Rosanne Bittner's Blog, page 6

       I have a tube of body lotion by Lancome called Hydra Fraichelle “invigorating” body lotion. What is most “invigorating” about it is the smell. It’s one of those scents that makes you want to take a deep, deep breath when you smell it and then let it linger in your senses – and then you take another deep, whiff.          We all have favorite smells. I love this one because every time I smell this lotion I think of my favorite grandma (maternal grandmother). I was only eighteen when Grandma Williams died, and I’m 75 now, so you’d think her memory would be practically non-existent by now, but not so. Her memory is as vivid as though I spent time with her yesterday. She was poor and she and my grandpa lived in a converted shed when I was little, with a kerosene lamp, a wood-burning stove for cooking and an ice box – oh, and no running water. But the times I stayed overnight with her are my best, best memories. I couldn’t have cared less how comfortable (or uncomfortable) it was. The love I felt there made up for all the inconveniences, and for a little girl, staying with grandma was an adventure.       Certain scents can be so calming, and we writers have to remember to use the sense of smell in our work. Describing scents can bring a scene to life and help a reader picture the moment – or a room – or a garden – or a person. I have often used the term – “He smelled like leather and sage and the out-of-doors.” I absolutely love that description. It makes me picture a man’s man – someone rugged and strong and able to take care of himself and his woman.                       I had an aunt who somehow was able to keep her house smelling like roses all the time, especially her bedroom and bathroom, and even in winter. This was well before today’s scented candles and plug-in scents and all the other ways there are today to keep our homes smelling pleasant. Today, when I smell a rose scent, Aunt Laura instantly comes to mind. She was another favorite relative I loved to spend time with.        The smell of fresh-cooking pasta and sauce instantly brings to mind my Sicilian grandmother, who made her own pasta at home. I used to love watching her crank those strings of pasta from a wad of fresh dough through a special grinder. Then she would spread it out to dry. I can tell you without reservation that NOTHING you buy in a grocery store can REMOTELY compare to the taste and smell of fresh-made pasta. NOTHING.        And smell is deeply related to taste. How can you beat the smell of freshly-baking, homemade bread? That’s something else you just want to hold up to your nose and take deep breaths of it – fresh, hot bread. And there is nothing like the taste of a piece of that bread right out of the oven and smothered in real butter! My maternal grandmother used to make her own bread, and – oh - pie dough! Just the dough – flattened out and smeared with butter, cinnamon and sugar and baked. That’s better than any elephant ear you can buy!        Husbands and wives also have their own unique scents. My husband always smells good, and it’s his own particular scent – not any particular after-shave because he has several different kinds. It’s just his own particular scent that I can’t quite describe but that I know is my husband. When he rode away in a bus for basic training for the Army after we first married, I slept with one of his shirts every night, just so it felt like he was near me.          Old books – there’s another wonderful scent! What reader doesn’t like the smell of walking into a used-book store, or a library? Have you ever just opened an old book and put it to your nose and sniffed? I immediately hear voices from the past. I immediately “see” life as it used to be. At the same time, I love the smell of a new book, too – the kind with shiny, silky pages. I remember how much I used to love opening a new schoolbook at the beginning of a school year.        Walk into a store that sells leather – purses, belts, jackets, boots, whatever. Right away you can see a handsome cowboy astride a beautiful horse with a leather saddle – the cowboy wearing a leather gun belt and leather vest and leather gloves and boots. What a rich, wonderful smell leather has. I have a leather dashboard and leather seats in my Jeep Gr. Cherokee, and when the weather is warm and the sun heats up all that leather, I can smell it when I get inside. I just sit there and breathe deeply for a moment.      And then there is the calming smell of lavender. If you are anxious or depressed or unable to sleep, just hold a sachet of lavender to your nose, and all your worries just vanish. And again, you just want to breathe in that smell as deeply as possible.            I have some hot pads that are like little bean bags filled with the scent of cinnamon. When you set something hot on them, it wakes up the cinnamon. What a wonderful smell! Sometimes I just hold those soft hotpads to my nose and breathe.
          And is there anyone out there who doesn’t like the smell of lilacs? You can smell lilacs a mile away. And the minute you smell them, you think spring and Easter and sunshine and green grass and “purple,” which brings to mind colors. My favorite color is purple, the predominant color in my bedroom and bathroom.        A citrus smell makes us think “clean” and bright and healthy.        What are your favorite smells? If you are a writer, it only makes “sense” to use “scents” in your stories. It brings the story and the characters to life!

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COMING THE END OF JUNE:

 

        I just finished watching an old 1947 western called Heaven Only Knows, starring Bob Cummings. I know – most of you can’t begin to relate to 1947 (I was 2 years old), and you probably have no idea who Robert Cummings was (used to be a very handsome and popular actor). But old movies and old actors aren’t the point of this blog. The point of this blog is “hokey” movies and how many of them touched our hearts.    “Back in the day” movies were made almost specifically to teach lessons about good and bad, and to make people laugh or cry. They were full of dripping-sweet drama, and you almost always knew how they would end, yet you watched anyway.         The only reason I watched Heaven Only Knows is because I was getting ready to shut off the TV and was going to scan through up-coming movies on Turner Classic Movies. (EVERYONE should have this channel and EVERYONE should watch it – so much to learn about America and what life used to be like and what attitudes used to be like and how people had manners and dressed well and had a lot of pride in their country. Someone let all of that change, but that’s a subject for a different blog.)        I brought up TCM on the TV and Heaven Only Knows was already playing and over half over, yet I found myself watching – at first thinking what a hokey western it was, with the typical “staged” and silly gunfight, the usual drama of an old movie and all of that – until I realized Bob Cummings was playing the part of an angel, sent to change the life of the “bad guy with a good heart” – my favorite kind of hero. The movie is in B&W of course, and it included an old man who steals your heart, and a little boy who totally breaks your heart – and the classic heroine who loves the bad guy but won’t put up with his “bad guy” ways. He has to change first, and of course Bob Cummings is there to do that. No one knows he’s an angel until the very end when one woman (the little boy’s mother) realizes the truth and also realizes Cummings has come to town to take her son (who has an illness) to Heaven – think “Tiny Tim” in A CHRISTMAS CAROL.        I knew how this movie would end, and I hadn’t even watched the first part – but I couldn’t stop watching. And yes – I cried at the end when the “angel” rides off with the little boy in a stagecoach pulled by six white horses.         Silly? Yes. Hokey? Yes. Ridiculously dramatic and impossible? Yes. But I watched anyway, just like I would watch any Shirley Temple movie again and again, or Gone With The Wind, or Casablanca,or It’s a Wonderful Life, or A Christmas Carol, or Miracle on 34th Street, or The Ox-Bow Incident, or High Noon, or The Searchers, or Old Yeller, or The Yearling – and more modern movies – The Boy In The Striped Pajamas (OMG – the ending of that one is almost too much for someone with high blood pressure to watch) – and the two movies that make me need a box of Kleenex each because the actors die – and they really DID die not long after making the movie – Ghost, with Patrick Swayze (if that movie doesn’t make you cry, you have no heart) – and The Shootistwith John Wayne. Yes, John Wayne made a lot of hokey westerns in which he was a bit “too” macho – but that’s what westerns were like then, and that’s what John Wayne was like – HOWEVER, in The Shootist, he plays a gunfighter dying from cancer – and in real life he WAS dying from cancer. It’s almost more than the heart can take because - how fitting was it for John Wayne’s last film to be a western about a gunfighter who is dying? To me that movie depicted the end of an era – the era of western movies and stars like John Wayne. And the best movie that actually depictsthe end of the cowboy era is Monte Walsh, starring Tom Selleck. The cowboy life will never be like that again.         The last couple of movies mentioned aren’t really “hokey” like some of those old black and whites, but nonetheless, they touch your heart and make you cry. I miss those truly dramatic, “good vs. bad,” “teach a life lesson” movies. Today they try to bring that kind of drama, but something is missing in most of today’s movies – partly that there is no more “black and white” to life itself. I am sick of modern movies that show people doing drugs as though it’s no worse than drinking a glass of wine - and as though you can’t party anymore without everyone sniffing that white crap up their noses. No, thanks. I’ve had too much heartbreak of my own over a loved one who has allowed the Devil’s Drug to destroy his life. I don’t need to watch it in a movie. But that, too, is for a different blog.        I prefer the old movies, and I hope they never stop showing them, hokey or not. I love the drama and I love wishing life could be that way again. Where today’s movies are going – Heaven Only Knows.
Coming in June:

I’m sure I’ve written about memories before – how and when I started writing and such. But this blog is about my very first memories after being born. In my case, since I am 75, that means going back at least 71 years. As far as I can dig into my past, I think that first memory is from when I was four years old. I was sitting in the loft of a barn and watching it rain. My parents were fairly poor then, not church-mouse poor, but I know times were hard. They had just moved with me and my older sister to St. Joseph, Michigan from LaPorte, Indiana, where my father had worked in a bomb factory during WWII. In LaPorte, they lived in government housing in a place called Kingsford Heights. When they moved to Michigan, we lived on property owned by my uncle, Albert Williams, who, at that time, I saw as my “rich uncle” because they had a nice house and we lived in his back yard in a house trailer – and not the kind of trailers they have today. This was one of those old, tiny, silver, rounded trailers that had hardly any room in it.The barn I sat in, watching the rain, belonged to Uncle Albert. I think I had climbed up into the loft of that barn just to get out of that tiny trailer and enjoy some space. I really don’t remember if my mother was looking for me. She probably was. All I remember is sitting in that loft watching the rain and feeling very lonely and melancholy.I don’t know why that memory is so very vivid to this day, but I realized as I wrote this that, for some reason, my most vivid childhood memories involved sitting at a door or window looking outside and feeling lonely. My next memory comes from about a year later. I was about five years old and sitting in a house we had moved into in Coloma, Michigan (the town I have lived in the rest of my life). Our new dwelling wasn’t really a house. It was more of a converted shed, and I remember we had a lot of trouble with mice. I’ve gone by that excuse of a house several times over all these years, and it truly is just an old shed now. I can’t believe we really lived there. We were still poor then, and the shed was behind a bigger house that belonged to the people who owned the property. Again, I saw those people in the nicer house as the “rich neighbors,” and we were the poor ones. They were very nice, though, and the woman there and my mother became close friends for life. I became good friends for years after that with one of the woman’s daughters. Again, in this second memory, I was looking out a window and watching birds sitting on a clothesline outside. I remember the grass was very green. I think it was springtime. I remember wishing I could be one of those pretty little birds perched on the clothesline. And again, I felt lonely and melancholy. I was always daydreaming, imagining a different life, and even at that age I often thought about romantic heroes who saved me from “bad guys.”My third vivid memory is from yet another house we moved into in the country – a real house this time. I was around eight years old. Most things in between all of that are blank – and again, the memory is of me sitting in an upstairs bedroom looking longingly out a window at birds flying against a background of white clouds. I also remember that that is when I wrote my first poem, and it was about love. Yes, love – at about seven years old. I still have the poem because my mother had it published in the local newspaper, which used to publish poems by local residents:“We sat here together long ago, watching the birds fly to and fro.Then we sadly parted – waving good-bye.I guess it was forever. Strange, how gray the sky.I come back here and sit, dear, nearly every day,But you have never come back. It’s no use to stay.But I will linger for a while, and imagine you are here.While the birds fly to and fro, you seem so very near.”Oh, my gosh! I was writing romance at seven years old! Over the years I wrote tons of poems, and I tried to get them published, but no luck. By fourth grade I had written my first story – a love story about two ducks called “Mr. and Mrs. Quack.” I’m sure you are laughing over the title, but at that time it was a very serious story for a girl only about eight years old. The male duck was shot down during hunting season but survived and found “Mrs. Quack” again. Lovers separated by fate and then finding each other again – the very type of book I write today. The front and back covers to that first book were made of construction paper and it was all tied together with green yarn. My mother kept it for years and then gave it to me. I thought I still had it, but I can’t find it. Sad.Apparently, even from a very young age, I was a melancholy, imaginative, romantic girl who wanted to write love stories. Growing up, I always leaned toward sweeping, romantic, dramatic movies and books, and I also loved American history and books and movies about pioneers and Indians, which apparently led me to what I write today. And I still love birds. I have five bird feeders outside my kitchen window now, and I make sure they are always full. I absolutely LOVE bird-watching.I also have vivid memories of playing with my friend Beverly, from the ages of around seven to ten. Two little girls, all alone, playing in grape fields and orchards, far away from our houses. Little girls all alone in the woods would never be accepted today, but we knew no fear and never thought a thing about anything bad happening. Our parents didn’t worry either, as long as we made it home for supper. And what did we play? Cowboys and Indians! And I always had to be the fastest draw and ride a white horse! Sound familiar? My heroes don’t ride white horses, but they are definitely the cowboy type and fast on the draw.I got busy with “life” and kids and a job after marrying at twenty years old, and I didn’t get around to trying to write a “real” book until I was about 32, and at 38 (1983) my first book was published – SWEET PRAIRIE PASSION – by Kensington Books. That book led to a 7-book series called SAVAGE DESTINY, which to this day (2020) is still selling!At 75, the romance and love of history and the American West is still with me, and I am still writing. Sometimes I still feel that little girl deep inside. She’s never left me. I wonder if all of you reading this still feel the child inside and have vivid memories from your own childhood – and if those memories seem to have a connection to how life turned out for you. If you are a writer, it’s those life experiences you should remember and use to bring reality to your stories.Don’t forget to stop once in a while and take time to just sit and listen … and daydream.
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       Do you have closets and junk drawers, the back of which haven’t seen the light of day in a year? Maybe two years? Maybe longer? I proudly call myself the Queen of a Fake Clean House. Everything is lovely – neat and tidy. I scrub the bathrooms and kitchen and I dust and vacuum and I do all the things required to keep a house clean and orderly … but DO NOT – I repeat – DO NOT CHECK MY DRAWERS AND CLOSETS! You will be arrested! I am also the Queen of shoving 10 cubic feet of “stuff” into 5 cubic feet of space … hidden space … dark places no one dares go. I have never feared some culprit might hide in my house and attack me. I DARE anyone to even FIND a place to hide in my house. Every tiny space, nook and cranny has something stored there. Hide and seek is a game my grandsons always had trouble with, because there is no extra space anywhere.
        The problem is … I don’t check those nooks and crannies often enough, so I sometimes forget what the heck I put there. Those hidden cavities of the house begin to haunt me, and I know I really must check them out and get rid of all the “stuff” I haven’t used and have completely forgotten even exists, so that I can shove even more “stuff” into those dark places. Of course, that means facing the awful words “Deep Cleaning.” Recently, I came up with the perfect solution for getting it done. I almost always use this to get myself into cleaning mode.
        My inspiration? I NEED TO COMPLETELY RE-WRITE A 450-PAGE BOOK! Well, of course, I can’t do that until I get some cleaning done so the cleaning won’t haunt me while I’m writing. At least, that’s what I tell myself, as an excuse NOT TO SIT DOWN AND GET STARTED on the re-write! We’ve all done it – “I’ll get to THIS - AFTER I get to THAT.”
        And so … three days ago I got to THAT and I put off THIS. It all started with not sitting down to write because I had to think about the major changes I wanted to make to the book. And I think better on my feet. If I lie still and think too hard, I get all upset that I won’t come up with the answers. My answers always come when I’m busy doing something ELSE. So, I decided to clean out a small “grandma” cupboard where I store coffee mugs and plastic containers. I was mainly going to organize the plastic containers. You know how that goes. Lids fell out all over the floor, and I discovered I had lids that fit nothing, and containers that had no lids that fit.
        Well, I got kind of mad – i.e. – I took everything out – organized it all – realized I had way too many mugs on the other shelf, a shelf I could use for more plastic containers so things don’t fall all over the place. It’s just me and my husband at home now, and my children and grandchildren don’t even drink coffee and we have very little company – so why in heck do I have so many mugs? I got rid of at least half of them. I’ll take them to Goodwill.
        Well, organizing that one little cupboard led to removing some things that I wanted to put in a different place. Soooooo … I opened a drawer I thought I could use for some of those extra items.
        You guessed it. I went through that drawer like a raccoon in a dumpster. Things went flying – doled out to go someplace else, or to throw into a garbage bag. That led to cleaning out the other two drawers in my china cabinet. Now I was on a roll. I went on to some other kitchen drawers. More “stuff” went flying. By the time I finished, I had a garbage bag full of “stuff” for Goodwill, as well as another garbage bag of pure “junk” for our own trash. The problem is, some of the things I removed had to go to my office or my bedroom.
       Aha! Again, the raccoon-affect took over. I ended up COMPLETELY cleaning out and re-arranging my office! Desks, drawers, you have it. I’m 75 and I was dragging, pushing, pulling and lifting things only a 20-year-old should handle. I collapsed into bed that night covered in Aspercream and lying on a heating pad.
        And then it happened. Unable to sleep well because everything hurt, I couldn’t help looking around my bedroom and thinking about all the “junk” there and how I needed to get rid of one of the small dressers and re-arrange things because the room had become too “full” and haphazard. Soooooo …
        Next morning, I got up and I started all over again, this time with the bedroom. Dragging, pushing, pulling and lifting until the unneeded dresser was pulled out (I dragged that into my office to use there, so that led to a few more rearrangements in my office). I moved my bed, moved a 5-drawer dresser, a hope chest, another smaller dresser – changed the sheets on the bed – moved the TV – and more “stuff” was sent to my office and a few things to a closet where I keep towels, extra medicine and extra things like doilies, cotton balls, deodorant, toothpaste, razors, room sprays, etc. etc. etc.
        Well, I finished the bedroom, but that closet where I keep extra “stuff” haunted me the second night. I wondered what was lurking in the dark corners there, sooooo …
        You guessed it. The next morning, I turned into a dumpster raccoon again and things went flying. I actually found an unopened package of expensive facial product I had completely forgotten I put there! I opened the box. The invoice inside was from 2015!!! Yes, that’s how long it had been since I looked in the dark corners of that closet! I found so much extra product I didn’t even know I had that I filled a bag for my son and his wife and filled a bag of “stuff” for Goodwill and stuffed two more garbage bags with more “junk.”
        Now I am determined to clean out under my bathroom sink. I’ll probably find five bottles of the same brand of shampoo because I forgot I already had some stored in those dark corners and bought more. Lord knows what else is under there. Then I’m going to clean out under the sink in my husband’s bathroom. And don’t even talk to me about the garage. That’s a project for when the weather warms up. And I won’t plan it. I NEVER plan to deep clean. It ALWAYS starts with something simple, like going out to the garage to get something out of a cabinet there that’s packed with extra canned goods and such. I’ll spot some little thing that belongs someplace else, and off I’ll go!
        Coming in June 2020!

      Yes, the title of this blog is the basic theme of nearly all my books – men others see as “bad,” and some truly start out that way. Some of my heroes did do bad things and spent time in prison – some are even wanted men throughout my story – some are actually lawmen who deal a hard, hard hand – and ALL of them have a good side and always have an underlying reason for their actions and decisions.        I just finished watching A PERFECT WORLD, with Kevin Costner as an escaped convict and Clint Eastwood the head Texas Ranger looking for him. I always cry at the ending of this story, which brings out the good and the decency in BOTH men, and shows how a little boy can love a “bad man.” Kevin Costner’s character reminds me very much of Jake Harkner from my Outlaw Hearts books, simply because he was an abused little boy and as a man, he can’t stand to see other little boys abused. That brings out the “bad” in him, just like having any of his family members abused brings out the “bad” in Jake. Everyone should watch A PERFECT WORLD (1993). The little boy in it just tears your heart out. What a great little actor (T J Lowther, who went on to make other movies and is, of course, now grown).        Bad men with a good heart is my favorite plot theme, my favorite hero to write. Not all my heroes are outlaws, but nearly all are heroic in their defense of their loved ones and in their hatred of the TRULY bad element in this world, those who are mean just to be mean.
      I enjoy writing the psychology of the bad man with a good heart. I have always felt spot-on with Jake, who ended up killing his own father at fifteen because the man was attacking a young girl Jake cared about and he didn’t know how else to stop him. That started Jake on a journey down the wrong path, even though deep inside he wanted to be that “good man” he knew most men were, and even though he wanted the family he never had himself. He came from a horribly abusive father who killed his mother and little brother before his eyes – things a boy never forgets and things that haunt him the rest of his life. Jake’s past affects every single decision he makes the rest of his life, and the only person who truly understands and forgives his dark side is his wife, Miranda, the woman who never gave up on him after first meeting him. “Randy” is Jake’s counselor, the love of his life, the only thing that keeps him sane and on the right side of that fine line between good and evil.         I am about to write a fifth “Jake” story – BLAZE OF GLORY. And – you guessed it – something happens to bring out that ‘bad” side of Jake, and it involves his young (and favorite) grandson – his namesake – young Jake, who is hurt in a range war. Those of you who are familiar with Jake Harkner know very well what this will do to Jake. His guns will come out of semi-retirement, and they will be “blazing.” Jake is getting older, but his temperament and skills haven’t aged at all. Some very sorry people will find that out.            I thought book #4, THE LAST OUTLAW, would be the last one in this series, but I felt that nudge that I had to write one more story. I did write A CHICKADEE CHRISTMAS, a short Christmas story about the Harkner family, published in an anthology titled CHRISTMAS IN A COWBOY’S ARMS (2018 – Sourcebooks). In that story, Jake promised to take Miranda on a trip to Chicago, where two of their best friends (from Book #2 DO NOT FORSAKE ME) live. Jake and Randy have never had any kind of vacation together away from Jake’s life constantly on the run, and then his job as a U. S. Marshal in Oklahoma – nor have they been away from the J&L ranch they own in Colorado.   
       BLAZE OF GLORY will begin with that trip to Chicago, and something will happen on their way there that shows Jake Harkner isn’t a changed man at all. Then the news comes about the range war building back home in Colorado and something has happened to young Jake. Jake heads home, and all hell breaks loose!  
       I know those who love the Outlaw Heart series will absolutely love BLAZE OF GLORY. And after that I will continue to write the bad man with a good heart in other stories. In June comes the second book in my Men of the Outlaw Trail series – LAWMAN IN THE HIGH LONESOME – where, this time, a GOOD man, Matt Stover, who is a sheriff from Nebraska, turns to his darker side for revenge.        The third book – coming in October – JOURNEY TO HIGH LONESOME – is about a wanted man who fell into the darker world purely by circumstance and because of the Civil War. Like my other “bad men,” Nick Calhoun has a good heart, but life keeps dealing him bad hands. His only hope is a woman he’s known since she was too young to marry – a woman who at first refuses to go with him to outlaw country, but who ends up having no choice but to go there herself.

     Some people never learn, and I am one of them – at times. I say that because I tend to make the same mistakes again after thinking I’ve learned my lesson. I’ve learned so much over the years about the “do’s” and “don’t’s” of writing, what to watch for and what NOT to do again.     One of my biggest mistakes in my early writing was redundancy. I tried too hard to make sure the reader understood the back story surrounding hero and heroine, and tried too hard to make sure the reader knew what certain characters were thinking and feeling. Sometimes just a statement or a movement or a look is all it takes to add power to the moment, as opposed to going on and on about a character’s feelings. After a lot of editing by publishers, I finally learned how to bring out those emotions and the reasons for how my characters felt and the decisions they made without taking two pages to do so – or repeating such explanations all over again.      Another problem I had was omnipotence. Most writers know what I’m talking about. Omnipotence is, in essence, the author behaving like God – looking down on the characters and describing them or a room or a situation. That’s a mistake my agent pointed out. For instance, the heroine can’t look in the mirror and brush her “lustrous, waist-length hair” while admiring her “big, blue eyes and full, pouty lips.” Who is saying that? The AUTHOR. And you can’t have a hero remove his shirt and follow that with, “his hard, muscled shoulders and arms glistened brown in the hot sun.” Who is saying that? The AUTHOR.       Big NO! NO! The author is doing the describing – playing God as he or she watches these characters and “directs” the scene/description. Such descriptions should occur THROUGH THE CHARACTERS THEMSELVES. Someone ELSE should notice these things. That heroine’s hair and eyes and lips should be noticed by the HERO (or by some other interested party). It’s that other character who should think about the heroine’s attributes – UNLESS the heroine is incredibly arrogant and conniving and is considering how she might use her looks to tempt or betray someone. The hero’s muscled body should also be described by someone else – “she watched Joe remove his shirt, admiring his muscled build and how his dark skin glistened in the sun.” This way the OTHER person is noticing these things, not the character himself (or herself). This makes the story more active than passive, and it moves things forward and brings the characters to life and more reality to the story. It’s CHARACTER driven, not AUTHOR driven.      One of my biggest goals is always to keep myself OUT of the story. I don’t want readers to see Rosanne Bittner taking part in any way. My stories should happen entirely on their own, moved along by the characters in “real life” situations and making decisions most humans would make based on their personalities and background.           I said I was a slow learner, but once I “got it,” the light bulb stayed on and I have learned how to trim and cut, and make a story more powerful with fewer words. I’ve learned to stay out of the picture and let everything happen, including descriptions, through the characters.       The third important lesson I needed to learn is one I thought I’d conquered along with everything else. That lesson is - “go with your gut” if something about your story doesn’t feel right. I’ve followed that rule for years, but I failed to do so on my most recent book, which led to this blog. I kind of knew there was a problem with  the book I wrote for my third “Men of the Outlaw Trail” series. The book was originally titled RETURN OF A WANTED MAN, but I changed the title to JOURNEY TO HIGH LONESOME.       Title aside – when I finished the story, something about the back story of the hero and heroine didn’t “feel” right. Instead of taking the time to wonder why, I wrote and struggled and re-wrote and struggled to “make” the back story work. And just as that little voice deep inside told me when I sent off the book, that back story drew the attention of my editor, who said flatly – “this isn’t working. You need to change how these two meet, and why the hero rode out of the heroine’s life for five years.” My heroine appeared weak and even a bit selfish for her role in what happened.      I KNEW that. I damn well knew it but thought I could get away with the way I had written it. Sometimes sending in a book, even though something about it bothers you, is pure laziness, but I dare anyone to call me a lazy writer. I am a very hard worker, but I had just finished another big book, and maybe I was just too tired to go back and do a re-write. Sometimes your first version makes sense at the time, until you re-read the book, at which time you realize there is something about it that worries you. You tell yourself that maybe the editor will think it’s just fine. You HOPE that will happen, but deep down inside, your gut tells you the part about your book that worries you will come back to bite you in the butt … and it almost always does.      So this third lesson is  …    NEVER SUBMIT A MANUSCRIPT THAT HAS SOMETHING ABOUT IT THAT WORRIES YOU – something even YOU don’t like! If it takes an extra couple of weeks or a month to “fix” he problem, then take the time to do it. An editor would much rather receive a smooth read that makes for a good story than to frown and re-read a certain part because something about it doesn’t fit the plot/scenario/character(s). You will come across as more professional, and the editor will be more likely to want to read more of your books – plus she will enjoy the story, and it won’t take anywhere near the heavy editing the first version would require – less work for you and the editor in the long run.       Yes, my book came back and needed a re-write – something that almost never happens to me. I am used to an editor’s praise and just some minor fixes. I was embarrassed, and I was angry with myself for sending in the original version. And, of course, now I am re-writing the back story – so I didn’t save myself one bit of work by hoping the first version would be accepted. Even if it was, I would have had some disappointed readers, and that is the LAST thing I want! I have always had wonderful reviews and 4 – 5-star comments on Amazon. I don’t want to break that pattern.      I feel really good about the changes I am making, and I feel much better about the characters themselves. The changes will make the readers empathize much more easily with the hero and heroine and make them want to root for both of them. That is very important.      All this leads to one more piece of advice – LISTEN TO YOUR EDITOR. He or she is right 99% of the time. Don’t think you’ve just written GONE WITH THE WIND. You have to come down from that high goal and face the reality that you are one of many, and to stand out, you need to write as entertaining and as perfect a story as you possibly can. More than anything, you have to win over the readers, and if YOU aren’t in love with your characters, the READERS won’t love them either.

      Been doing a lot of thinking lately about my writing – how far I have come and how things have changed over these 40 or so years I’ve been writing. I sat down to write a book in 1979, after reading THE PROUD BREED by Celeste deBlasis. I wanted to write a great love story as well as a saga that covered 2-3 generations like that book did, and off I went! Soon as I wrote that first sentence, combined with a dive into extensive research about Native Americans and the American West, the ideas poured into my brain and out through my fingers, starting with a 4-book series that turned into 7 books (SAVAGE DESTINY) and ending with (currently) 70 published novels, including two series and several trilogies. Two more books will be published in 2020, and I am working on novel #73. My goal was 100 books, but at the age of 75, I’ll just have to see how long God allows me the energy, health and the use of my brain to write more.       A lot of things about publishing have changed over these many years. I started writing when “romance” was hot! Hot! Hot! The big, fat books with bodice-ripper covers packed bookshelves, and the label “romance” was slapped on just about every book published. At first the editing wasn’t all that great, royalties were huge, and the term “politically correct” was unheard of. Over the years romance continues to sell, but it’s not the only topic of conversation among readers anymore. Most of the bodice-ripper covers are gone – at first replaced with lace and flowers – then the slightly more demure couple – and now some pretty hot covers showing nearly-naked men rather than nearly-naked women. Gotta’ love those abs! And, of course, all avenues of “romance” are allowed now, not just stories between a man and a woman. Advance royalties have dropped considerably because of the cheaply-priced Kindle books, and writers have to be more careful in how they handle subjects that were perfectly acceptable 30 years ago but today, if improperly handled, are considered politically incorrect.    Over all these years I’ve gone through numerous editors and publishers for a host of reasons, and I always wrote under contract for a standard publisher, rather than publishing my own books. When I first started writing, publishing your own book was a big no-no if you wanted to be taken seriously. There was no Amazon back then – just what was called subsidy publishing, where the author paid a “subsidy” publisher to print their book, often for outrageous prices. And all you got was a supply of the printed book and it was up to the author to take the books to stores to sell. I have never heard of one author who ever made it big through subsidy publishing.      That’s all changed now, thanks to Amazon. And just like when romance first hit it big, a lot of books have been published that are poorly edited or not edited at all, and that puts us romance writers – all writers, in fact – right back into being judged as “she can’t be that good if she published the book herself,” or worse, “There is nothing but junk out there.” The “badly written” books make it difficult for really good writers to get into the market because now there aren’t just thousands of writers “out there.” There are millions of them flooding the “virtual” market. Getting noticed is really hard, and today writers have to learn a whole new way of marketing their books and spend a lot of time with social networking. Even authors published through regular publishing houses are forced to do a lot of their own marketing, but if you write just for Amazon, you have to do a WHOLE lot more!       Even so, today self-publishing is no longer taboo. It’s just as respected as getting published through the regular medium of a publishing house. Many self-published authors have hit it big, and some have taken the “backward” approach – self-published first, and then becoming so popular that a standard publisher offers them a contract.      After all these years, I have chosen the self-publishing route. And in doing so, I am realizing a “freedom to write what I want,” rather than having to write a certain book because that’s what I signed up to write. There were times when certain books I wrote were not what I really wanted to do – and there were times when I proposed books I truly wanted (in my heart) to write, but the publishers didn’t want them because they didn’t fit their plans at the time. I was often asked to write something else. Publishers tend to lay out their genre/author plans well in advance, sometimes one to two years forward. Another problem with writing for a standard publisher is that they also plan ahead regarding how many books a month they will publish, and how often they will publish certain authors. I found myself very frustrated because although I can produce 2-3 big books a year, my publisher would print only one every 10-12 months, sometimes longer. I write faster than that, and my readers want to read more Bittner books than only one a year. I ended up writing extra books through Amazon, so I finally decided that is the direction I would take from now on.           Now I am free to experiment with those books that have lived in my mind and heart for years but I couldn’t write for one reason or another. It’s really a wonderful feeling, and in the end, because of the out-dated accounting system most publishers still use, I make far more money writing just for Amazon than in writing for a standard publishing house. I won’t go into details because that’s a whole ‘nother subject. Suffice it to say, for the first time in my entire writing career, I am my own boss when it comes to what I write, and I like this feeling. Amazon will not only publish my new works, but they have been gradually reissuing a host of my older titles, with new covers, and all my books, old and new, are available both for Kindle and in print.      What is most satisfying for me is, after all these years, those old, old books from nearly 40 years ago have realized new life and are still selling in great numbers – some of them in bigger numbers than how many of the same titles sold in the 80’s and 90’s. That, for me, is a real gift – kind of an “I told you so” moment. Realizing nice earnings from those old books I thought were slowly dying into just a memory is a wonderful feeling.      So, I will continue writing in true “Bittner” form, with no one to tell me what I can and cannot write about or “how” I can write it. My main goal in all these years has always been writing real history, writing the TRUTH and FACTS, and teaching my readers about American history in an entertaining way through my fictional characters, while at the same time being respectful of that same history and of other cultures. Publishing has grown and changed dramatically, and I’ve had to grow and change with it, but my writing voice and my goals will never change. I have never followed popular genres. I have always only followed my heart, which is what I always advise new writers to do – and is why my web site is labeled “Heart of the West.”

        I was recently asked about the tag line I often use – “Nobody Does It Like a Cowboy.” The person wanted to know what I meant by that. For me, that line has all kinds of meaning besides the one that “romance” conjures up. You know what I mean. And in my books, nobody “does it” like a cowboy. (I am smiling.)
       Actually, by “cowboy,” I mean the rugged, western hero-type. My heroes aren’t always “cowboys,” but they have that cowboy nature – often long hours in the saddle, sleeping out under the stars a lot, a wandering nature, men who take no sh--, good with fists and guns, experienced with the elements of weather, animals and danger, know how to deal with outlaws and hostiles, is good at tracking both men and animals, knows all there is to know about horses and cattle, and knows the western landscape. My men never get lost!
       But more than that, there is a cowboy spirit that is hard to explain. I love writing about the “bad man with a good heart,” or men with a bit of a wild nature, but who always respect a good woman and might even be a bit bashful around a “good woman.” They might drink, but my heroes are never mean alcoholics; they almost always smoke because nearly all men did in the 1800’s; they love to gamble and they love their horses and their women.         Let’s face it. Women love brave, rugged men – men who are sometimes a bit of a challenge and need s little “taming.” Of course, you can’t totally “tame” a cowboy, but that’s okay, because he’s usually there when his woman needs him. The cowboy nature means a man who knows little fear and who will defend his woman to the death if necessary. You don’t abuse a cowboy’s woman and get away with it. Not in MY books! Nor do you abuse anyone else in his family! And my cowboys might actually be outlaws, but I always give them cause, a back-story that creates empathy for how they turned out – and I always find a way to “redeem” them in the end. Usually, the heroine has a hand in that.
       Recently a national news story featured a man who truly lives the “cowboy” life on a ranch. He rode his horse to a Walmart and heard a woman yelling that someone had just stolen her bike. True to his cowboy nature, this young man rode the culprit down on his horse and lassoed him, pulling him off the bike and tying him to a tree. He then called 911 and the police came and arrested him!
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COMING 26 NOVEMBER 2019! 
Excerpt #3:
     He just froze in place for a moment, staring at her.  "I ... didn't think ... you'd do it," he muttered.
     "You were wrong, Mister."  Kate stood there shaking as she watched the life go out of him.  Eyes wide, Buck finally slumped over in death.       Kate dropped her gun and grasped her stomach, looking at the man called Buck in disbelief.  She'd just killed him.  In that moment, she felt no better than Buck or Luke or any other outlaw in this country.  In her mind, she'd become one of them.
~     *     ~     *     ~     *     ~ 
Excerpt #4:
       They rode nearly two more hours before Luke could go no farther. He nearly fell off his horse, rather than making a normal dismount. As soon as his feet hit the ground, he went to his knees, realizing how right Kate had been when she'd told him to see a doctor as soon as they got back yesterday.
        "What's wrong?" Blaze asked.
        "It's this wound in my side from the shootout at the cabin," he answered, grasping his side.
        "Why, hell, Luke, you should have seen a doctor before we left," Big Jim said.
        "That's what Kate told me, but … I thought I'd be okay," Luke answered.
        Blaze spread out some blankets. "You just lay down here, Luke. We'll make the fire and something to eat and we'll get you back to lander right away come sunup."
        "Thanks." Luke thought how odd things were here in outlaw country. Blaze was a smart-ass kid looking to get himself killed some day in a gunfight. And Big Jim was an uneducated, unwashed, rather simple-minded man who probably didn't care much about another man other than someone to talk to incessantly. Yet right now they both seemed to really care what happened to him. Still, they'd probably rob him blind if he died out here.
        He fell asleep. Or did he pass out? He only knew that when he woke up before dawn, he couldn't move - not even a finger. ~     *     ~     *     ~     *     ~ 
From my advance readers:

"Rosanne Bittner is a master at creating lasting storylines, picturesque sceneries, and heroic couples who envelope her reader’s heart and soul, forever." -- Tonya Lucas 

"Rosanne Bittner has done it again and in breathtakingly beautiful Rosanne Bittner style. I could not put this book down until I finished it." -- Glenda Kinard

"Rosanne Bittner has written yet another epic novel about the wild untamed west. This book will grab your attention in the first few pages and keep you needing to know more." -- Stephanie Jenkins Ortiz-Cerrillo 
"This story quickly became one of my top favorite Rosanne Bittner tales, with the emotional impact, epic story-telling, and the charm of an captivating love story. . . .  I felt transported back in time and became lost in a different reality. I took my time reading this book just because I wanted to soak up every moment spent with Luke and Kate and . . . when it was over, after I took a few moments to soak it all in, I jumped back in to reread favorite parts. . . I can't wait to revisit them again and again!" -- Michelle Reed  

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      Lately I’ve been complaining about being bogged down with a plethora of “things to do” that involve promoting two new books. I’ve been trying to get started on the third book of my new “Men of the Outlaw Trail” series (THE LAWLESS LAND) but haven’t been able to type one word of it.              I just sent in the second book (RETURN OF A WANTED MAN ), while at the same time I’m working on ads and book signings and library appearances and answering questions from bloggers and planning give-away contests for the first book that’s coming in November (RIDE THE HIGH LONESOME). On top of that, I’ve also been promoting (and doing all the things above) for my Christmas story that was just published the end of September in an anthology called LONGING FOR A COWBOY CHRISTMAS – a collection of six Christmas stories, each by a Sourcebooks author.         Add to that – I received Amazon’s proofs for my reissues of TEXAS EMBRACE and TEXAS PASSIONS, coming mid-October and mid-November! Is it any wonder that sometimes I get confused about which book I’m talking about at the moment? I just apologized to my publisher for not being more prompt in sending info. they needed to do their own promotion of RIDE THE HIGH LONESOME – then I realized they got that info months ago! I was thinking of RETURN OF A WANTED MAN , but I already sent them that info, so I’m not behind at all!        Oh, and I just recently completed designing new bookmarks and post cards and flyers and a big stand-up sign for RIDE THE HIGH LONESOME through Vista Print. And today I had to run to DQ and pick up an ice cream cake for my 17-year-old grandson. And for the last two weeks I’ve been trimming things in my garden and putting away patio furniture and the like in preparation for the coming Michigan winter.        I check my calendar every day to make sure I don’t forget about a signing or something and not show up! It’s been crazy, but I stopped just now to remind myself that these are GOOD problems, and in a sense, none of this is a problem at all. It means I’m still writing and still have fans out there who want more books from me. And getting ready for winter means I’m still alive and kicking and made it through another summer season and can look forward to a beautiful (yes – beautiful) Michigan winter. My garden will lie silent and waiting for spring, I’ll get a break from working hard outside, and winter means more time to write and also means hubby and I will get to take a trip to Nevada again.        Sometimes we just have to remember that a glass half empty is also a glass half full. If I didn’t have all this promotional work to do, it would mean I am no longer selling (or writing) new books. I can’t think of anything worse than not being wanted as a writer anymore, or worse than losing all my devoted and beloved readers. I have my days of feeling “worn out,” but it’s a good kind of weariness because it’s from producing something that entertains others and sometimes even helps them through a bad time. And the writing itself helps ME through bad times too, taking me away to another time and another place.        Writing moves in cycles. Writers sit alone in our little hideaways and write, write, write, then edit, edit, edit, then send in the book and start another one. Then the publisher proofreads and sends back the first one we sent in and we have to study the edits and do more editing and send that back in and get back to the new book we are working on. Then that first book gets published and we spend a LOT of time designing ads and bookmarks and going to signings and doing all the things that come with promotion, and after all the hoopla, we go back to our little hideaways and get back to writing that second book. Or maybe by then we’ve already sent in that second one and have started yet another story! We have all these characters dancing around in our heads, and sometimes we have to remind ourselves – when we give a talk or have a signing – which book and which characters are involved in that one event.        It’s draining, but it’s exciting and fulfilling. And it’s all a reminder that we are still selling books, thank God! And now that you are thoroughly confused, here are the books I’m talking about: *March – LOGAN’S LADY was published by Sourcebooks *July – Reissue of CHASE THE SUN WAS PUBLISHED by Amazon *September – LONGING FOR A COWBOY CHRISTMAS was published by Sourcebook *Mid-October – Reissue of TEXAS EMBRACE will be published by Amazon *Mid-November – Reissue of TEXAS PASSIONS will be published by Amazon *November 26 – My next big single title – RIDE THE HIGH LONESOME will be published by Sourcebooks (1st story for my “Men of the Outlaw Trail” series) *In 2020 the second “Men of the Outlaw Trail” book, RETURN OF A WANTED MAN , will be published. It’s already written and submitted. *Also in 2020 – Reissues of ARIZONA BRIDE and ARIZONA ECSTASY will be published by Amazon. And in 2020 I’ll be writing that third Outlaw Trail book, THE LAWLESS LAND. Or I just might finish that one by the end of this year!         Lots more to come! A GOOD PROBLEM for me! PS -- Just  a reminder, from October 15 - 24, this super-fun  blog tour to promote LONGING FOR A CHRISTMAS COWBOY -- with bios, book reviews, excerpts, and some really great give-aways!   
Stops on the tour will include:
Oct 15: Book Trailer at CarpeDiem Chronicles 
Oct 15: BONUS STOP at Hall WaysBlog 
Oct 16: Review by Book Fidelity
Oct 17: Author Spotlight at That's WhatShe's Reading 
Oct 18: Review at Chapter Break Book Blog 
Oct. 19: Author Spotlight at All The UpsAnd Downs 
Oct 20: Author Spotlight at StoreyBook Reviews 
Oct 21: Review at Reading by Moonlight 
Oct 22: Author Spotlight atThe Page Unbound 
Oct 23: Review at Missus Gonzo 
Oct 24: Review at Forgotten Winds

     For more information, including direct links to each day's blog entries, please visitLone Star Literary Life's LONGING FOR A CHRISTMASCOWBOY Blog Tour page!