How My West Was Won by Victoria Chatham

 

AVAILABLE HERE

Recently, a reader asked why I wrote contemporary Western romance when I had previously primarily written Regency and historical romance. My answer was that an editor once told me I was too English to write a Western romance, historical or contemporary. I didn’t necessarily take that as a challenge, but over the years, it became a bit of a niggle, like the proverbial burr under a saddle.

I thoroughly enjoyed writing the Regency and historical romances, but I’ve always believed that writers should be able to stretch their writing muscles and write anything. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Take, for instance, a writer colleague who strayed from her usual Western historical and contemporary romance genre to try her hand at women’s fiction. The resounding response from her beta readers, me included, was that it didn’t work. She has since reworked her premise into an engaging second-chance romance with a cast of more mature characters that works very well and will shortly be available.

My fascination with the West and cowboy life began at an early age. My parents could not understand where my passion for ponies came from, but during those early years, I begged for rides from a neighbour who tethered his pony on open grazing land close to our house. During the long summer holidays in Cornwall, I rode every one of the beach ponies and hung around at the end of the day to ride one back to the stables. Ride ‘em, cowboy.

1941 edition (publ. Random House)

At some point, and probably because I’d pestered my parents, I was given a pair of Roy Rogers cappistols, holsters, and a black cowboy hat. That was when I was six or seven and had no time for dolls, which appeared to be every little girl’s top priority then. I wish I had photographs, but my family owned nothing as exotic as a camera, not even a plain old Brownie box camera. My interest in the West progressed into writing the lurid adventures of Virginia, Girl of the Golden West. What drama! What tales of daring escapades astride her coal-black Arab stallion! Yes, I had read most of Walter Farley’s The Black Stallion books by the age of ten. What other horse could Virginia, with her tangled mane of flaming red hair, possibly ride?

I wrote those stories in pencil on scrappy paper and provided my parents with endless amusement. I didn’t understand what was so funny about Virginia defending her adobe hacienda with her trusty Winchester rifle and wasn’t impressed with their response. I gradually stopped sharing my stories and then stopped writing them. But I still had this interest in cowboys and their culture. Although I read a lot of Regency romances as a teenager, I also read any Zane Gray and Louis L’Amour books I could get my hands on. I appreciated the artworks of Frederic Remington and Charles Russell after I found coffee table books about them in our school library.

After over thirty years of living in Western Canada, I think I’ve absorbed much of the culture I dreamed of as a child. Trail riding in the Rockies, talking to ranchers and ranch hands, the working cowboys and girls, stock contractors, and some rodeo riders over these years all added grist to my mill. That editor was only partially correct. Any story requires some research, and I found I had to do as much for these books as for my historical novels, so being English became irrelevant. Loving That Cowboy was my first contemporary Western romance, then came Legacy of Love, and now, my latest, Loving Georgia Caldwell. So far, I have had no complaints, so maybe, just maybe, it doesn’t matter how English I am.

Victoria Chatham

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Momentum

 I've taken several physics classes. I can't recite the formulae, but I do recall many of the "laws of physics". One that haunts me is "A body in motion tends to stay in motion." While written to reflect the momentum of a wheel, ball, or block sliding down a slope, it also applies to writing.

A corollary to that law is "A body at rest tends to stay at rest." Again, that applies to writing.

I'd like to add a second corollary to those "laws"; a body going north, tends to stay on that course rather than moving east, west, or south.

How do all those "laws" pertain to writing? Nevada Barr provided me with a wonderful piece of advice; "write three pages a day." She writes every day but limits herself to three pages. She writes her stories out longhand and transcribes them. When she's inspired, she writes very small. When uninspired, she writes large and on every other line. However, the momentum of writing three pages a day yields one book a year. She's adept at using that first law, staying in motion.

When life diverts me from writing, I become "a body at rest" and I tend to stay at rest. Restarting my writing momentum takes effort and thought. I usually have to reread the last few pages I've written, or look back on my rough outline, to restart my writing engine. It's sometimes painful, and often a slow process that takes several aborted attempts before the writing effort regains momentum. 

As for the second corollary, when I get distracted, it's very easy to remain distracted. For example, I have a friend who is an artist. She built an art studio in her house with the intention of going to the studio every morning to paint. She found the rest of her house too distracting. There were hundreds of things she could do, unrelated to her artistry. In the end, she rented a studio loft and "went to work" each day. In the loft, the only thing she could do was paint, and those household distractions were no longer an issue. For me, that means not getting into something, anything, other than writing. Changing the direction of my momentum from reading email, watching television, washing dishes, answering email, or searching the internet, is difficult. 

I find that mindless activities, like walking or showering, offer the greatest opportunity for my mind to wander. If I use that time to reflect on what I'm writing, I can usually return to the computer and start recording what the characters are saying to me. 

Yes, the characters speak to me. If I'm really into a story, they will sometimes wake me up, demanding that I capture their activities before the ideas slip away.  For some reason, Jill Fletcher, from the Park Service mystery series, is most emphatic. I'll awake with her "shouting" at me to get my butt out of bed and record what she has to say. Seriously. I'll make coffee, then sit at the computer and start recording dialogue and events. My wife will wander out of the bedroom later and ask, "How long have you been up?" The answer is often, "I've been up for about ten pages."

Doug and Jill Fletcher were extremely emphatic while I was writing "Western Justice". There was something about the Black Hills setting, an unidentified dead man, a general store/motel/bar, and a mysterious woman living in an RV that kept calling to me. A week-long trip to the Black Hills only intensified those calls, causing me to salt details of the area into the twisting story about a body found in the Vore Buffalo Jump Historic Site. The tiny town of Aladdin, Wyoming, population 15, was the perfect setting for the resolution of the story. 

As I've said in other blogs, writing a book's ending is like riding a train downhill on greased rails. My fingers were unable to keep up with the unfolding events. The momentum pulled me through the final 100 pages in just a few days. 

I hope you enjoy reading "Western Justice" as much as I enjoyed writing it. Or did I only record what the characters said? Either way, it was a joy to write. 

Hovey, Dean - BWL Publishing Inc. (bookswelove.net

https://www.amazon.com/Western-Justice-Doug-Fletcher-Book-ebook/dp/B0CQ6GLV6D/

A New Title, and excerpt, "Bretagne: a forbidden affair", by Diane Scott Lewis

 

To purchase, please click HERE

Formally "Outcast Artist in Bretagne," my WWII novel is now "Bretagne: a forbidden affair."

In the month of love because of Valentine's Day, enjoy a different kind of romance. A romance no one would expect to survive without dire consequences.

August is the German commandant of southern Brittany. Norah is an Englishwoman trapped in France after the German invasion. The two fall in love after she draws his portrait, desperate for money. August loathes Hitler and has plans to take Norah to Switzerland. Every moment is rife with danger.

Read an excerpt:

“I understand. It’s so awful.” Norah drank from her cup, her gaze searching. “I just want us out of this war, some place safe for you and me. A cottage on Lake Lucerne?”

“I’m working on that. As soon as my son graduates next autumn, I can put in my papers, then take him out of Germany.” August drank half his cup, stood, fetched his tunic, and put it on. “I have to leave now to inspect the airfield at the tip of this peninsula. I’ll return tomorrow. Why don’t I bring over my horse, and you have your cousin Jean spend the night here? He can ride Maler, and I’ll rest easier knowing you aren’t alone.”

She rose and stepped up to him, her smile tempting, her eyes moist. “That’s a perfect idea, thank you.”

He bent, longing to wipe away any hesitation, any lasting doubts, and kissed her, hard, his hands in her hair. Tasting the sweetness of her lips, he pressed her close. She wrapped her arms around him. He pulled back, stabilizing himself before his resolve melted. “I wish I could stay, but we slept late, and I must bring Maler.” He turned from her flushed face, put on his hat, and left the cottage. August’s body thrummed like a tuning fork. He yearned to indulge in their passion, but needed to stand aloof, the man in charge, for just a little longer.

Diane lives is Western Pennsylvania with her husband and one naughty dachshund. 

Thank You Tom Hanks...by Sheila Claydon

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In Remembering Rose, Book 1 of my Mapleby Trilogy, the heroine, Rachel, learns about the cares and troubles of previous generations as she travels back through time. I did much the same last week and it has made me feel very humble.

On Apple TV at the moment there is a new mini series series being streamed. Based on the non-fiction book by Donald L Miller (always mention the writer!!!) Masters of the Air is based on the true story of America's 8th Air Force's 100th Bomb Group during World War 2.  From 1943 to 1945 these young American soldiers, nicknamed the 'Bloody Hundred' on account of their immense losses, flew more than 8,500 missions over 22 months, losing 757 men, with 900 more becoming prisoners of war. Tom Hanks, who is an executive producer alongside Steven Speilberg and Gary Goetzman, insisted the story be told as it happened, with nothing made up. So every plane blown up, every pilot, gunner and navigator killed is a true account of the horror these men lived through. Of course there are the happier bits too, the friendships made, the acts of unbelievable bravery and loyalty, but despite this I could only watch one episode at a time instead of our normal back-to-back streaming.

The reason I felt like this, however, is not because of the actual story, although that is hard enough to watch, but because these brave airmen were stationed at Bomber Command in East Anglia in the UK, and that is where my parents were, and where they met and married. 

The Americans flew the Boeing B17 Flying Fortress while the Brits flew Lancaster Bombers. My father, who was in his thirties, was a sergeant responsible for loading bombs onto the Lancasters, while my mother, as a young WAAF (Women's Auxiliary Air Force) was a driver. Her job was to take the pilots and their crews to the airfield for their bombing raids, and then return to collect them, always wondering how many planes would actually return. This tension is very well portrayed in the series.

What really got me, however, is remembering that my mother was only 19 when she joined the WAAF and learned to drive those unwieldy canvas covered army trucks that were such an ubiquitous sight on British roads when I was a child. She had 2 week's intensive driving instruction and then was out there on her own. Unlike the American's daytime raids portrayed in the series, the British bombers flew at night, so she had to negotiate country lanes with no signposts and tiny pinprick headlights because of the blackout rules. I remember, too, that my Father had a deformed finger where one of the bombs had slipped as it was being loaded.

When I was about 7 years old my parents returned to visit friends in the area and, while we were there, revisited the airfield, which by then was a waste of abandoned Nissen huts with a solitary caretaker. I can still remember walking down the cracked runway with grass sprouting through it so the visit must have made quite an impression. Of course I had no idea what memories it brought back to my parents, how many wasted lives they must have remembered while they were there. 

Watching the series and remembering my life from 19 through to my early 20s, and remembering my children's lives, and the life my 18 and 21 year old granddaughters are enjoying today, I realise how much we owe to those brave young airmen and the ground crews who supported them, and how very, very lucky we are. Unlike so many war films, Masters of the Air is true, and I wish it could be mandatory watching although obviously that is not possible! My parents' reminiscences, including their memories of meeting the American pilots, was little more than a story from my childhood until, thanks to this TV series, I saw what they and countless others actually lived through and came out the other side still smiling. It is truly humbling.

 

A No Fuss, No Muss Getaway by Helen Henderson

Fire and Amulet by Helen Henderson
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A snow-covered road turned into a gorgeous warm spring day. The results of the incongruous weather turned thoughts to a getaway. As part of the effort to share a little more of myself, the topic is "the Perfect Weekend Getaway."

At one time, I would have said a quiet weekend camping in the mountains amidst the trees would be perfect. But since the track record for camping has included several mountain cloudbursts and three hurricanes, I no longer think that is a good idea. And mountain campgrounds are not known for good internet access.

An alternative to camping would be a seaside cabin. Quiet time on the porch is good for the soul. Hiking the dunes or bicycling a nice flat trail provides just enough exercise. Again, storms or a hurricane have taken perfect and given it a different descriptor not suitable for public consumption.

At this point I am not sure what a perfect weekend would be. Maybe a three-day cruise or a glamping camp out at a dude ranch. Good weather, comfortable accommodations are important. I've reached the age and stage of life where roughing it is no longer fun. And the most important considerations to make a weekend perfect, someone to do the planning and cooking.

Over the New Year's weekend, I did a version of the someone else do the work and went on a river cruise from New Orleans, Louisiana up to Vicksburg, Mississippi.  Day trips had a list of places and a hop-on/hop-off bus cycling between them. For food, all we had to do was to go to the grand dining room or the small, more informal area on the bow of the boat. And best of all, the weather didn't include blizzards or hurricanes.

 

 

 

Transportation was a contemporary version of a Mississippi River steamboat. The crowds in the French Quarter were heavy due to the holiday and the Sugar Bowl game, but not enough that you couldn't do what you wanted, as long as it wasn't eating in a restaurant. And there was the surprise treat of a New Orleans street parade. It might not have been perfect, but the long weekend qualified for a no fuss, no muss getaway.

 ~ May all your weekends be your idea of perfect. Until next month, stay safe and read.   Helen

 

To purchase Fire and Legacy Novels: BWL (And an advance notice: Watch for announcements for the April 2024 release of Fire and Legacy, Book 2 of the Tear Stone Collectors.)

Helen Henderson lives in western Tennessee with her husband. While she doesn’t have any pets in residence at the moment, she often visits a husky who have adopted her as one the pack. Find out more about her and her novels on her BWL author page.