Inspiration

image one I purchased from Cutcaster

When it comes to the books I've written, the ones I love to read, I am a romantic of the old fashioned sort. Sure sex is fine in them, but it's never the main thing. It's that emotional tugging at the heart and it's the energy that I want to take away from a good read. When I write, I look for the same feelings. My ideas often come from something I've seen or heard.

One of my early stories was about the world of rodeo, 'Luck of the Draw.' Really the luck of the draw is about life as well as the way these cowboys get their rides. I wrote it when I was the age of the heroine; and although I'd been to a lot of rodeos, I can't say I ever knew a rodeo rider that well. I got my inspiration from books, things I'd seen, and imagination as I thought about what would it be like to fall in love with one of these men.

The other day I came across a video which was created for a song about a rodeo man. It pretty well says it all about what it means to be on that circuit, to regularly pit your skills against an animal that isn't interested in making you look good. The song is very romantic. To me, so is the video.

And if rodeo is of interest to you, give the video I created a try also:

Using theme music

When I need emotion in a certain section I am writing and don't feel enough of within me at the time, I use music to stir it up. Generally speaking, that will be soundtracks as words get in the way. I think a  person could use any sort of soundtrack that fit the emotion they needed. For me, I want the energy from the great westerns which can provide the feel of heroics, action, sacrifice, danger, and love.

Yes, most of my contemporary romances are not strictly speaking westerns except for Desert Inferno, From Here to There, Luck of the Draw, and A Montana Christmas, but here's the secret-- the rest are too. They are all westerns whether that western hero is a high school principal, a mechanic, or he's out riding the range. Westerns are about good versus evil. They are about someone standing up for what is right. They encompass a certain feeling, and it can be in any book-- or for that matter film. 

Yesterday, at least partly to avoid hearing complaining sheep, I chose to listen to soundtracks to Red River and Rio Grande. The latter will be particularly useful when I write the book about the cavalry in the John Day country. Yes, I need to research the actual life men lived in the military of that time-- but let's face it some of what we expect in our books is because of books we've already read and the films we've seen-- which are partly realistic and partly what we want to think.

Anyway my suggestions if you like western soundtracks (for writing to or just listening), is look for them from western films you might've enjoyed. Tombstone starring Kurt Russell as Wyatt Earp has a great soundtrack as does Legend of the Fall. Likewise, Open Range, Monte Walsh/Crossfire Trail, Dances with Wolves, and any collection taken from the tons of great westerns they used to make. 

Amazon is a good source because they carry what stores wouldn't and western soundtracks are probably offbeat interests. I also like buying something like the opening theme from films like Picnic and Long Hot Summer (that one has lyrics) which are available for $.99.

When I use something like the entry theme to The Big Country or How the West was Won, it makes me feel my characters are striding through life and conquoring mountains (which frankly sometimes love also requires).

These themes are uplifting, and that's what I aim for with my books. Life has enough tragedy and terrible things happening. When I write or read, I don't want sadness or evil people succeeding. I want the good guy to win and love to triumph. Music can give a writer that or whatever other emotion they need for where they are in the story.

Music like from the one below does something else-- it puts me in a great mood ;)

Oregon Trail 1852

 image photoshopped from my photos, one taken at the 

Oregon Trail Museum in Baker City, Oregon

Before I began working on the manuscript based on Oregon after the Civil War, I had to do two things. One was look again at my earlier research, the other was read and that means edit again the two stories that came before it. This was important as a way to remind myself about these characters and keep the family real as the third story has a heroine who was daughter and sister in the other two.

The first of these books is based on the Oregon Trail in 1852. Even then, not all pioneers chose to travel with big trains. Some, for economic reasons, went by in small groups or by themselves-- the most likely ones to get attacked by Plains tribes. This story is, however, about one of the big wagon trains with a wagon master, scout and two hired men.

When I read it, for the purpose of keeping my ducks in a row for the third book, I felt fine with it. Like yeah, it works. When I finished the third, I began to rethink the first. Often frankly a writer's first romance isn't worth reading. They throw everything into it and when they finally have the ability to bring it out, a reader knows why it hadn't been accepted originally by publishing houses. Some of this can be true with books you never submitted anywhere and are bringing out on your own as an ePub.

My first story, because it's part of a series presents an additional problem. It's not just that it's difficult to make it as good as what I am currently writing, but that book absolutely has to be there. It is the opening to a series that requires the first even though any of them can be read independently. 

My concern was, that unless i got into it very critically, the first one could lose potential readers for the rest. The more i thought about it, the more I knew I had to go back and brutally slash some of my favorite scenes. It was just too long.

The thing with this first book is that I began it when I was younger than the heroine who is 18. It arose out of something a younger cousin and i used to do at family gatherings where we would go for walks and tell stories. We'd take our characters through a series of events taking turns describing what happened next. Matt and Amy came from those walks.

Some years went by; and when I'd have been a little older than my heroine, I began to type the story on an old, black, hit-those-keys-hard typewriter. That manuscript was rewritten more than a few times and was the one I later worked over with a consulting writer where I would send her sections in the mail and get back red-lined critiques, chewed up as badly as a school assignment. From a professional, that kind of help is costly but so valuable as she taught me things that have gone with me through every manuscript since.

It is the story of the trip west but also of two families of very different natures, of youth, innocence, thwarted passions, and love. The youthfulness of the main characters frankly made it difficult for me now that I am nearly 70 and looking at these characters from the perspective not of a girl but of an old woman. 

Although it's about young people, it's not a young adult romance, but it has the angst and desire that the young especially experience where everything is more than it might seem later based on hormones and inexperience. There is an innocence in the story which I think is part of that westward movement but also complicated getting it to fit into line with the next books.

When I originally wrote it, I did a lot of research on the trip west. When you do that, it's tempting to put it all out but that interferes with the story. There are moments I particularly have liked, but they had to go. I am thinking some might be kept as vignettes for the blog and a way to inspire interest in the journey. The vignettes though don't belong in the book. As I took out about 8000 words, I think I pared it down to what actually does... I hope.

old photo from the Oregon Trail Museum, Baker City, Oregon