “I would have been here earlier if you’d asked.”

“That’s not what I meant. I want another Red River book. I like those the best, then your other series, even though one of them was about Tom Bell in the 1930s. You need to hurry up and bring everyone back in the next one. I want my adopted family.”

“Ah.” I turned the tables on her. “So what do you like best about that series?”

Her face brightened. “They take me back to when I was a kid.”

“These books are a time machine, then.”

“I suppose.” She led me into the meeting room. “The way you write is so…familiar. I feel comfortable with all of your characters and the music in there is what I listened to back you’re your history is accurate, and I love everything about those books, except that you kill animals in almost every one of them.”

That second zinger caught me by surprise. “Well, you realize no animals are harmed in these novels. They’re fiction. I made them all up.”

“But I love dogs, and now that you mention it, you killed a cat in one of those Sonny Hawke novels.”

I couldn’t let that go. “Again, we’re talking fiction here.”

“But I don’t like to read about animals being hurt or injured.”

I neglected to bring up the subject that some of my most heart-wrenching newspaper columns involved the loss of dogs, and I always hear from readers who say I touched something deep inside them, and thanked me for it.

In fact, just this past weekend I helped my little brother bury one of his dogs, because he was
both physically and mentally unable to do it by himself. You see, he lives out in the country and rural life is hard on animals.

The dog he cared for wasn’t his. Rocky (and that’s his given name) granted an elderly man’s dying wish that he look after Tig after Charlie passed. The old dog insisted on staying at the empty house down the road, because that was his home and he refused to move in with Rocky who fed and watered him for three years.

When a car sped by this past weekend, going way too fast on an asphalt county road, Tig hadn’t completely crossed the road. His back was broken, and the poor dog was so mangled that Rocky had to do what country folk have done all their lives to end suffering.

So we buried Tig, another in a long line of faithful companions I’ve had to lower into the ground.

As he and I were finishing up, I thought back about that book club lady and pondered a strange thought. Thrillers and mysteries are filled with murder and mayhem. I can kill a hundred people in one of my books (all made up, of course), and readers seldom say anything about the body count.

But if an animal dies, folks gather up torches and pitchforks to chant in front of my house, hoping to toast some marshmallows as my computer goes up in flames. Even the spouse of one of my oldest friends refuses to read any of my books, because she’s afraid I’ll waylay her with a deceased animal.

When fictitious animals “die” in my novels, it’s to advance the plot, or to allow the reader, in the case of my aforementioned Texas Ranger to show this character was under a great deal of stress and dealt with running over a feral cat that darted out in front of his truck with tears and a near emotional breakdown.

But at the same time, the Book Club lady loves to think about those days when she grew up in the country. But doesn’t want to dwell on the reality of life itself.

In my view, animal deaths are not off limits as long as they aren’t gory and serve the story.

Come on, Old Yeller and Where the Red Fern Grows wouldn’t be classics without these events.

So authors, have you killed off an animal in one of your novels?

And readers, what are your thoughts on this very real part of life in a fictionalized world?

Back in my larval stages, which occurred in the mid-1960s, my buddy Gary Selby and I were partners in a field day event called the Three-Legged Race. Field Day was how they ended the school year back then, and the late May air was perfumed with fresh-mown grass, gardenias from some lady’s yard across the street, and dill pickles.

Beneath the scraggly elm trees outside our old school, the teachers sold those delicious green mouth puckers as a fund raiser for the next year. After I was grown and became a middle school teacher, I figured out they used the money for a much-needed end-of-the-year happy hour. They also sold cheap homemade Cokes and Dr Peppers (syrup from clear gallon jugs hand-mixed with tap water), weakly flavored snow cones, and popcorn that didn’t sell the year before.

There were other drinks of course. Water in a five-gallon metal water cooler they filled from the hose, and if an elementary student was brave, a Suicide (Coke, Dr Pepper and pickle juice).

All for a dime each. Even the hose water, because it had ice in it.

At the starting line that warm sunny day, Coach tied my right leg to Gary’s left, and we waited for the starting pistol with our arms over the others’ shoulders. At the crack, we were off in fine rhythm, and had a great lead by the time we were five yards from the finish line. That’s when the knot came untied. We crossed as victors, but were disqualified by a sour old math teacher, and I lost the only opportunity to win a ribbon or trophy in my entire twelve years of public school.

I didn’t win a darn thing for the next fifteen years until I took a college course in photography to supplement my assignment as a middle school photo teacher and placed first in the Silhouette category. I had that trophy in my office until it disappeared in a move several years ago.

All this leads back to one day in the 6^th grade when I came across a Newberry Medal winning book in the school library titled, Across Five Aprils. I picked up that little novel because of the gold emblem on the cover and absorbed it in one sitting, sparking a lifelong interest in the War of Northern Aggression.

Finishing that, I looked for other books Newberry winners such as Island of the Blue Dolphins. Those titles took me to Robinson Crusoe, Swiss Family Robinson, and ultimately, and this is a weird connection, The Old Man and the Sea and my introduction to Hemingway, which intersected with Steinbeck and eventually Robert Ruark, the writing mentor I never met.

Newberry made me aware of Caldecott Awards, and when I got older, Spur Awards on westerns caught my attention. Hugos, Edgars, the ITW, and Pulitzers to name only a few told me these authors, and ultimately their works, were worth reading.

Awards and the resulting recognition are important personal achievements that can stimulate a flagging author. Writer awards are also a great way to fast track a literary career. They provide professional recognition among your peers, and in my case, are a significant source of personal satisfaction.

Awards are endorsements of your book, and therefore, showcase your talent. They tell the world that the novel you bled for is worthy of the price and can be an incentive for online shoppers to add more titles to their list, or cart. They boost self-confidence and self-esteem, and impress the heck out of potential agents and publishers.

Most of those awards I’m familiar with don’t bring in much in the way of instant cash, and I’m not talking about grant awards which is an entirely different discussion, but recognition among literary peers serves as a springboard to help authors rise above the relative obscurity of thousands of books published each year.

My first novel, The Rock Hole, won the Benjamin Franklin Award, and at the time I had no idea what it meant to a budding career. The folks at Poisoned Pen Press had to explain that one to me (as well as the importance of Starred Reviews from Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and a host of others). I had my sights set on others, too. They served as personal goals and milestones, that kept me plugging along.

At one point confidence sagged, and I seriously wondered what I was doing at the keyboard, but a Spur Award from the Western Writers of America came my way, and then another, along with Will Rogers Medallions, and I was back on the mental track to keep plugging along. Because of renewed enthusiasm, I kept at it and that led to several honors and accolades now hang on the walls of my office. When I have any doubts about my work, and all authors do at some point, I only have to look up and am once again energized.

The addition to mentioning awards on your website, Facebook, Instagram, or any other platform that showcases your work, this recognition can lead to an increase in sales. When marketing, they lift your brand, and help others celebrate your success in this race to be recognized as professional authors.

Mentioning that you’re a finalist on social media can put you on a stage in which others share your anticipation and excitement, maintaining interest and conversation for months at a time as everyone waits for that announcement. Those who might know only your name can be prompted to look up your backlist and elevate sales.

Don’t hesitate to enter these contests, even though winning might a longshot in your own mind. Sure you might lose, but you’ve already taken a whale of a step by getting that novel published, so don’t let self-doubt dissuade you. Some of these have entry fees, so research those you’re interested in. Don’t hesitate to reach out to other established writers to make sure they’re legit. There are a lot of scams out there. Other competitions are financed by grants or outside entities, and only require copies for submission and no fees.

Writing contests are also a source of great satisfaction when you place. Some of you might have heard of the late Pat McManus, the legendary and hysterically funny columnist for Outdoor Life and Field and Stream. He and I became friends decades ago, and he urged me to enter a Humor Category in a contest sponsored by the Outdoor Writers of America. I did, and my column came in first with Pat taking second. He called to congratulate me, and the excitement in his voice was worth as much as the paper certificate I framed.

The honor of winning that contest sparked me to work harder on a writing career.

Even seasoned writers are excited to hear their latest novel has been honored with such recognition. I was humbled to stand in front of a banquet hall full of writers I’d read for years and accept my first Spur. It was a goal and dream come true.

But don’t be disappointed if you don’t make the cut right off the bat, or even after several attempts until you finally succeed. Participation ribbons aren’t part of this business, so just square your shoulders, congratulate those who won, and keep trying.

As I always say in all things. Never give up.