Rosanne Bittner's Blog, page 50

I've been watching the promos for the movie "Cowboys vs. Aliens." Looks fun! Looks like the western town/cowboy part is really well portrayed, although I haven't seen the movie yet. I can't wait! I am hoping this movie will stir a renewed interest in the genre - more movies and books about America's "Old West." I am also furious with myself for not coming up with this idea for a book of my own – a modern-day twist to the theme and time period I love writing about – cowboys and the American West of the 1800's.

No matter how you look at it, cowboys have always been popular. You can barely count the number of western movies that have been produced over the last 50 years, the biggest share of them in the 1950's and 60's. Lately, remakes of famous old standards like TRUE GRIT and 3:10 TO YUMA, have done well. Then there are the famous "big screen" favorites like DANCES WITH WOLVES and HOW THE WEST WAS WON – and of course there are the unforgettable Clint Eastwood "shooters." My favorites are THE GUNS OF JOSIE WALES, PALE RIDER and TWO MULES FOR SISTER SARAH. Then there is the name known world wide for his western films – John Wayne. Actually, my favorite John Wayne movie is THE SHOOTIST – his very last film. It's so touching to know that was the last movie he made before he died from cancer, when in the movie he was an old gunfighter – also dying from cancer. In the movie he went out of this life in the way only an old gunfighter should go – he "went down shooting." I, of course, cried my eyes out.

TV got into the act during the popularity of the mini-series with LONESOME DOVE and CENTENNIAL. And of course few people are unfamiliar with the numerous TV half-hour and hour-long westerns like HAVE GUN/WILL TRAVEL and GUNSMOKE, the most famous of them all. I sure hated to read about the passing of James Arness, but he will live on forever in the form of Marshal Matt Dillon.

As far as books, few authors helped keep the genre alive like Will Henry and Louis L'Amour did. Dee Brown did a fabulous job of enlightening readers to the truth about the gradual demise of the American Indian way of life in his book BURY MY HEART AT WOUNDED KNEE.

There is something about the American western frontier that fascinates, something about those pioneers that makes us proud and makes us want to keep the "right to bear arms." We are even fascinated and in a strange way "proud" of our infamous outlaws, like Jesse James and Butch Cassidy. Even more fascinating is that there was a very fine line back then between outlaw and lawman. There were those who couldn't say which Wyatt Earp and his brothers were … good? Or bad? How many books have you read, or movies have you watched, in which the "bad guy" was really good at heart?

Ah, yes, the American cowboy … restless, wild, roving, hard-drinking, ready for a fist fight, quick with a gun, tough, brave, rough looking yet handsome – even those who weren't all that good looking were handsome in their own way when they wore those great hats and smoked that cheroot and stood their ground. I think the western hero has remained popular because we all identify with some part of their personality … perhaps we all daydream that we could be that rugged, that brave, that quick with a gun, that much in charge of our lives and ultimately that "free" to be whoever we want to be … that much "in control" of our own destinies and "unchained" from rules and responsibilities.

I truly believe there is a little bit of "cowboy" in all of us … and so I will keep writing books about men like that and the equally brave and tough women it took to keep up with them … or tame them … whichever they were brave enough to try. I love the American West, the American cowboy, and the American dreams they represented. It was an era when there were still frontiers to conquer, still places where man had never stepped, still gold and silver and oil to be found, still free land as long as you were willing to homestead that land, still endless horizons with no skyscrapers or smokestacks to mar the landscape. It's the "cowboy" in Americans that makes them dare to try new ventures, dare to leave the familiar and take a new job or start their own business or move to a completely new area of the country. There is a little bit of "cowboy" in our armed forces, in that devil-may-care attitude of our veterans who fought world wars, in those who dared travel into space, in a boxer, a football player, a race car driver, even a reckless investor who risks it all on a hunch. It's the American spirit, and a whole lot of that spirit can be identified as the "cowboy" in us. If you have a dream, if there is something you want to try but have put it off, if you want to stand up for yourself but are afraid to, if you have a good idea but haven't put it out there into the real world, you need to "cowboy up!" Think like a cowboy, and you might be surprised where it can take you! I hope to keep that kind of spirit alive in my writing … and even though I'm told western history isn't popular right now, I intend to "cowboy up" and keep writing what I love, because what goes around, comes around. Cowboys have always been a favorite, and although that genre isn't the most popular right now, it will come back, and I'll be ready!

The following came from an old e-mail I received from someone named Mary Murphy 9 years ago.  I have no idea where she got the information, but I printed it off and saved it and I often use it to read to young people when I speak at a schools.  They always get a kick out of it, and it helps them appreciate history.  Following are some very interesting and "oh my gosh" real facts from history – and a demonstration of the ways in which - in today's ultra-modern world – we continue to be affected by the past. 
Did you know that the way they lived in ancient Rome still has a profound affect on us today?  I am not talking about the fact that a good share of our language is derived from Latin.  I am talking about today's railroad tracks.  Yes, railroad tracks – and their width – which has not changed since the Romans conquered half the world and used chariots to get them where they were going!
Today's standard railroad gauge (the distance between the two rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches.  What an odd number, but it is used because that's the way they built railroads in England, and English expatriates built the U.S. railroads.
Why did the English use that gauge?  Because before the railroad, tramways were built using that same gauge.  Why did they use that gauge for tramways?  Because those who built tramways used the same jigs and tools and measurements that were used to build wagons, and wagon wheels were spaced 4 feet, 8.5 inches apart.  If wagon wheels were spaced any differently, they would break apart on the roads because that was the width of the ruts in the old dirt roads. 
And why were the ruts in the roads that width?  Because originally the road ruts  in England and in most of Europe and Africa and even parts of Asia were worn into the ground by Roman chariots, and  the wheels of those chariots were 4 feet, 8.5 inches apart.   And why were they this width?  Because the chariots were built just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of two war horses!!
Soooo ... The U.S. standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot!  But that's not all, folks.  Here is an ironic twist!!  When sitting on the launch pad, a space shuttle has two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank.  These "solid rocket boosters" (called SRB's) are made by Thiokol at a factory in Utah.  The engineers who designed them wanted to make them a bit fatter, but the SRB's had to be shipped by train from Utah to the launch site.  The railroad line runs through tunnels in the Rocky Mountains, and if the SRB's were any fatter, they couldn't get through the tunnels, which are only slightly wider than the railroad tracks, which you now know are only wide enough to fit two horse's behinds.  So a major space shuttle design feature of what is the world's most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse's ass!!!   And you thought being a Horse's Ass was not important!
Yes, history can be surprisingly interesting!  Save this, dear readers, and read it to your children or grandchildren when they ask why they have to bother learning history.  It helps them understand that history can be fun!  Following are some very interesting facts that come from a writer named Pricilla A. Maine, who sent me this in an e-mail also in 2002.  I would first like to quote something she wrote that perfectly fits the reason I write western historicals ...
"My great-grandmothers came west with a wagon load of dreams.  They birthed and buried their infants alone, plowed fields, outlived husbands, survived dust bowls and the Great Depression.  It is their hardships, tragedies, and triumphs that inspire my writing."
Following are some wonderfully interesting facts in Priscilla's e-mail:
The reason June is a popular month for weddings is because in the early days most people took their "yearly" baths in May, when it was getting warm and they couldn't stand how they smelled after the long cold winter.  These baths didn't always get rid of all the smell, so brides carried bouquets to help hide the body odor!  And because water was not always handy, in areas where it was scarce the man of the house came first.  He got the nice, clean water.  Then came the sons, and finally the women and children, who all used the same water!  Because children were last, we are left with the term,  "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water!"
Ever hear someone say, "It's raining cats and dogs?"  Well, in the old days many houses had a thatch roof (thick straw piled high).  Because in winter it was warm there, small animals would sometimes climb up onto the roof to burrow in.  When it rained these roofs sometimes became slippery ... and well, you can figure out the rest.  Of course, there wasn't anything to keep bugs and such from falling into the house either, so women would hang sheets on a four-poster bed to keep rodents and insects from falling onto the bed.  And thus we have the "canopy bed."
The floors in these houses were, of course, dirt.  Only the wealthy had wood floors – thus the term "dirt poor."  See?  Didn't I tell you history can be interesting?  And sometimes the wood (slat) floors of the wealthier people would get slippery in winter, so they would spread straw on the floor to help keep from slipping.  As they kept adding fresh straw, it would sometimes build up enough that when the door was opened some of it would get pushed outside.  They therefore built wooden barriers across the bottom of the doorway – and thus we have "thresh holds."
In the old days families were big (often extended families lived together) and thus they were  always eating.  Because of this a woman of middle-income or poor families would keep a large kettle hanging over the fire always filled with something to eat.  As people ate from the kettle, the woman would continue adding a little water and salt and fat keep throwing in leftovers and pretty much anything someone might bring home from the fields or woods (and if they were lucky, a little meat).  Every morning the woman would re-light the fire, and the "stew" in the pot would be eaten for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  This might go on for days – thus the term – "Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old."
Isn't this fun?  Families who could afford pork considered themselves quite special, and when visitors came, the often hung up their bacon to show off!  And so it was considered a sign of wealth when a man could "bring home the bacon."  Sometimes the woman would cut off a sliver of bacon to share with guests and they would sit around and "chew the fat."
Want to know why for about 400 years tomatoes were considered poisonous?  Well in the old days most plates were made of pewter.  The lead in the pewter would leach into foods with a high acid content, which of course they did not know.  When people ate them, they would contract lead poisoning and many died from it. 
Want to know where the term "trench mouth" came from?  Well, those who did not use pewter plates often used bowls called "trenchers."  These trenchers were usually made of wood, but sometimes they were made from stale bread that was so old and hard it could be used to eat from.  Of course, eventually worms and mold got into the old bread, and sometimes even into wooden bowls, since they were usually just wiped out and almost never washed.  When this happened, people would get sores in their mouths and other diseases ... thus the term "trench mouth."  Don't you wonder sometimes how ANYONE lived to get older and produce more children back in those days?
And then there is the term "upper crust."  That comes from the fact that often when a woman baked her bread, she gave the bottom (hardest, sometimes burned part of the bread) to the help.  The family got the middle.  Guests were always served only the top of the bread – thus, "upper crust."
And did you know that ale and whiskey were usually served in lead cups?  If a man was a heavy drinker, the combination of the alcohol and of course – more lead – would sometimes knock him out so deeply that he seemed to be dead.  But because people realized he'd had too much to drink and might NOT be dead, they would lay him out on a table and wait a couple of days to see if he might wake up.  Thus, they held a "wake." 
And in old England, where room to bury people was scarce, graves were often dug up and the bones taken to a "bone house" so the grave could be re-used for someone else.  The horrifying part is that in many instances when they dug up the old coffins, they would find scratch marks inside the lids!!  Thus, they began looping string around a dead person's wrist, pull it through a hole in the coffin and attach a bell to it, so that if a person "woke up" they could pull the string and alert those "above" that they were still alive!  Thus, they would be "saved by the bell" and were considered "dead ringers."  And people were hired to sit in graveyards at night and listen for those bells, which is why night workers work the "graveyard" shift!!!
Read this to your kids and then tell them "and you thought history was boring!"

Recently we lost an icon of TV westerns - James Arness, better known as Matt Dillon of the longest-running TV western ever – GUNSMOKE.

I was very saddened to hear this, partly because Matt Dillon was my hero in my teens, and also because there are so few TV heroes left – actually, none that I can think of. TV sets no good examples of a strong line between "good" and "bad" any more. The old westerns did that. Cheesy sometimes, but kids understood that if you did something "bad" you had to pay for it. Respect, honor, manners – very little of any of that on TV any more.

GUNSMOKE survived as long as it did because it had several characters with whom one could identify and empathize – like Doc Adams, Chester Good, Festus, and Matt Dillon's long-time "girlfriend" Kitty. The only western hero left as far as I can see is Clint Eastwood. When he is gone it will be a HUGE loss for quality movies as well as another icon of western movies and also TV (remember Rowdy Yates of RAWHIDE?).

I always wanted to be able to meet James Arness, but now that will never happen. But he remains "alive" to me through continued re-runs of GUNSMOKE, which I watch every evening.

I have to admit I felt a bit daunted recently when I listened to a conference speaker's predictions for all the changes that are (and will continue to be) taking place in the publishing world.  I don't know about the rest of you, but at 66 years old and as busy as I am, I'm not about to take time out to take a course in media print/advertising and spend hours delving into the ins and outs of today's internet offerings.  I know such knowledge is important to writing today, but we all have enough things going on in our personal lives to stress about.  I don't intend to add my lack of techy expertise to the long list of other things that keep me awake at night.
I fully understand that changes are taking place and that publishing will likely progress even further and in even more complicated ways into the internet's infinite future.  However, one thing kept going through my mind as I listened to all the mind-boggling twitter, Facebook, blogging, rain-running-down-the-computer-screen, music-in-the-background, e-book, Kindle, Nook, i-Pad mumbo-jumbo         ...
HOW ABOUT JUST WRITING A DAMN GOOD STORY FIRST?
I think we writers need to focus more on that than how in heck we'll market our books once they are published.  The key is to first GET published, and that remains the primary purpose of MMRWA.  Yes, I know we were told that there are numbers/marketing gurus out there now who don't give a darn how good our stories are.  But, my fellow writers, that can only go so far.  The reading public will spend their money on pure junk for only so long.  The demand for really good stories is still out there, and it will grow.
It all still comes down to the right editor at the right time seeing the right story.  I guarantee that if you have written a really wonderful novel, if you make an editor laugh or cry, if you hand in a book that the editor can't put down – he or she will find a way to climb over the numbers chief and get that book published.  As the author, you might have to settle for a trade-off – maybe an extra low advance and not much marketing on the part of the publisher – but at least you will be published and on the e-book shelves or the "in print" shelves.
I think we need to step back and take a deep breath.  Shake all the internet highways out of your thoughts.  Stop wondering and worrying about advances and how you will advertise and don't even worry about what the latest genre trend is now or the one soon to come.  We need instead to first get away from the computer, cell phone, i-Pad, blah-blah-blah all together and just go sit outside.  Find a nice park somewhere – or if you live in the country and have acreage, go out onto your own land and just sit.  Don't take your computer or i-Pad.  Take a pad of real paper, a pen or pencil, and just let your mind wander.  Think about your story, your characters, your setting, your plot.  What do you really want to do with your story?  What is its purpose? Are you writing from the heart?  Are you writing a subject matter that you truly love – writing for yourself rather than the market?  And don't forget the importance of the age-old key to good stories -  goal/motivation/character development.  Close your eyes and put yourself into the shoes of your characters.  BE your characters.  It will be a tremendous help when it comes to how they speak, react, feel, believe, move, love or hate.  It will help you bring your characters alive, make them real people with whom your readers can easily identify and empathize. 
In all my books I have "been" the heroine.  I've had over 50 affairs in the past 30 years, because I fall totally in love with every one of my heroes.  Don't ever ask me who my favorite hero is, because I've loved them all.  In the couple of books in which my hero died (yes, I've done that), I've balled my eyes out.  I even had my husband crying once.  He went into the bedroom and shut the door because he knew what was coming.  Ladies, if you knew my husband, you'd know what a monumental accomplishment that is!
Have any of you seen the commercial where the mom gets into her new van and locks herself inside for her own little "retreat" from the craziness of family life?  I've done that – often.  And whether it was getting stuck in a certain part of my story, or just needing to rev up my own writing juices, I can't tell you the number of times I have solved a writing problem by putting everything down, getting into my car with a pad of paper and a pen, and just going to sit and think someplace where I am completely alone. 
I worry that younger people don't realize how motivating and helpful it can be to stop all the texting and e-mailing and Facebook'ing once in a while.  To all you younger, newer writers – stop once in a while and just "listen" to your own thoughts.  Be honest with yourself about your writing – why you write – what you write – what your heart is telling you.  Listen to the silence.  Play some mood music.  Dream about your story, because in the end, you can be the cleverest person who ever sat in front of a computer and advertised/promoted your books on-line, through every possible venue out there ... but if you aren't creating a good story, and telling it well, then all the advertising and fancy marketing in the world isn't going to help you sell a lot of books.  Even if you do sell a zillion copies of that first book, if you disappoint your readers (who thought, because of your fabulous marketing, that your book must be the greatest story ever written), they aren't going to buy your NEXT book.
Always keep that in mind – not just the story you are working on now, but also your NEXT book.  Editors like to know you're good for more than just one good story.  When you get into publishing, you'd better be in it for the long haul.  I personally have never bought ANY excuse other than dying for not writing.  There is ALWAYS a way.  You can MAKE time if you love your craft enough.  I could easily break away here and talk about how to write through bad health and tragedy and the "business" of life, but that's for a different MIRROR article.  Suffice it to say that where there is a will, there is a way.  You will wade through rejections, multi-editing, and even failed contracts.  You will fall and get up and fall and get up again, so be ready for the life of a writer who intends to write all his or her life because it's as important to you as breathing.
My fellow writers, PLEASE stop fretting over all the changes that are taking place in publishing – stop fretting over whether or not you know how to market your book through the internet – stop spending hours and hours setting up your twitter and web sites and then more hours and hours sitting there tweeting and checking Facebook messages and on and on.  For one thing, I have discovered that you can actually do all that "checking" and "answering" pretty quickly if you just take a quick look once in a while and not allow yourself to fall into the temptation of "chatting" on-line.  Remember that the purpose of on-line marketing is to SELL YOUR BOOK to the reading public, not to tell the world about the latest cute thing your child or your dog just did.  Remember that to get published, you first must write that good story, and THAT is what you should be spending hours and hours doing.  WRITING! 
There are so many avenues out there that you can explore when it comes to advertising your books.  And there are savvy people who actually know what they are doing when it comes to the internet and actually love doing it.  One of them is the president of my RWA writers group, Mid-Michigan Romance Writers.  Her name is Florence Price and you can contact her at My Girl Friday ~ VA or [email protected].  There are a lot of people out there like Florence who can HELP YOU.  You DO NOT need to waste writing time playing with the internet and trying to figure out by yourself how to get started.  Yes, I am on Twitter now – and Facebook.  I have a great web site and now a blog.  But I spent little to no time on any of it.  Florence keeps them all up-dated for me.
  My web site designer is Michelle Crean.  You can contact her at [email protected] .  All I do is send her new info and she gets it into my web site.  You CAN  find people out there who will do these things for a nominal fee.  The cost is WORTH IT.  You will have more time to spend WRITING, because in the end, SELLING YOUR BOOK TO A PUBLISHER is the first thing you have to do.  And that is how you will make the money you can use to pay someone else to do all the rest for you.
I think it was F. Scott Fitzgerald who said the following when he was asked to speak to a group of writers ... "All of you want to be writers, so go home and write."  And then he left.  At least that's how the story goes.  True or not, it really makes the point.  Yes, workshops and retreats and now the internet are all ways to learn about writing and publishing ... but no university on the face of the earth, no workshop, no conference or retreat, no famous "other" author you might sit and listen to is going to help you get a book published or even teach you how to write the most wonderful book ever.  That only happens when you have a PASSION for writing, a PASSION for your story and your characters, a natural talent for story-telling - and when you put all the other mumbo-jumbo aside and sit down and WRITE.  The rest will happen by itself. 
Good luck to all of you!