writing

The King of Texas

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When researching locations for my second novel, Touched by Love, I visited the famed King Ranch in south Texas, between Corpus Christi and Brownsville–and fell in love with the rugged terrain and equally hardy people.

“The story starts in the mid-1830s with an eleven-year-old boy indentured by his destitute family to a jeweler in New York City.”

Sounds like one of our novels, doesn’t it? But it’s the start of the amazing story of Richard King, the King of Texas. After stowing away on a ship bound of the south of the United States, he worked his way to captain and finally steam boat owner, moving goods and passengers along the lower Rio Grande River.

Sometime in the middle of the 1800s, Captain King crossed a region of Texas known as the Wild Horse Desert. When he came upon thebkgd_ranching sweet water of the Santa Gertrudis Creek, he’d found home. King and his business partner purchased 15, 500 acres of Mexican land, a land grant known as Rincon de Santa Gertrudis. This acreage was the start of what is now the legendary King Ranch.

Based on a melding of the Southern Plantation and Mexican Hacienda styles of management, King built a dynasty near what is now Kingsville, Texas. When a terrible drought struck South Texas and Northern Mexico, King bought all the cattle from the townspeople of Cruillas, Mexico. Realizing he’d also taken their livelihood, King offered to hire all those who would move to his ranch. These expert stockmen and horsemen became known as Los Kineños–King’s people. Descendants of Los Kineños still live and work on the ranch today.

By the end of the Civil War, King’s ranch had grown to more than 146,000 acres, supporting thousands of head of his domesticated longhorn cattle. When he ran into a problem, such as the lack of quality saddles and tack for his vaqueros, he simply hired the finest craftsmen and moved them onto the ranch. [The Saddle Shop is still in operation: http://www.king-ranch.com/saddle_shop.html]

“Richard King’s sense of adventure was rivaled only by his vision and ability to seize on new business opportunities. In addition to tirelessly working to improve the ranThe Ranchch, he invested in building railroads, packinghouses, ice plants and harbor improvements for the port of Corpus Christi.”

“During this era, Robert J. Kleberg and King’s widow continued to improve and diversify the assets of King Ranch with agricultural development, land sales, and town building projects. In 1904, their efforts were instrumental in helping to build the St. Louis, Brownsville & Mexico Railway — as well as several towns along the newly laid track, including Kingsville. Before her death in 1925, Henrietta King had donated land and funds toward the construction of churches, libraries, and school projects (creating an oasis of community development) in this previously untamed land.”

The ranch’s innovations didn’t stop there. The number one registration in the American Quarter Horse Association Stud Book was from the King Ranch Quarter Horse program. They also produced the youhest horse ever to be inducted into the National Cutting Horse Association Hall of Fame, Mr. San Peppy. Assault, the 1946 winner of the Triple Crown, and Middleground, the santa_gertrudis1950 winner of the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont Stakes, both came from King stock.

Today, the King Ranch is a huge operation, with more than 825,000 acres in multiply states and countries, and Running W brand appears on tens of thousands of the King Ranch’s Santa Gertrudis cattle, recognizable by their distinctive black-cherry colored hide.

If you want to know more, visit www.King-Ranch.com. Or better yet, plan a trip to the ranch. You’ll be very glad you did.

The Original White House Cook Book

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We’re going to start and end this week with research books. On Monday, Winnie gave us a wonderful look at a book containing information and recipes from San Francisco in the late 1800s. Now I want to share a really cool book I discovered a couple of years ago. I mentioned it during our fun week of recipes back in September, but I didn’t get into what a truly great research resource this is.

THE ORIGINAL WHITE HOUSE COOKBOOK

A Comprehensive Cyclopedia of Information for the Home,

Mrs. P.L. Gillette & Steward of the White House Mr. Hugo Ziemann, 1887 Edition

 

To the

Wives of Our Presidents,

Those Noble Women who have

Graced the White House,

And whose Names and Memories

Are dear to all Americans,

This Volume

 Is affectionately dedicated

 

whitehouse-cookbookThe Original White House Cook Book has a wealth of information that isn’t restricted to a single locale, a single setting in our history. There are complete menus showing family dinners or how a fancy dinner was put together in the late nineteenth century in America; dyeing or coloring cloth–and eyebrows; how to repair a hole in a silk gown; even table etiquette.

Here’s an example. General Grant’s Birthday Dinner started with clams, went to Consomme Imperatrice Bisque de Crabes (crab bisque), then to a variety of hors d’oeuvres, followed by trout, mushrooms, filet of beef… and then they got to the entrees! They served chicken and veal with green beans and asparagus, followed by sorbet to cleanse the pallet. Next came squab and salad, then fruits and pastries. The meal ended with glace, or glazed fruit, petit fours and coffee.

I feel stuffed just reading about it.

The book includes the seating arrangements for a dinner when the President was in attendance, how glassware should arranged on the tables, even what to put in the ladies’ corsages and the men’s boutonnieres.

Toward the back of the volume is a section dedicated to caring for those who visit the White House; how colds are caught; how to clean black lace; and how to render muslin clothing less likely to catch fire. In the author’s words: “Remember this and save the lives of your children.”

You can even learn how to make Rose Water or Bay Rum, Cold Cream or Hair Invigorator. Or my particular favorite, how to remove freckles. And no, I haven’t tried it yet – but I might.

This is a fun book with a wealth of helpful information. For example, if your heroine is a mail-order bride who grew up working in a wealthy household, you can find what kinds of skills she might have learned in this book.

THE ORIGINAL WHITE HOUSE COOKBOOK 1887 Edition, Mrs. P.L. Gillette & Steward of the White House Mr. Hugo Ziemann [I located it on Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com; Borders.com has a different edition available]

Have you discovered a research book that you feel is exceptional? Share it, please.

Character Traits of a Good Writer by Elle James

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Hi, I’m Elle James and I’m a writer. Sounds like a confession to an obsession. Well, it is!

Writing is an obsession I’m glad I have. Many people I know are surprised and excited to learn I’ve become a writer. So often I get the comment, “I’ve always wanted to write.” But outside my writer friends, there are few that take the leap and become a writer. If you sat in a church with 500 people and asked how many have written a book, the chances are that number would be really low. To write a full manuscript and actually get it published makes the odds even greater.

opxoxocover160So what makes a good writer? Here are a few of the traits that make a good writer.

Loves to read – First and foremost a writer should love reading. If you’re not writing something you would want to read, then why bother? Most writers get their start because they love to read a good book. Many times a writer will be disgusted by the poor quality of what they are reading. They might even say “I could do better than that!” It’s up to the writer who loves to read a good book to create such a thing.

Passionate – A good writer is passionate about her chosen occupation. Passionate about the words she is writing and passionate about the finished product. The passion shows in the writing through the emotions of the characters and the emotional reaction the readers have to the characters the writer breathes to life on the pages. Without passion, the book will be flat, uninteresting and just plain dull. The writer’s passion reminds him why she chooses to write. Whether it’s to entertain others, for the self-satisfaction of knowing you created a book worthy of publishing or just because you love knowing that others “got the message” in your written words, passion is something everyone wants to feel, live and enjoy throughout their lives. What better place than in your writing?momsrosefinalcolors

Thick-skinned – A writer’s life may be lonely and sedentary, but by no means is it easy. Writing is NOT for sissies. A thick skin is a must to make it in the business of writing. Criticism is everywhere. From critique partners, to editors to the ultimate readers of your books. If you can’t handle the heat, don’t step into the line of fire. Most writers go through many iterations of critiques and edits before their books finally reach the reading public. A writer with a weak backbone would crumble. If you don’t already have one, grow a spine!

Observant – A good writer observes people and events around him/her, always searching for a germ of an idea to seed new stories. People watching is a fertile breeding ground for fresh crops of ideas. Reading and watching television or movies gets the wheels turning, keeps the ideas coming. From news reports to existing movies, books and television, a good writer can put a twist on a story or come up with a spin-off. By watching, reading and experiencing life with her eyes wide open, the writer can be guaranteed a bottomless well of fresh ideas.

Persistent – A good writer is persistent. Not only does the writer have to force herself to sit in a chair day after day, pounding away on a keyboard to get a full manuscript written, she has to sell her work. Rejection after rejection could douse the flame of some of the most passionate people. But not the writer. A writer keeps trying, keeps writing the next great novel. Throw a wet noodle against the wall enough times and eventually it’ll stick. It can take years to hone your skills and even more years for an editor to recognize your talent and buy your book. A good writer never gives up.

Makes criticism work for him – Writers are subject to loads of feedback on their work. The good writer sifts through the feedback and changes what needs to be changed and tosses the rest. The primary lesson a writer must learn is to be the best judge on when to accept the changes and when to stand up and say no. Some writers refuse to change a thing in their manuscript. An editor wants to know a writer is willing to consider changes. If they aren’t, they may not sell the book.

Writes a good story – Bottom line, the most important trait of a good writer is that she can tell a good story. A good story is always in the eye of the beholder. The good writer writes the book of his heart, a tale of characters overcoming obstacles to reach their goals. A good writer makes his reader cheer for the characters, makes the reader lose herself in the story to the point she can’t put the book down until the end. It’s all about the characters and their story. A good writers sucks them in and won’t let go.

 

elle-james-pic-3Best-Selling author and Golden Heart Winner Elle James made a new-year’s resolution in January of 2000 to become a published author. In 2004 she left a career as manager of computer programmers to pursue her writing goals. In 2005, her dream came true when Dorchester published her first novel, the 2004 Golden Heart Winner for Best Paranormal. She’s since sold 15 Romantic Suspenses to Harlequin Intrigue and 2 paranormals to Dorchester & Silhouette Nocturne.

Welcome Bobbi Smith!

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smith_bobbi.jpgHi everybody!  I’m thrilled to be back blogging at Petticoats and Pistols.  It’s an honor. 

This weekend I’m in Texas for the Golden Triangle Writers’ Conference.  Robert Vaughan and Greg Tobin are here, too, so it’s going to be wonderful – as always!  I do love Texas!Runaway

My latest new release is Runaway.  It came out this summer from Leisure.  I’m really fond of this book.  I have so much fun writing about hidden identities.  It’s exciting when the hero and heroine have secrets they can’t reveal to each other. 

In Runaway, Texas Ranger Lane Madison is tracking an outlaw gang.  Lane learns from a saloon girl in a small town that the leader of the gang won a ranch in a card game and plans to make it their hideout.  Lane goes after them, hoping to catch up with them before they reach the ranch.  As it turns out, only one of the outlaws heads directly for the ranch.  Lane decides to go after the rest of the gang, but loses their trail after a bad storm.  Frustrated, he heads back after the lone gunman and manages to catch up with him.  There is a shootout and Lane wins. 

Knowing the gang will eventually show up at the ranch, he decides to assume the dead outlaw’s identity and go there to await their arrival.  What Lane doesn’t know is that the gunman Seth Rawlins sent for a mail-order bride, thinking being married would make him look more like a rancher instead of an outlaw.

Our heroine, Destiny Sterling, is on the run.  She thinks she killed her evil stepfather when he tried to attack her after her mother’s death, so she flees her home and assumes the identity of a girl who had backed out of being a mail-order bride.  Destiny heads to Texas as Rebecca Lawrence to marry Seth Rawlins.  She’s scared, but believes she has no other choice.

It was so much fun writing the scene when she arrives at the ranch and meets ‘Seth’ for the first time. 

I asked a few guys what they thought the hero would say in this situation.  The funniest quip was from my son who said, “Wait a minute — I thought it was two for the price of one!”

RelentlessCoverI just finished my next book – Relentless.  It is coming out next March.  Dusty Martin is our heroine.  After her mother passes away, Dusty has only her father, who is a stage driver.   She’s always been a tomboy, so he decides to have her ride shotgun on the stage with him to keep her safe.  When an outlaw gang robs the stage and takes her hostage, it’s up to our hero, Texas Ranger Grant Spencer, to save her.  

Relentless is an action-packed story.  I hope everybody enjoys it.

This year, Zebra has released some of my older books again. Yeah!  The Gunfighter – originally Beneath Passion’s Skies – is back out now, and last spring they re-released Desert Heart.

In 2010, Zebra is bringing out some of my oldies.  Captive Pride a story about the American Revolution will be rereleased in June and Passion, my Viking story, will be back out in October.  What fun!  It’s neat to see them back on the shelves again!

 

 

Bobbi is giving away TWO BOOKS this visit ~ one copy of Runaway & one copy of Gunfighter! All you have to do is join in the fun and you could be a winner.

Follow the Fillies on Twitter @Felicia_Filly

 

Pamela Nowak ~ Choices

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pam-nowak-picI want to thank Petticoats and Pistols for inviting me and giving me the opportunity to share with all of you. This is a favorite site of mine and blogging with you here is beyond exciting!

This week, my second novel, Choices, was released. Set at Fort Randall, Dakota Territory in 1876, it tells the story of a rebellious officer’s daughter, an honorable enlisted man, and a forbidden relationship.  

Twenty odd years ago, when my late husband, Tim, and I were first married, we shared an avid interest in living history. He was an archaeologist, I was a history teacher, and we were both passionate about the Amephoto-4rican West. He created the persona of a soldier-a private-and I was a governess. Both of us spent scores of hours researching the period:  the army, etiquette and social rules, nineteenth century dress; and how our characters fit within it. At the same time, Tim was also the project manager of the Fort Randall Archaeological Project. We lived and breathed Fort Randall for over two years. 

Choices flowed out of that. The facts were swimming around in my head, mingling constantly into different storylines (that happens a lot with facts in my head). They begged for characters to play them out and for the words to be written down. 

The nineteenth cfort_randall_military_postentury army had rigid sets of rules for being a soldier and complex social codes for how officers, enlisted men, and their women were permitted (or not permitted) to interact. I was amazed at how stratified society was at these western outposts and at how thoroughly officer’s wives observed those social norms. Memoirs, scholarly studies, and the notations left by army personnel all speak to the separation of classes—as defined by rank. 

But even more amazing were the exceptions. Though officers’ wives were socially superior to enlisted men’s wives, they were not officially recognized by the army. In fact, they were considered camp followers, in the same category as prostitutes who might do business just off the military reservation (their places of business were nicknamed “hog ranches”) and were allowed only at the sufferance of the commanding officer. Laundresses, who were often wives of enlisted men, were offic17-in-general-miles-marching-and-chowder-society-reenactmential civilian contractors with corresponding army regulations detailing their rights to be there.  

On most posts, lifestyles of the enlisted and officer classes were narrowly defined and very separate. A few diaries and memoirs offer glimpses into occasional relaxation of those barriers, most often for an all-post holiday celebration or when there was an unusual crisis. 

I wanted to share all this but also to present a story about choices, about how we all choose who we are going to be in terms of choices-coverrelationships with others. Miriam, my heroine, confronts rules and regulations head-on and resists them every step of the way while she seeks ways to cross the lines. I introduced her rigid and domineering mother, Harriet, to bring pressure on her to toe the line and to personify the exclusionary nature of society. Lt. Wood is representative of expectations. Mixed in is the culture of the army, Harriet’s addiction to laudanum, Jake’s honor, the laundress’s common-sense outlook on life, and Major Longstreet’s predicament of his own making. 

I hope you will find the story and fun to read as I found it to write and that my characters reveal the subtleties involved in the choices that face us all. 

I’ve enjoyed our time together. Please visit me on my website at www.pamelanowak.com.

To celebrate the release of Choices, Pam will be giving a copy to one of today’s blog participants. 

Perote Prison: Something To Be Buried In

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Sometimes research can turn up a gem of information that can send your story in a different direction. When writing my second novel, Touched by Love, I needed a place for the heroine’s kidnapped brother to be taken. I knew the general area where I needed him to be held, just not a specific location. And of course, it had to be historically accurate for the time period in which my story was set.

I began searching the internet for prisons used by the Mexican Army in the 1800s and found Perote Prison. The location was ideal, 600 miles into Mexico, and several hundred Texans had been incarcerated within its walls.

perote-prison-bridge-over-moatThe Castle of San Carlos (photo to the left *) was built by the Viceroy of Mexico in the late 16th century, 7000 feet up the mountains overlooking the port of Veracruz. It was designed as an ammunition storage facility and a military training school, and as a second line of defense for Veracruz. Both the Spanish and Mexican armies used the immense fortress as a prison. Texans captured during three disastrous expeditions against Mexico were imprisoned and died here.

The Aztecs called the place pinahuizapan, or “something-to-be-buried-in.” Situated high in thmountains-over-veracruze mountains, at an altitude of 7000 feet, the castle made an ideal prison. The stone and masonry walls were twelve feet high and six feet thick. The entire structure was surrounded by a wide, deep moat spanned by a single drawbridge. Add to that the weather in this high desert, and it must have seemed like the most inhospitable place on earth to those unfortunate enough to be there.

When I discovered Perote Prison, I knew it had to make an appearance in the book. I ended up writing a prologue that forced the hero to ride to this remote prison to correct a terrible mistake and save a man’s life at the possible cost of his own. The added scenes demonstrated the hero’s sense of honor and responsibility, adding depth to his character and making him more redeemable in the eyes of the reader.

Interesting, isn’t it, how a gem of information can send you off in a different direction and make your characters—and your story—better?

* J. J. McGrath & Walace Hawkins, “Perote Fort- Where Texans Were Imprisoned”, Volume 48, Number 3, Southwestern Historical Quarterly Online

 

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www.tracygarrett.com

Victoria Bylin: Hero Hunt At High Altitude, or Where I Met Outlaw Pete

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victoria_bylin_banner It’s good to be back on the blog. A family emergency sent me to California for close to a month.  Not an easy trip, but all is well.  I want to give a big thank you to my fellow Fillies who filled in the gap for me. Ladies, you’re the best!

Now that I’m home, I’m getting back to the business of writing.  Woooo Hoooo! I’m shopping for a hero! A lot of writing is work, but the hero hunt is just plain fun. I never know when the right man will show up. It’s usually out of the blue. This time his arrival was no exception. He came out of the Wild Blue Yonder . . . literally!  I was on an airliner, an Airbus 319 to be precise, in Seat 10B.

Has anyone here flown Virgin America? The cabin colors are purple and black. Instead of movie screens that drop down from the ceiling, each pavirgin-america-2ssenger has an individual entertainment system complete with movies, television, and music.  It’s about as far from the Old West as you can get, but somewhere over Nevada I programmed a play list and did some time-travel. Thirty-seven-thousand feet above fly-over country, Bruce Springsteen’s voice came through the headphones.

Outlaw Pete! 

Outlaw Pete!

Can you hear me?

I love this song!  It’s on Bruce’s newest album and it’s totally over the top.  It’s got outlaws, a bounty hunter, wild mustangs a Navaho girl, pistols, mountains and buckskin chaps. After a month of Los Angeles freeways, Holly-weirdness, and smog, I felt almost normal again.

The lyrics gobruce-springsteent me thinking . . . What is it about outlaws that’s so appealing? I’ve been thinking about this, because I want my next hero to be as bad as I can make him. He won’t stay that way, of course. And that’s what I think the real appeal is for an outlaw hero. By the end of the book, they’re redeemed. They might be bad to the bone, but they don’t stay that way. 

My all-time favorite outlaw hero is Johnny Cain in The Outsider by Penelope Williamson. When the story opens, he’s “a man killer.” He’s about as irredeemable as a man can be. Yet he’s the one who risks his life to save Rachel’s son. That’s another key to the outlaw hero. Bad men sometimes do good things. 

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Keep in mind I’m talking about heroes in romances.  In real life, I’d have been terrified by the Wild Bunch or the Cole-Younger gang. Then again, there’s Doc Holliday. Granted, I see Val Kilmer when I picture him, but what really intrigues me is the complexity of his character.  That man was a loyal friend to Wyatt Earp. He was also highly educated, a dentist, and very good with a gun. It’s quite a mix. He may not count as a full fledged outlaw, but he captured the rebellion of thoutlaw-pete-silhouette1e West.

When I’m creating a new hero, the challenge is to balance darkness and light, good and evil. Maybe that’s why I like Outlaw Pete so much. It’s got all the highs and lows of real life.  A lot of outlaw heroes are at war with themselves. In the romance the good side always wins. I like that!

Does anyone else have a favorite “outlaw” song?  A favorite outlaw hero?  I can think of a bunch, but I’d love to have y’all add to my list.

And last . . . I’m giving away books from my backlist today. It’s good to be back at Petticoats & Pistols, so I’m celebrating.  Anyone who comments will be eligible to win a copy of either Midnight Marriage or Stay for Christmas.  These are two of my older HH titles.  Good luck!  

Greetings From RWA in Washington DC!

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momlogo3Greetings from the Wardman Marriott Hotel in Washington DC, the site of this year’s national conference for Romance Writers of America!  I’m thrilled to be here. Not only is it a great chance to hear industry news and attend writing workshops, I get to spend time with friends. You know that feeling when you sit down with a group of girlfriends you haven’t seen in a while? Everyone starts talking and there’s just not enough time to say everything that needs to be said. That’s what RWA is like for me.

The conference launched with the annual “Readers for Life” Literacy Autographing. Since 1991, RWA has donated more than $600,000 to literacy charities. The totals aren’t in for this year, but the room was huge and it was packed.  Before it started, I snapped a shot of fellow Filly Tracy Garrett.  She’s signing copies of Touched by Love.

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And here’s Pat Potter saying hi. You can’t see the Rita pins on her badge, but my mouth gaped.  Pat is so friendly and so talented . . . I confess! I’m in awe.

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I’m also in awe of of those serendipity moments that are unique to RWA.  I had one of those happy coincidences the first time I stepped into the elevator. My roommate and I (here’s a shout-out to Sara Mitchell, my fellow LIH author) struck up a conversation with a writer wearing a pink “First Sale” ribbon.  “Who did you sell to?” I asked.caroline2

“Dorchester,” she answered. “I write western romance.”

Music to my ears!  Turns out I was talking to Caroline Fyffe. She’s set to blog at Petticoats and Pistols on August 6th.   

My next western-flavored coincidence is typical RWA. The literacy signing and is over and I’m in the elevator. (I seem to spend a lot of time in elevators!)  I look up and see a man I can’t quite place. Turns out he’s Leigh Greenwood (aka Harold Lowry).  I’m beginning to wonder if the hotel put all the western writers on the same floor!

The conference is just beginning.  Thursday’s schedule includes a breakfast with the Harlequin Historical writers. That’s the line where I started and I’m stoked to be catching up with old friends. On Thursday night, I’ll be getting together with new friends. The Love Inspired Historical authors will be gathering for dinner. Friday is all business. I’ll be meeting with my editor and my agent, and then attending a workshop by Donald Maass. 

I’ll post other serendipity moments in the Comments section.  At RWA, you never know who you’ll meet in an elevator. It could be me!

 

vicki

 

Ashley Ludwig: Fiction, Fact, or Figment of Author’s Imagination?

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allornothing_w2343_200x300Wow. Let me first just thank Cheryl St.John for asking me to post to this wonderful site. I’m a long time visitor, sometime commenter, and have been a fan since researching my current release, All or Nothing.

Writers and readers of historical fiction know—whether we’re talking romance, mystery, or any other sub-genre—more goes into the story then simply writing the tale. We need to know the landscape of the piece. Understand the perils and pitfalls of the time period. And, most importantly—what was it like to be a woman in those conditions? How did one bathe? Eat? Where was the bathroom? And what was one to do when it was so blasted hot outside without air conditioning?

All or Nothing is set in the Arizona West of 1876. The time when my bandit—a real to life bad guy who was never captured, El Tejano—roamed the Dragoon Mountains outside of Arizona. The story is seasoned it with my own life experience, after spending much of my childhood playing among the rugged adobe ruins of Fort Lowell, in Tucson, Arizona.

However, much of my research came from my previous profession. A trained archaeologist.  I traveled the southwest surveying for corporations. I studied historic and prehistoric sites, bagged and tagged artifacts, and hauled boxes of them to dusty museums, all the while knowing that someday I’d fold all that knowledge into my own stories.

I’d been a writer for years, but strictly in the work sense. No romanticizing allowed, my supervisor would say.  I was an archaeologist, tasked with writing reports on sites we discovered, researching bottle-bottoms and landmarks, recording that history for posterity, for whatever corporation funded our research.

sherds_exampleMy favorite discovery came after surviving the scariest hike in history—surveying ridge tops down the rugged, red slopes of the Copper King Mountains in eastern Arizona. Exhausted, shaken from almost tumbling down a drainage hole during a rockslide, I needed a minute before starting up again. I walked. I took deep breaths, sat—head between my knees, when I saw it. A bit of white and blue mixed in with the pine needles and gravel. I picked it up, surveyed the shard, and found another. A broken plate. Praise God, I stumbled on an historic site—the Little Colorado Mine. My discovery, and mine to map, survey, and write up for history. But, just the facts, they warned me.

Fine. I did it their way. And, oh boy! It was a struggle.

ashleyMy romantic nature wanted not just to report on the Limoges pattern on shattered dishes. I wanted to discuss the woman who’d opened her hope chest after traveling the rutted road in their rickety wagon, and found her wedding china smashed! How she sobbed over their hand-painted shards. Sure. Maybe that’s what happened.

Or, perhaps a marriage of convenience lured her to that God forsaken bit of land under the shadow of Copper King. In a fury, her husband out digging for silver (and finding nothing but wretched copper ore), she flung a plate or two at his head right before she hitched up the wagon and hightailed it out of there. 

Or, maybe their third baby knocked it off the table while reaching up for a cookie, they all had a good laugh, picked up the pieces and tossed them out onto the trash heap and went in to read the Bible together.

So, my supervisor was right. All I knew for sure was I had a shattered feminine plate in a rugged wasteland. It wasn’t my job to figure out how it broke or why. 

But guess what? As an author, I can.

I can take bits from that experience, the harrowing experience down the mountain side which opens All or Nothing, and weave it with the story of a massacre left widely untold by the popular citizens of Tucson, and pick apart the accounts to guess what might have actually happened there. I also can create a heroine who was confronted with one of the worst occupations in history – being an Army Laundress for the US Cavalry—some of the most unsung heroines of our time.

Researching these things in a time before the internet was a bit like finding a needle in a haystack. But, with the help of women like you—I was able to research historic catalogs, read through to find the price of coffee (green or roasted), by the bag or barrel, and what rations and pay were given a woman who worked for the Cavalry!

Like a kid in a candy store, I grabbed facts. I pocketed them. I wove in “spice” for the story, seasoning my characters and their encounters with each other. I walked with them through the fort grounds, laid out my map, figured out what angle to reach the stable from the parade grounds, and lived the story with them.  My editor picked out the rough spots, evaluated my historical claims and matched them to reality. Where did the train really stop? What song would your heroine be dancing to? Humming? In 1876! Thank heaven for the Internet. A library at our fingertips.

Does an author do this much research for a story set in modern day? Perhaps. But, there is so much that contemporary authors can take for granted that we have to stop and really think about. Our readers can tell when we’re faking it.

www.ashleyludwig.com

    <———ORDER FROM AMAZON

One commenter will win an e-book copy of All or Nothing with my compliments… Thanks so much for visiting!

Hunting for Gold in The Lone Star State

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“A gold mine is a hole in the ground with a liar at the top.” – Mark Twain

When I began doing research for my debut novel, Touch of Texas, I knew I was searching for a special type of location. It needed to be isolated, with a means of support for those who settled in the town. I didn’t want the town to be too prosperous – that eliminates some of the available conflict for a story. Also, the area had to be right for the nefarious to operate – cattle rustling, horse stealing, etc. – and have numerous places for them to hide.

texas-ranger-badge

The hero of the book was a Texas Ranger, the tall, dark and dangerous type, who preferred taking on assignments that sent him out alone, far from civilization. My mental picture of the heroine was his total opposite, a fragile-looking woman with golden hair…

Golden? Aha! A gold mining town. But was gold ever mined in Texas in the 1800’s? I don’t mind making stuff up in the name of my art, but I believe fiction needs to have a basis in the credible.

Silver mining has been going on in Texas since the Franciscans Friars discovered the precious ore near El Paso in 1680. These mines were hidden by the good Friars from the Jesuit brothers and the locations lost for many years. One mine was rediscovered in 1793, then lost again, then found again thanks to church records in 1872. In 1880 the Presidio Mine was discovered. In the ensuing years, strikes were made in all over the western half of the state, and even in the Hill Country.

From The Handbook of Texas Online: “In 1905, 387,576 ounces of silver were produced in the state, and in 1908 the Bonanza and Alice Ray Mines in the Quitman Mountains in Hudspeth County were producing ore valued at $60 to $65 per ton. In 1918 the Chinati and Montezuma mines closed. The Presidio Mine was one of the most consistent producers of silver in the country; from 1880 until it closed in 1942 it had produced 2,000,000 tons of ore from which 30,293,606 ounces of silver, about nine-tenths of the total output of the state, had been extracted, along with a small value in gold and lead.”

There it is. The answer to whether anyone ever mined for gold in Texas. The operations weren’t profitable, but there have been gold mines in Texas since the 1800’s. In fact, there has been a gold mining operation going on in the Hill Country continuously since the expeditioBig Bend National Parkn of Bernardo de Miranda y Flores left San Antonio in February, 1756.

Most gold mining took place in the far southwestern part of the state, in the area called Big Bend. (That’s a picture of Big Bend National Park to the right. Gorgeous, isn’t it?)

There was some mining around Fort Davis and in the Davis Mountains, and also in Presidio County.

 While reseFort Davis, Texasarching the history of Fort Davis, a United States Army post in operation from 1854-1891, I found mention of a wave of gold seekers coming through on their way to California from San Antonio. The need to protect these adventurers and pioneer was part of what helped drive the placement of the fort.

Amateur prospectors have discovered arrastre, granite bedrock milling stones, abandoned by the Mexicans and Spanish in and on the banks of the creeks where they searched in vain for gold.

But since when has gold fever been cured by the words “you aren’t going to find it panhandlerhere”.  To this day, the persistent legends of large veins scattered through the state are enough to keep hopeful panhandlers searching.
 
Panning still turns up small amounts of gold around the ruins of Fort Davis, as well as in the Hill Country around Llano and Mason Counties, where there were mostly placer mines—that’s the mining of alluvial or sediment deposits for minerals. Despite the odds against finding anything, they’re still mining for gold in the Lone Star State.

While no one person or mining company ever got wealthy digging or panning for gold in Texas—the total recorded value of the gold dug out of the ground is less than $250,000—they did and still do hunt for the precious metal. And for a fiction writer, that’s all I needed to create my own little piece of the past.

Maybe Mark Twain had it right – although I’d rather consider myself a weaver of a tall tale rather than a liar.

Petticoats & Pistols