Heap Bueno Papoose

There’s nothing better than finding a treasure.  While cleaning out an old house on our ranch gold surfaced.  It was the book: “Southern Colorado, Historical and descriptive of Fremont and Custer Counties with their principal towns.  Canon City, and other towns, Fremont County Rosita, Silber Cliff, ULA and wet mountain valley, Custer County. With a description of the IMMENSE (caps mine) Mineral Regions of Fremont and Custer Counties.”

ILLUSTRATED!  (Exclamation point, mine.) Whew.  I’m not sure where the title stops and the subtitle(s) begin.  It was published in Canon City in 1879 by Binckley and Hartwell.

Definitely a treasure.

I’ve been perusing this book and have found a few familiar stories, like one about the bloody Espinosas and their demise and also an account of the first discovery of dinosaur bones in Fremont county which they called Bones of the Monsters.

Bones of the Monsters show on the right.

There was also history about the founders of  Canon City, how the town got its name, and sections on thieves and train robbers.












However, it was the section labeled, “Reminiscences, Anecdotes, etc.” that caught my eye.  As I was skimming and scanning, one entry brought me to a full stop.  It was titled, “Heap Bueno Papoose!” (exclamation point NOT mine.)

This half a page story told about a group of peaceable Sioux on their way to get their annuities who stopped at a camp of travelers west of Fort Kearney.  One of the members of the party was Mrs. Thos. Macon, the wife of one of Canon City’s founders.  After the Indians had milled through the camp, made trades, and finally departed, Mrs. Macon discovered her baby missing. She immediately set out, at the front of a search party and they caught up with the Sioux about a mile down the trail.  Not wasting any time, Mrs. Macon found the Sioux woman who was hiding the boy under a blanket.  Mrs. Macon took her child back, and according to the story, the only explanation given by the Sioux about the kidnapping was, “Heap Bueno Papoose.”

This is exactly why this book was such a treasure.  Fiction writers love this kind of gold.  A whole imaginary story unfolded—possibly an entire book.  And my author's mind shouted, “What if?!” What if the Sioux woman hadn’t given the child up?  What if the settlers had gone to the Sioux camp and not been able to find the baby?  What if the Sioux had already traded the baby along the trail?

The most fascinating thing of all was the Sioux’s explanation for the kidnapping: “Heap Bueno Papoose”—the mix of Spanish, Anglo, and the word “Heap” that in my own experience comes from Tonto and the Lone Ranger. (Heap big trouble coming, chief.)  Somewhere before the Lone Ranger, this word was actually used on the Plains…before 1879 to be exact.

This is why I love writing historical fiction.  The gold is in the details of real people who lived real lives somewhere back in time. 

Bodacious Book Covers

The cover of a book is like a handshake with the reader and makes a lasting first impression. Too limp and lifeless, it's ignored, and if it's painfully strong--ouch!  In other words, the cover speaks volumes before the first word is read. The title and artwork combine and create an invitation to read.

Preliminary Sketches before the title was finalized.

My experience with titles is mixed.  While I’m drafting, I use a

 working title which, so far, has never been used on the final cover.

And for nearly every project, I have long lists of possible titles

 that for one reason or another don’t measure up.  

 I loved Sketch number 5, but because it didn't represent the story as well as others, we decided against it.  

Sometimes I come up with the final title, and sometimes it's a collaboration. But often the publisher comes up with a title that fits perfectly.  The title for my new book is an example of this. I had a couple of working titles that were OK, but  when Doris Baker, of Filter Press suggested Trouble Returns for the third Ruby and Maude Adventure, I didn't hesitate to agree. 

There is a lot more suffering surrounding the choice of cover art.  I suspect Doris Baker and the artist, Jamie Stroud, are sorry they ever asked my opinion! I try hard to make mind pictures for my readers when I write, but no one visualizes the characters and setting the same way as I do.

I understand this, but I'm still like a spoiled child when it comes to the cover illustration.  I want the cover characters to look exactly the way they are in my mind.  "After all, they ARE my characters!”  I spend more time with them than I do my best friends and lay claim to the mental images created from hours of  historical research, time spent sifting through historical photos, newspaper archives, museum visits, and travel for the purpose of depicting the story as accurately as possible.

When I first see the cover sketches, I agonize over every detail and wish for an artist clone who can mind meld with me and reproduce the contents of my brain. In the end, I'm thankful no clone exists. Recently, I shared the above image for Trouble Returns with a friend, and she blurted, “I love it!”

And that has been my experience with the many readers who comment on the covers for my books and give them high praise.  The cover artists have done wonderful work. From Cathy Morrison, http://cathymorrison.blogspot.com/  cover illustrator for the book Hard Face Moon...

...to my Cousin Shannon Chandler https://www.facebook.com/scchandl/about who illustrated the cover for Insects in the Infield.

And most recently Jamie Stroud  http://jamiestroud.com/children.html  the artist for Trouble Returns and all the other Ruby and Maude Adventure covers.  Thank you, Jamie, for letting me share your thumbnail sketches, and for your vision and artwork on behalf of Ruby and Maude.

                      

Survivor

Yesterday marked the two week anniversary of the Hayden Pass Fire.  This fire was the second one for us in the past 5 years.  In 2011, the Duckett Fire raged up the Sangre de Cristos from the south.  I could write a thesis on how we delayed moving our herd of goats down the mountains until we saw flames moving towards their mountain pasture, and how at dawn, with the help of neighbors, we tossed the kids in a trailer one by one, to transport them to safety, but that’s a story for a different day.

Duckett Fire in June of 2011

During both fires, we stayed put as our house is surrounded by open space--sub-irrigated meadows to the east, and plenty of grassland between us and the upper end of our family ranch which shares a fence with the National Forest as well as BLM acreage. 

Up near the forest, we have a rustic two room cabin. It’s not valuable in itself, but has a memorable history.  First, it used to be the bedroom of our old house, but long before that, sometime in the early 1900's, it was moved from the site of the 1882-1884 Cotopaxi Jewish Colony and spliced on to existing house to add more rooms. We lived in that house until about 1994 then dismantled it, board by board.  All except for the bedroom section that we hauled back up the forest to use as a hunter’s cabin.

Hayden Pass Fire July 2016

During the Duckett Fire, a hot shot fire team miraculously saved the cabin. I can throw a stone from the burned trees to the small clearing where the cabin sits, and  I am still amazed at how the fire crew managed to protect this structure amidst strong winds and shooting flames.  

The Hayden Pass Fires was no less intense. The fire roared in from the northwest thundering down valleys and over ridges until it crossed through the same area as  the Duckett Fire. This time all our livestock was down on the meadows surrounding our house. But looking west at the mountainside covered in smoke and flames, I held out little hope for the cabin being saved a second time.  I mourned its loss, not for the monetary value, but for the loss of a piece of history.

Recent photo taken after the Hayden Pass Fire

Along with the other fire personnel traveling through our yard to access the forest, crews came through for the specific purpose of checking on spot fires in the vicinity of the cabin. We were told the cabin was still standing.

Finally we were able to drive up to take a look, While the first fire had burned within 50 feet of the cabin to the south, the second fire had burned within shouting distance of the cabin to the west.

Cabin seen through the standing dead trees of the Duckett Fire

Chimney and hearth from original house

Seeing the cabin was like greeting a long lost friend. I’m grateful this piece of history survived, and more than grateful for the firefighter’s skill and fearlessness in protecting this humble building.



Cotopaxi Jewish Colony

More about the Cotopaxi Jewish Colony, click on the above link, visit http://cotopaxi-colony.com/ 

or visit the Cotopaxi Colony FB page.

Mail Delivery Babies

The recent FB photo showing the cute "babies" poking their heads out of mail bags peaked my interest to learn more about this piece of mail delivery history.  A quick Google search led me to the following US Government info site: http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/consumerawareness/fl/When-it-was-Legal-to-Mail-a-Baby.htm


Sure enough, it happened in 1913, the same year the US Post Office began delivering packages. In 1914 Postal regulations changed to prohibit the mail delivery of humans, but the practice didn’t stop completely until 1915.

The first boy to be delivered by mail went only a mile to his grandmother’s house.  It cost 15 cents, but he was insured for $50.  Other children reportedly went for a dime up to 53 cents. One six year old girl traveled by mail train and reports show she was just under the 50 pound limit. The 721 mile trip from Florida to Virginia cost 15 cents.

Usually the child mail deliveries were made by a trusted family friend and there were regulations created for this “special delivery” service.  According to the US Gov site, there were “no heartbreaking cases of a baby being stamped “Return to Sender” on record.”

When I first saw these photos, my historical fiction writing mind leapt into high gear imagining what stories could be told from the child or parent’s point of view.  And “what if” question made for both intrigue and drama. What if the baby were delivered to the wrong place?  What if no one were there to receive the parcel?

Then my “mom” persona kicked in with thoughts about trust and safety. One FB friend pointed out that we have our own version of sending children today when we turn them over to airline companies for long flights across the country. We wouldn’t do that unless we had faith that they would arrive at their destinations safely, would we?

Still, a baby looking innocently out from a mail carrier’s bag pulls on the heart strings in a different way.  It opens up a vast number of questions about the history of the times and the life style of the people.  Most of the child deliveries were rural and the distance of travel less than 50 miles. Fifty miles was a lot farther in 1913 than it is today. In a mail bag, that might have been an eternity for a small child. 

However, it might also be that in those days a willingness to trust others was more prevalent. Today newscasts and other media fuel our fears and eclipse our faith in the good will of others.

The landscape and life-style of the past are gone, but we can incorporate lessons of simplicity into our daily lives. Mail bag or jet, we continue to be human. We can choose trust over fear and faith over skepticism. And we still need to rely on others.  

For the complete story about this unique piece of history read “Very Special Deliveries” by Nancy Pope, Historian and Curator of the Smithsonian National Postal Museum

http://usgovinfo.about.com/gi/o.htm?zi=1/XJ&zTi=1&sdn=usgovinfo&cdn=newsissues&tm=440&f=00&su=p284.13.342.ip_&tt=65&bt=5&bts=5&zu=http%3A//postalmuseumblog.si.edu/2013/02/very-special-deliveries.html

a

This Little Piggy Went to Market

I’m a little embarrassed that I haven’t written a blog since just after Insects in the Infield came out.  A good deal of it has been procrastinating; some of it has been spent doing edits for a new book; then there was the Christmas holidays...  But since it’s now past Valentines Day, that’s not going to work for an excuse. In my defense, a good share of time has been spent marketing--fattening the pig, so to speak.

I’m not sure if this makes me hungry or tired.  But like many writers, trying to break the marketing code is a constant, never-ending task. 

Many of the marketing "to dos" are standard.  A typical list would look a little like this:  Social Media blurbs, ordering or creating book marks or postcards, getting information to the local newspapers, line up book signings…

For my traditionally published books, I had help, but this self-published pig squealed for more. I needed to work harder for exposure and to get the word out.

A big question for me was who does reviews for independently published books? I spent one full day (at least) combing the internet for review sites.  There are plenty out there, but I was specifically interested in children’s book reviewers--a niche of its own.  Most reviewers I contacted required an email request.  Some of them asked for a synopsis, ISBN, cover photo, or other specific information, but it varied, so it took time to customize each email. 

Out of my "queries"  I received two positive responses.  One reviewer from Long and Short Reviews did a lovely post on the site with permission for me to clip and re-post.  Here’s the link:

http://www.longandshortreviews.com/book-reviews/insects-in-the-infield-by-nancy-oswald/

This may not seem like a great result for hours spent on an internet search, but I was thrilled.  Not only was it a good review, but I mined a great line from the review:  “Insects in the Infield is Animal Planet meets ESPN.” A phrase I’ve repeated often and used as a pitch. It definitely fattened the pig.

Next I spent some time thinking about niche markets for my book.  Both baseball and nature came to mind. After an internet search for nature-related museums in Colorado, I phoned and/or sent emails to the gift shop managers.  Butterfly Pavilion in Denver-- http://www.butterflies.org/?gclid=CJjAk6P9ybwCFQsSMwod7w4A1g --said they’d buy.  This was a small step for an insect, and a giant leap for a pig. Although the payment I will receive via this market is small, the opportunity to get the book in front of hundreds of museum visitors is priceless. 

Last but not least, I stepped out of my comfort zone and did a book launch at a local community center.  The fun this event provided far out-weighed the angst of organizing and setting it up.  It was wonderful to see friends and community members, share cake, punch and conversations.  AND it served as a healthy reminder that while reaching out for reviews, markets, and exposure in the world at large, the love and support from those close to home cannot be replaced or appreciated more.  

I'm sure I haven't exhausted all the marketing possibilities that exist, but I'm not the pig that "had none" and so far I haven't started crying.     

Eating Stale Bread

If you heard a long and loud primal scream last Tuesday at about 5 PM, it was me opening to the first chapter of the hard copy Proof for my Create Space book. Two errors on the first page.  No, not huge, not life-threatening, but there they were.  Capital letters on the word math.  Twice!  Aaaaaaaaaaaaah!

I do know my grammar rules. (Mostly.)  And I'd given due diligence to choosing my two last minute cold readers, and I had total faith that my manuscript was error-free when I pushed submit.  But there they were, two errors on the first page.  And I knew better because I'd already changed a few "Math" to "math" in other parts of the manuscript. I thought I had them all corrected. 

 

I proceeded to whine.  Is it that bad?  Wouldn't they just be overlooked by a "normal" reader? (Apparently they had been.) Aren't a few mistakes OK?  Itsy bitsy ones????

 

Even though I was anxious to get this project done, my gut told me the answer.  Nope.  No way.

 

Would I have considered leaving the upper case "M's" if they'd been buried in the manuscript?  After all, the reader would be so "rapt" up in the story by then, they wouldn't care if it was a Math book or a math book, right?

 

Maybe it's like leaving the restroom with your skirt flipped up and tucked into the top of your panty hose.  Everything's OK, la la la, until you notice.  And once you notice, there is no reversing the embarrassment--even if you somehow managed to get the skirt flipped down before anyone saw it.

 

Up until I jumped into this self-publishing project, I've made it a policy never to read my books in their entirety once they're out in the world.  Probably for the same reason as what I just explained with this proof.  Some ugly error would rear up and bite me.  Also, by the time I've read a story, book, novel, poem over and over and over through all the early revisions and edits, it's like eating stale bread to read it again.

 

But after finding those two errors, I decided I'd better eat the stale bread one more time.  This was a proof, and changes could still be made. (for a fee)  I called Create Space the next morning.  (Have I mentioned how wonderfully responsive they have been on the phone?)  I asked about costs of changes, and for 1-10 small corrections, it was only $35.00.  Whew, I could afford that.  After all, it was half the price of an hour session with a psychiatrist. 

 

A deal.  And my husband was right when he said,"You'll feel better in the long run."

 

So the long run means, another seven day wait for Create Space to turn it back around to me.  Aggravating, but I'm still alive and breathing. 

 

And, once I wrapped my mind around the fact that stale bread was on the menu, I settled in to read the rest of the book one more time.

 

Here's what I found: a missed word, "the" and a repeated word: "a".  I also found two missing commas before the "and" in a compound sentence.  We can argue about this necessity, but I decided if I was fixing things, I put them in. I also found a quotation mark turned the wrong way, and a place in a quotation where I needed the punctuation inside the mark.  (It's the British and American thing that sometimes throws me because on some things the Brits make more sense.)

 

Oh, one more thing.  In the printed proof, there was a comma where a period should have been.  I checked my manuscript, and I had a period on my copy.  It was some kind of a printing fluke, I guess.  I made note of it when I sent the manuscript in for the umpteenth time and hoped for the best.

 

 The moral of this blog is, "Eat your stale bread." And if you happen to read the finished copy of this book and find any more errors, don't tell me about them.  Or humor me with a kind note that reads something like, "I think there was a little fluke in the printing."  I swear by the example above that it can happen.

The Pudding is in the Proof

I clicked the button.  Submit.  My hand was only a little shaky this time, and if I decide to do more self-published books with Create Space I might even get used to quivery feeling in the pit of my stomach before I click.



Book Cover by Shannon Chandler Gross. 
Ask if you'd like contact info.

 In my last blog, I mentioned that the next step after approving the mock-up was the Interior Proof stage.  This is when all the samples from the mock-up are put together into a complete book with lay-out, total page count, the way it will look when it's printed. You still have an opportunity to make changes at this point, but if they are changes that greatly affect the layout, then from this point on they cost extra.

I was ready for the final read of the proof. I did mine in chunks so that I was wide awake and didn't go too fast.  I caught a few mistakes that had been overlooked when I submitted my completed manuscript, but also couldn't resist making a few word choice changes.  When I did this, I kept them to a minimum and made sure they didn't add lines or change formatting.  If, letter for letter, I could make a replacement with a better word, I felt great. Or, as in one case, "great" became "swell."  Pretty silly change, but it fit better with the time period for the book.

It was actually a surprise how many little things cropped up, and it's a testimony to the concept of how a little stress can sometimes be good.  Stress and focus!  I probably mentioned earlier that I opted not to hire a professional editor, so this is where the hand started trembling over the submit button. (I'd only had coffee to drink.)

I decided, at this point, a couple of cold reads would not be a bad idea.  Yes, it slowed things down, but I figured it was worth it.  I asked my aunt Marlene, a retired librarian and avid reader, to read for me, and another friend who'd mentioned that she was good at picking out mistakes when she reads. 

True to her word, Jane found an comma after the word you're, but that was it. And my aunt made a couple of suggestions but didn't find anything that would stop a reader.  This is not to say that it's perfect.  My husband would say I've goofed up on a few of my comma rules, but on this, we agree to disagree.

Being queen of the project, I deemed the book finished and uploaded the revisions.  It would be seven more days before the changes would be incorporated.  Tick tock.

During this time I attended a writing conference, the Rocky Mountain Chapter of the SCBWI.  A friend of mine, Nancy Jurka, had her self-published poetry book with her, and we compared notes.  I watched her thumb through the book and talk about formatting.  I kept watching her open and close the book.  Blank page, title page, poems...  Blank page, title page, poems...

That blank page at the beginning started niggling at me.  Is that something I'd taken for granted would be added?  Did I need to give instructions for it?  The first page of my book started with the title page only.

What now?  I went home and started looking through my previously published books and other books in the house.  All of them had a blank page or a pre-title page before the "real" title page.  I sent a message to the design team at Create Space asking about adding the extra page at the front.  I also asked about what kind of a delay there would be, and was told that once I received the next proof, I would have to send it back again to have the blank page added. 

Groan...   Another seven day wait, and the next proof wouldn't arrive for a few more days.

I tried my hardest to convince myself the extra page wasn't needed and even went to a book store to peruse the shelves. Many of the books there started with just the title page. I tried to convince myself that it looked OK.  But the other books looked better.  The extra page at the front gave them a more professional look.

Ugh. 

To shorten this story, my husband and I returned from a short trip and there was a phone message from the Create Space design team.  One of the team members had seen my email message and asked if I wanted to have the blank page inserted at the beginning.  Yes!  Not only that, they added an image to the front of the blank page, dressing it up a little more.




For the next steps, the cover will be submitted, and they'll send me my first copy.  For sure any changes after this will be costly, but I'm not anticipating any. There are a few things I'd would do over from the start if I had the chance, but for now, I'm ready to go forward and see where this publishing adventure leads.  I've clicked the button and my hands have stopped shaking.

Putting the peas in a POD

I promised another post about my experiences with Create Space and why I made the decision to do more than a Kindle version of an out of print book. In my last blog, I mentioned getting started on the project and about some of the decisions that went into the re-writing.  It was the re-writing that prompted me to begin thinking about doing more than a Kindle Version. When this book was finished, it would not be the same book that was published years ago by Scholastic Canada when we lived up north. It had a whole new thread, and the story was thoroughly re-written. 

The second reason for deciding to do a POD hard copy had to do with the fact that I spend a certain amount of my "authoring" time sitting at events with my piles of books spread in front of me on a burgundy tablecloth with business cards and a little bowl of candy next to them. Why not have this book with me as well?  It would increase the odds, so to speak.  And I might as well be giving the readers another choice.

The final reason I opted for self-publishing was simple curiosity. The publishing world has changed vastly, and there are many over-the top successful "Independent" writers.  Some of them are publishing only electronically, some of them only in hard copies, or both.  For me, I wanted to see how the whole thing worked and to compare sales, marketing, and bottom line income. As they say in business, it's not what you make, it's what you keep. So after my up front expenses are met, will I need to buy pants with bigger pockets?

Those questions won't be answered for awhile. But here's where I'm at right now:

After starting in with Create Space with the intent of doing a Kindle Version, I began to read up on their other services for Print on Demand books. There were menus to choose from--everything from minimal to complete editing services, book cover designing, and interior design.  I opted for the Custom Interior Design only. My cousin, my husband, and I did the editing, and I feel like between us we covered all the bases.  (Appropriate for a baseball story.)

This is where my real learning curve started.  Create Space has a protocol for stepping through the process on their end.  I've probably taken three times longer than anyone else getting the hang of this.  Basically, they ask you to fill out some questionnaires, make a decision on cover size and download your word document.  After that, they do a mock-up and give you time to respond and give feedback.  You can take as long as you like with your feedback, but there is always a wait time of 5 to 10 days on their end until they can get back to you with their revisions.  

It took me three tries to get the mock-up to what I liked. Hindsight, being what it is, now that I know the kinds of things I can ask for, I could have had this done in only one or two steps, Some things we changed were: space between each line in the text, starting the chapter on contiguous pages, and number of lines per page....  

With that said, the design team did a wonderful job on the artistic elements and chapter heads. Warning: one thing the Create Space team DOES NOT do is read your book. I know, this is heartbreaking. But it means that being able to clearly communicate your vision is hugely important. The project is entirely in your hands.  This is both nerve-racking and exciting at the same time. The good thing is, when I made a suggestion, they listened! 

Also, the phone and email communication has been wonderful. I've used it frequently and always had timely responses. The phone support especially: real people and very little time on hold.  Amazing and refreshing.  

As I write this, I'm currently hovering over the heli-pad waiting to land. I've given my final approval on the mock-ups (they only do a few chapter on this at first) and will have a final proof to read in a couple of weeks.  At that point in time, I'll be able to make up to 200 free changes as long as they don't affect the page formatting.



Oh horrors.  I've been known to change the word "the" to "a" on a final line by line edit. Already I'm imagining myself making little tallies and agonizing over the two hundred and first change.  Is one comma worth the $199 charge?


I'll be sure to blog on the outcome.

Don't ask me why this is way down here, but this is a page from the mock-up.  You can see why it took me so long to figure out Create Space.  

 

 

 

If it doesn't fit, get a hammer

In today’s world of author branding and one liner sales pitches, I ran across a dilemma when I decided to make a Kindle version of an out of print book.  My problem wasn't the mechanics of getting a Kindle version because I have a cousin who works for a publishing company and knows all about getting books into electronic form.  She's also a wonderful artist.  Check.  She can even do the cover!

The difficulty is with branding.  All my recent books fit into a nice little package:  Nancy Oswald: "Writer of historical fiction for the young and young at heart…  All my recent books and the ones I am intending to write, for the time being anyway, fit into this genre.  So I’ve been struggling to decide what to do with a baseball story that involves a math-challenged base-ball-loving fifth grader and his science-geek sister who disrupts the harmony of the family by bringing home an insect collection.

The original publication date of this book was 1985, but I’d say the story setting is more of the late 70’s.  That’s pretty much historical to some folks, but to others it doesn’t seem that long ago.  Not that things haven’t changed.  My husband and I purchased our first computer with the royalties from this book. And now, several computers later, I get the jitters when I can’t check my email daily.  

But the big question is can I legitimately call this a work of historical fiction?

I think not.  Neither is it contemporary.  When I re-read it, the absence of cell phones, ipods, laptops and other modern paraphernalia dates the content.  It was set in small town Anyplace…in this case Canada where the book was first published by Scholastic.

So besides the “branding” issue, getting this book Kindle-ready has offered some other challenges and decisions. When I started on this project I thought, the book’s done, it’s in a publishable form, I own the rights, and without much more work it can be reissued on Kindle...

Wrong, wrong, wrong. 

First I needed a digital copy.  I had one, I was sure, because years ago I paid someone to retype it and get it on a disk. When I found that copy in a file on my computer, it came up as gibberish.  The good news is, I had started a revision of this book in 2004, and that copy was saved and  was only half gibberish—I could delete the sections that came up as numbers and symbols and go forward.

I re-formatted, deleted the extraneous data, and started in.  As I perused the first page my first thought was, “I don’t remember writing this.”   The revisions I’d started in on at some unknown time introduced the main character in an entirely different way.  

Yikes.  Unless I wanted to go back and re-type the original version myself or have an old copy scanned, it wasn’t going to be as simple as a read-through + cover art = Kindle version.

One of the things I realized quickly is that I am not the same writer today as I was all those years ago.  My style has changed, my characters have more depth, and of course there’s the genre problem.

What started out as a few simple changes became a battle with myself.  How much to leave, how much to change, what to do about the time and setting. Leave it?  Modernize the whole thing? Scrap it?  And that nasty little thread that I started at the beginning during the partial rewrite.  What should I do with it?

La la la.

In the end I decided to keep it—both the new thread and the original 70’s venue. This meant re-arranging and adding chapters, and A LOT of blending. Not the simple task I set out to accomplish. The book ended up with a complete face-lift.  And after I did all that, I thought why not do a POD issue while I was at it?  

Well, why not?

Stay tuned for adventures with Create Space…

Pedaling through History

One of the best things about writing historical fiction is finding facts and pearls of information. It's a little bit like peeling and onion. After one layer comes off, another layer appears. My need to know about bicycles of the past arose during the writing of Rescue in Poverty Gulch when one of the main characters, Miss Sternum, arrived in the scene pedaling down Bennett Avenue. What in the world did bicycles look like in 1896 anyway? Clueless. I imagined the big wheeler bike with the little tiny seat. Probably you'd need to be about six feet tall to get on one to ride and have a parachute for the dismount.

I also thought back to movie scenes like in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid when Butch or Sundance or one of them. (Robert Redford to be sure...) pedaled in circles to the tune of "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head”.  Now that was a two wheeler that looked familiar!  And, it turns out, that model of bicycle (with the two wheels more or less the same size) has been around since the 1870’s.  

This was good news for me and also Miss Sternum.  Even though she had on her classy bicycle “costume” with two puffy pantaloon-style legs that tapered to fit into her boots, she didn’t have to worry about falling from a great height.  It’s a good thing, or her first meeting with Ruby and her Pa might have resulted in more than broken glasses!

Spoon brake sits on top of front wheel with levers under handlebar.

It wasn't until recently that I needed to peel another layer from the onion. How did a bicycle stop in 1896? The photo to the left came from that research and the curved piece of metal, sitting atop the front tire, did the work. It’s called a spoon brake and worked from the lever near the front handlebars.

What difference does it make to a writer of historical fiction how a bicycle looks or stops? It makes all the difference in the world. What sound does a bicycle like that make when the bike is coming to a stop? Is it a whomp whomp as the break grabs the tire? A scraping sound, grinding, or would you likely hear the tire thumping, skidding, or sliding as it rolled to a stop?

Writers make word choice decisions every day, but with historical fiction, there’s a need to dig deeper. Specific and accurate historical details render the story believable and also help to immerse the reader in time period. This research is not always visible to the reader, but without it, the fictional ride could end up with a flat tire.

For a great article on the history of bicycles, read A Technical History of the Two-Wheeler by Erick Sampson in the Colorado Central Magazine the August 2012 edition.

The Next Big Thing

Today I’m hosting the Next Big Thing blog campaign. The Next Big Thing is an international campaign that began in Australia. Authors and illustrators of books for kids and young adults talk about their recently published books and/or those that are due to be released. Each author who has been nominated turns around and nominates a couple of other authors. We all answer the same questions about our work. It’s really just a great big game of “Tag, you’re it.” Today is my turn to answer The Next Big Thing’s standard questions about…well…the next big thing which for me is my current work-in-progress the sequel to “Rescue in Poverty Gulch”.  

Following me will be MG writer Elaine Pease and children’s book illustrator Cathy Morrison.  You can read a little more about them at the end of this blog.  Here goes:

What is the working title of your next book?

The working title for my book is “Trouble on the Tracks.”

Where did the idea come from for the book?

This book came to pass because at the end of Rescue in Poverty Gulch, I could not get my characters to leave Cripple Creek.  I tried twice, both on the first draft and the second.  Nope.  They wouldn't leave.  So I decided there was another book to be set in Cripple Creek with Ruby and her donkey, Maude.  The individual plot points unfolded more slowly, but Cripple Creek had two fires within a week’s time in April of 1896.  In actual fact, they had to let the prisoners out of jail to keep them from dying.  Jake Hawker, the fictional villain from Rescue in Poverty Gulch was among them

What genre does your book fall under?

MG Colorado-set historical fiction.

What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

Well Maude, I guess would be played by a talented, well trained donkey-double.  Perhaps she’d be played by my own donkey, Daisy, who likes attention so much she would love to be a movie star.  Ruby, I’m not sure.  I think she’d be played by one of the talented 5^th graders I taught before I retired from my teaching job.  I can think of a few that are both gregarious and talented with a tendency for trouble. And did I tell you there’s a cat in this book?  I think Gayle Gresham’s tiger gray would fit perfectly for this part.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Trouble for Ruby and Maude when Jake Hawker, infamous donkey kidnapper and thief escapes from jail during the second Cripple Creek fire of 1896; it turns out Hawker is more than just a donkey-napper, and Ruby, Maude and the cat play a part in re-capturing him.

Who is publishing your book?

I hope it will be FilterPressBooks  of Palmer Lake Colorado who I have worked with on my last two books and also the paperback version of a third book. 

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

Hard to answer this one since the book was started when I was teaching full time.  Typically, the first draft is the hardest and takes the longest.  On the revisions, each draft gets a little quicker, but I have yet to sit down and write a draft with uninterrupted time, so it’s very hard to measure. My best guess is 4-5 months steady at it.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

Maybe Anne of Green Gables with a donkey?  It’s such a hard question to answer because there are so many great children’s books out there and I do not stick to just one genre of reading.  I think, piece by piece, there are lots of characters I might compare Ruby to, but not to books as a whole.  For instance, I love the YA author Richard Peck and the way he weaves both wholesomeness, history, and humor into his stories, but I can’t say that this book compares to any of his exactly because every writer is unique.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

With this book, it was the sheer joy of “playing” with dynamic between Ruby and her donkey.  The fact that it is a sequel minimized some of the up-front work on characterization and setting, so I could just jump right in and see what kind of trouble they would get themselves into this time around.

What else about the book might pique the reader’s interest?

I think it’s the cat named Trouble. In the first book, Maude held her own as the darling donkey in residence, and she hasn't disappointed in this book.  But Trouble adds a few new plot twists and “what if” possibilities from a writer’s standpoint, at least.  Other new characters appear, also, and old characters, including Miss Sternum and Mr. Penn offer a few surprises. Pa’s continued quest to find Ruby a “ma” remains constant…much to Ruby’s dismay.
 

Next up on The Next Big Thing:

Elaine Pease- June 6

http://peasepodbooks.wordpress.com

Children's MG and picture book author. Elaine also loves to inspire children by making appearances at bookstores and schools to show and tell how she writes and illustrates her books.

Cathy Morrison- June 13
http://cathymorrison.blogspot.com/

Cathy Morisson is a talented illustrator specializing in the juvenile market - picture books, educational publishing, magazines, games and puzzles.  She is fun and whimsical but also enjoys historical fiction.