I’m delighted to join the Petticoats and Pistols team and have the opportunity to say howdy to fellow western lovers. I started writing westerns at the beginning of my career and plan to return there. They’ve always been the love of my writing life, but I kinda got sidetracked with Scotland, early America and suspense.
Now it’s time to return to my roots. A proposal for a five-book series is in the works, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
In the meantime, I’ve just finished a suspense novel, which means it’s time for a bit of housecleaning. Conveniently, it’s also time for my neighborhood’s giant garage sale which draws thousands of bargain hunters. Since it usually occurs during deadline time, I’ve only participated three times during the twelve years I’ve lived in Memphis. But lately I’ve been receiving hints from my extended family. “If you ever move,” they claim, “your house will rise four feet.” Comments are getting downright rude.This is in reference to the more than 4,000 books in my house. I have a lifetime of books. I do not believe in getting rid of a book. Any kind of book. But predictions that my house might collapse under their weight indicate a mild withdrawal might be in order.
Too many books. A notice of the giant garage sale. A sign?
I found a cardboard box and started the search for possible rejects in my office. I have eight floor-to- ceiling bookcases in my office alone. Those are my, ahem, research books. There’s one wall devoted to American western history; one to Scottish history and English history; one to murder, general mayhem, and various ways of tormenting people (for my suspense novels). The last area includes the general resource materials: costumes through the ages, guns through the ages, underclothes through the ages, ships through the ages, etc. Then there’s the one essential book for all writers: Baby Names. I have four of those, each one absolutely essential.
Okay, Pat, you can do this. You really can. After all, most of these books are no longer necessary because of the internet. Instead of using all that space, you need only a computer and mouse these days.
Yeah, and the heart isn’t essential for life.
Still, I start with the books under my desk. Surely I don’t need four Thesauruses. And four dictionaries.
I’ll start with the Dictionaries. Dictionaries do well in garage sales. (Well, since I never sold one, I don’t really know, but I suspect this is true). Now this one has the dates of when each word came into common use. Can’t dump that. The second one has nice large print. Invaluable for midnight hours. The third, well it’s a paperback and light. Easy to hold. The last, well . . . I never know when I’ll lose the other three under piles of books.
Maybe I’ll have better luck with the Thesauruses. No one needs four. Or maybe they do. This one is big. Lots of words. But the second is better organized. And then the third is the Synonym Finder. Paperback again. Bright red cover. Easier to find when reams of paper cover my desk as I finish my final draft. Can’t give up that one. The fourth? Well, I can’t find it right now. But I know it’s there. Somewhere.
On to the western shelves.
Do I really need “Diary of a Cattle Drive Cook.” Yep, absolutely necessary to my well-being. Just listen to the call for breakfast:
“Wake up Jacob!
Day’s a-breaking
Beans in the pot,
An’ sourdoughs a’breakin’!”
Now where can you find that on the internet?
Then there’s “Apache Days and Tombstone Nights,” the autobiography of John Clum who was mayor of Tombstone during the Earp-Clanton battle at the OK Corral and founder of the “Tombstone Epitaph.” He was also an Indian fighter who took Geronimo prisoner. This is the real deal. Great stuff, especially since my dad grew up in the area and had met him (please don’t add up those years).
What about “Soiled Doves, Prostitution in the Early West,” and “Mollie,” the journal of a city woman who homesteads with her husband in the Nebraska Territory? Or the multitude of other diaries of participants in the building of the west? Miners, army wives, cowboys, gamblers, boatmen, and one of my very favorites: the journey by an English woman across the Rockies on horseback. Alone (“A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains.”)
Ah, here’s “The Prairie Traveler,” the 1859 best selling handbook for American Pioneers. A must for any wagon train tale.
Can’t give up any of the above. Each was carefully collected on trips west, usually at state and national historical sites, and my proposed western series would include all the characters above.
Oops. Don’t remember that one about the Apaches. I’ll just read a page or two . . .
How late is it? Can barely see. Where did the daylight go?
On to the Scottish shelves. Maybe I’ll have better luck there.
“The Laird’s Table?” Now how easy is it to find meals from the 15th Century in Scotland on the internet? Better keep that one. “The Steel Bonnets?” Nope, love that book. Fascinating history of the English/Scottish border in the 1500’s. Okay, do I really need twenty books on clan names and castles and Scottish ghosts?
Aye, I do. Never know when I’ll return to Scottish historicals, just as I now intend to turn back to my original love, westerns. There’s a lot in common between the two, particularly rugged individualism and strong women. I indulged my love for both when writing, “The Marshal and the Heiress,” when a western marshal goes to Scotland, and its successor, “The Scotsman Wore Spurs,” when a Scot goes west.
But I digress. I take my empty box downstairs. Lots of books there. Twelve more bookcases. And piles. Piles everywhere. Fiction and non-fiction of all kinds. Surely I can find a reject here and there.
Ahhhh, there’s my Elswyth Thane Williamsburg series. You would have to pry those from my cold dead hands. Along with Celeste De Blasis’s “The Proud Breed, ” my all-time favorite western. If you haven’t read it, find it. It’s long, very long, but every page is a treasure. “Lonesome Dove” rests next to it as my second favorite.
That box is kinda light. I look inside. An “AAA Tour Book” about Texas. Well, I have an updated one. But I smile. Progress.
Enough for now. It’s two in the morning.
As for my getting-rid-of -books project, well, tomorrow is another day.
In the meantime, I would appreciate any suggestions on how to tear away a few of the volumes clutched tightly against my heart.
On September 7th, a remake of the classic western by Elmore Leonard will hit theaters. I hope I’m not disappointed because the orginal with Glen Ford and Van Heflin will be difficult to top. In Arizona in the late 1800’s, infamous outlaw Ben Wade (Russell Crowe) and his vicious gang of thieves and murderers have plagued the Southern Railroad. When Wade is captured, Civil War veteran Dan Evans (Christian Bale), struggling to survive on his drought-plagued ranch, volunteers to deliver Wade alive to the “3:10 to Yuma”, a train that will take the killer to trial. In the original, Evans does so in order to pay for a well. On the trail, Evans and Wade–each from very different worlds–begin to earn each other’s respect. But with Wade’s outfit of bad guys on their trail – and dangers at every turn – the mission soon becomes a violent, impossible journey toward each man’s destiny.
