Volume 7 Number 5
With the advent of May, we shouldn't see any more cool days. Spring in Texas has been decidedly odd. Perhaps it was because Easter was so early.
In any event, enjoy the warm weather and massive amounts of sunshine for this is the month that's the doorway to summer.
WHAT'S NEW ON THE WEBSITE
This update contains new WRITTEN WISDOM on each page except The Archives. The Ken Kesey quotation on there is particularly relevant so I think I'll leave it for the time being. The other contributors to WRITTEN WISDOM are: Thomas Carlyle, Sherlock Holmes, Samuel Johnson, Maxwell Perkins, Jules Renard, and John Steinbeck. Can you find them all?
WELCOME: May NOTE FROM ... moi.
READING: COWBOY POETRY
WRITING: 10 Relationship Questions To Ask Agents.
WORDPLAY: You're reading it! You'll find 2 articles below: both readable and entertaining though one is focused toward writers' interests.
ARCHIVES: After appearing as a feature and then an alternate, the articles are moved here. However, this month I've left the articles in place on the original pages. Why? Because I'm late updating, swamped with work, and the new articles complement the older ones in subject matter.
WORK IN PROGRESS: New NOTE 5 OF 12.
PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED: Announcement about my big sale to Ulverscroft, my new English publisher, is still there because, well, I'm just happy about it.
Now, let me entertain you!
------FOR READERS------
ELMER KELTON & HIS MEMOIR
by Joan Reeves
Call me a foolish dreamer or a hopeless romantic, but I believe there is still a viable market for the western novel. The western and the western hero is in the ethos of America. I honestly believe if readers would pick up some of the western novels by the premier writers of the genre, they would find compelling books with great characterization. They'd also find that most of these characters and stories aren't as far removed from today as they believe.
Though Clint has given us the anti-western in “Unforgiven,”a grim tale of all that was bad about the West, I think there was much that was heroic and admirable and, yes, good about the West, though it has become unpopular to believe.
What brought on all this analysis of a dying genre? Last year I read a review of Elmer Kelton's memoir SANDHILLS BOY: The Winding Trail of a Texas Writer. Of course I couldn't wait to get my hands on a copy, but only recently have I finished it. And, it's wonderful.
Now, you may think it odd that I, a published romance novelist see the allure of western novels. What you may not know is that I cut my teeth on Zane Grey novels. I read every one I could get my hands on the summer I was thirteen.
Kelton, the son of a real cowboy, has published 50 novels with many of them like THE TIME IT NEVER RAINED being highly regarded. Though he's not the household name Larry McMurtry is, Kelton is one of the best writers from Texas, and this state has produced some good ones.
SANDHILLS BOY tells of his early knowledge that he wanted to be a writer. Encouraged by his mother and misunderstood by his father, he majored in journalism at UT but was drafted into the Army and sent to Europe. After the war ended, he was assigned to a POW camp in Austria where he met the young woman who became his wife.
Persistence paid off, red tape was eventually surmounted, and they married and settled in Austin.
Kelton began a full-time job as the farm and ranch reporter at the newspaper in San Angelo. Though he published his first fiction in the late forties, he never quit his day job. He did his faction at night and on weekends.
Kelton was, and is, a working writer, mining the theme of change over and over in his books. Get a copy of this memoir and let that lead you to his books. You won't regret it.
-----RIGHT FOR WRITERS & OTHERS TOO-----
FIRST SENTENCE ANXIETY
by Joan Reeves
What makes a book capture a reader?
If you're a writer, you've heard the answer a million times from nearly as many professionals in the publishing industry. An intoxicating first sentence, first paragraph, first page - followed by equally addicting pages two through four hundred. Oh, and a compelling cover, back cover blurb, author quotes, etc. - all things most authors have little control over. What writers can control though are their words.
Each time I start a manuscript, I think I've got the perfect opening sentence for the story and the character, but I can't help but compare my opening to some of my favorites.
To me, these sentences intrigued me and piqued my curiosity when I first read them. I remember them because they sing. They have a sense of music and rhythm. If reading were the new song debut on the old American Bandstand, I'd have to give them a 10 - good melody, easy to dance to. I think they evoke an emotional response in the reader.
"Last night I dreamt I went to Mandeley again." (Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier)
"It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York." (The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath)
"I never knew her in life." (The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy)
"Nobody was really surprised when it happened, not really, not at the subconscious level where savage things grow." (Carrie by Stephen King)
"Death drove a green Lexus." (Dean Koontz)
"It was the best of times; it was the worst of times." (A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens)
The best thing about reading someone else's sparkling prose is that you can improve your own skills.
The worst thing is that you despair of ever being as good.
But you have to keep trying because that's what writers do.
