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.

                      

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.

Pen-sive: Using the Right Nib.

It’s so easy to get stuck in paradigms with historical research.  Before I needed to put a pen into a historical character’s hand, I thought there was only one type of old-time writing utensil…the carefully nibbed quill. I don’t know what I thought happened in between the quill pen and the clickable Bic, but when Miss Sternum (Rescue in Poverty Gulch) needed to pull a writing utensil from her purse at an important moment in the story, it gave me an ink-stained pause.

Like all technology, things undergo a gradual and sometimes a not so gradual change.  When I think about pens during my lifetime, I recall the fat ballpoints we were finally allowed to use when I reached junior high school.  And these were much different that the fine tipped Sharpies or gel pens in use today.  

Not my dad. High school boyfriend?

I also remember when pocket protectors were an everyday part of a business man’s wardrobe, not just the nerds, but people who went to work every day wearing a suit, like my dad. Even when he wore a sports shirt, the pocket protector was in place and a pen handy. Then, if you consider all the different styles and brands of pens, the variety is immense. 

 

The ball point pen itself was a huge leap forward, relying on a ball bearing at the tip of the ink tube to keep the ink from spilling out.  It’s the pressure on the ball, which releases the ink to flow out in what everyone hopes will be a smooth, even flow.  No blotters or blotting paper needed after the ballpoint replaced metal nibs for writing.  Ballpoint pens came into common use in the 1950’s and are still in use today.  (Gel  pens use a type of roller tip,too, but the consistency of the ink (the gel) is what makes the difference in how they write.)

The invention of the metal nib advanced pen technology.

So what came in between dipping and rolling?  I discovered it was the fountain pen which uses a nib, but also has a self-contained reservoir...no ink bottle needed. It worked on the science of capillary attraction to make work. And in case you've forgotten that science lesson, it is what allows liquid to flow into a narrow space...the little slit in the metal point.

1855

1890

1911

So to back up a little, there were quill pens, then the invention of metal nibs used for dipping, and from there the fountain pen which was portable and carried around its own ink in a metal tube.

The fountain pen, which was not very reliable to begin with, evolved to the point (no pun intended) where a person could be relatively certain it could be used  without ending up with a pool of black liquid in a purse,  a pocket, or on the paper being used. 

In the 19^th century, people were often judged by the quality of their penmanship,  but it makes me wonder if it became such a respected talent because of the skill it took to produce a piece of writing that was not blurred, blotted, blobbed or blackened.

Ink blotter

Judging by how often I use the delete key on the computer, I would have been hard pressed to produce an error-free letter.  I still remember writing my first published book on a typewriter (before White-out).  I’d use the little correction papers, stick them between the typewriter ribbon and keys to cover the mistake, retype so the mistake looked white and blended with the paper (sort of), and re-type again with the correction paper removed, and if I did this step correctly, I could move on.

(My typewriter was actually a little newer. than this one.)

And now, ahhhh, the computer keyboard.   Who could have imagined?

In the end, Miss Sternum did pull a fountain pen out of her purse (1896) and the important paper was signed without any pooled ink.  Or maybe I neglected to include that detail in the story.

In this case, it wasn't the most important thing. But it certainly was important that she didn't have to pull out her ink bottle and quill, uncork the bottle, dip the pen in and hand it over while the "bad" guy waited.
  

My final thought: be pen-sive and use the right nib. It may not be necessary to know the exact brand or design used, but an error in vintage will require a quantity of blotting paper to cover it up.  

Egyptian Reed Pens from 4th Century Egypt

If it's Bland, put it in the Blender

A writer friend who is attempting her first historical fiction novel recently asked what to do with bland writing. I was hard pressed to answer because it’s something I recognize when I see it and feel it when I write it (stomach flutters and discontent).  She’s undertaking a very difficult thing:  creating fiction from a factual account.  When I first tackled the genre of historical fiction, it was hard for me to deviate from the “real” events which were so gripping in themselves, and shape them into a living, breathing narrative. It took some searching for the story in the material especially when I wanted to remain loyal to, and maintain the integrity of, the actual events.  

Not all historical fiction books do this or need to do this, but it’s different if you set out to tell a real story and fictionalize it than if you set out with a fictional story set in a specific historic time and place.  Both require accuracy of details, but I think fictionalizing fact is much harder than adding accurate historic detail to a story that deviates from a set timeline.

And believe me, I've been there.  A memorable example was during my first draft of Nothing Here But Stones when I suffered through the first 2/3 of the draft (bland bland bland) before stumbling on the suggestion of changing my tense from third person to first.  For this book, it was Key.  I scrapped the whole draft and started over in first person. This one “simple”(?) change provided an immediacy for the story that had been sorely lacking.  It also helped me to form a more personal relationship with the viewpoint character and helped me through the multiple revisions to come.

After sharing this story with my friend, I still wasn’t sure if I’d given her anything to grab onto. What is the fix?   As I was thinking this over, I was reminded of my work teaching fifth graders.  In the classroom, I was constantly trying to find ways to make the abstract concrete.  Each piece of writing varied, so there wasn't just one fix; there were many possibilities. But thinking about blandness, especially for fictional stories, two strategies popped into my mind: Snapshots and Thoughtshots.  

These terms were stolen from Barry Lane in his wonderful teacher resource on Revision, After the End.  If you’re a teacher, this book is chock-full of revision ideas.  

                                        

The “Snapshot” concept is pretty simple to get across to students:  Imagine you’re inside a photograph (or a movie).  What are the visual, concrete, physical things in the picture?  For kids, you explain this as the setting or where the characters are at the moment.  It’s basic description as we know it.

Thoughtshots are a little harder to explain because to use them requires a deeper leap into character. When you’re writing, it takes a pause and sometimes a full stop to analyze what is going on internally. What is my character thinking right now?  What is affecting him/her at an emotional level?  What does the character wish for that he/she does not have? How is what's going on right now affecting him/her?

Try the cat on the right:  "That guy next to me is on such an ego trip."

Thoughtshots require a different type of imagining:  imagining your way into someone else’s mind.  In this case the character(s) in your story.

With this said, it’s the balance between Snapshots and Thoughshots that’s important.  Setting and description are important for engaging the reader in the details needed to bring the story to life.  But spending too much time standing at the photographic overlook can detour a reader away from the main purpose of the expedition.

Readers want to fully experience the trip.   And the way they experience it is through the hearts and souls of the characters on the page--most often through the one viewpoint character you want them to care about the most.  

One way to make the journey more enjoyable is to blend and balance the outer world with the inner.Too much of either one will put readers to sleep, or start them dialing the telephone number for character psychiatric care.

At the end of their travels, a reader should be able to do more than give a list of motels and restaurants.   Readers want the full experience—one that will linger and resonate on an emotional level long after they've reached their destination.