Roping the Spoken Word

by Richard Prosch

Recently, a friend of mine who drives a truck for a living asked if my stories were available in audio. Not only did I tell him no, but I had to admit I'd never really given audio books much thought.

As a kid, before falling asleep, I listened to old time radio shows. Gunsmoke, Escape, and Have Gun, Will Travel were my favorites, but I never made the move to audio books.

A quick search at Amazon revealed what I'd been missing. The wide variety of western titles and authors was encouraging, but when I started to plan my own foray into audio, enthusiasm turned to worry.

How much time would it take? How much would it cost? How best to proceed.

I have a friend who works as a voice professional for radio. Friend or not, his style had to fit the bill.

Unlike radio shows, so much has to be conveyed by one voice, the job can be tricky. With westerns, the tenor immediately sets the tone. Close your eyes and imagine the voices. Gabby Hayes or Clint Eastwood? John Wayne or Smiley Burnette? The music: lively or somber? The sound effects? Or lack thereof?

Then, along with all the technicalities of recording (levels and bit rates), the legalities of distribution (music and SFX usage rights) and paying for studio time, we had to crunch some numbers.

I discovered Audible and their extensive help menus and forums were invaluable. I contacted our friend Ken Farmer, who produces his own audio works. Finally, I took the plunge and simply worked through the curve.

"Branham'sDue" may take a while to show a real profit, but it was a real adventure to produce.

Many of us Fictioneers have heard our characters come alive via audio. Whether through Audible's royalty sharing program, our own MP3 files, or a publisher's arrangement, we're reaching for a new audience and additional revenue.

As I wrote, Ken Farmer helped me a lot. Ken has four books in his The Nations series available through Audible/Amazon, and samples are a click away at the link. Ken says the format provides good extra revenue, and I don't doubt it. He narrates the works himself, and with each story weighing in at 8 to 9 hours, there's plenty of entertainment there.

On the other hand, Gordon Rottman's publisher arranged to have The Hardest Ride recorded. The sample proves narrator James Simenc's voice is perfectly matched to the story.  Again, that's something to watch out...er, listen for. In this  case, Simenc needed to read a part of the book that had a lot of Spanish in it. Gordo wrote to me:   

As the POV was a Texas cowpoke, he didn't have to be native-level Spanish, but he needed to pronounce it well enough to be understandable to a Spanish-speaker and not mangle it. He turned out to be able to rattle it off very well. That's an important consideration for a narrator if there are even small bits of another language.

Georgia Woods of Hartwood Publishing has these suggestions if you attempt to go it alone:

In general, if you’ve never listened to audio books, you won’t know what to look for in a narrator or in general when it comes to how it should sound.  Also, you have to understand how the contract works, how the recordings work, and how to tell the narrator what’s wrong as well as being able to sit and listen at the computer and give timestamp information for every error.  It’s quite time-consuming, to be honest, so we don’t do it with books we don’t feel we can profit on, for sure. 

Audible can help.

Mike Long let them pair his novel, No Good Like It Is, with narrator Keith Newbill. Mike and Keith both market the story and have also thought more about getting the book into the hands of professional drivers, maybe on CDs.

Dusty Richards' publisher produced CDs of his Chet Byrnes stories and, unlike the examples above, went all out in old time radio style with multiple actors, music and sound effects.

Finally, Marc Cameron and L.J. Martin worked with Books In Motion to market their books as recordings. Larry says publisher Gary Chandler will accept original manuscripts and non-exclusive work. He adds:

They are a GREAT company, honest, and super to work with.

In this new world of digital publishing, where the western is ubiquitous as ever, yet strangely invisible to the general public, I think audio books offer a good avenue to reach our audience. 

Uniquely able to find markets that movies or television can't, mp3 downloads or CD recordings can get our stories and names in front of new ears --something that just might translate into new eyes and new book revenues in the future.

After growing up on a Nebraska farm, Richard Prosch worked as a professional writer, artist, and teacher in Wyoming, South Carolina, and Missouri. His western crime fiction captures the fleeting history and lonely frontier stories of his youth where characters aren’t always what they seem, and the windburned landscapes are filled with swift, deadly danger. Read more at www.RichardProsch.com

Plowing and Sowing

Plowing:
Cheryl Pierson kindly gave me a list of seven publishers who are in Western Fictioneers.  I wrote each of them, asking one question: 
            If a writer could do nothing else, what is the one thing you would tell a writer to do to sell his or her books.

So far, five have written back.  If the others come in later, I will post them next month.

Rebecca J. Vickery (Publishing by Rebecca J. Vickery, Victory Tales Press)
"Tough question and I'll answer in general.  For me and our authors at PbRJV, the one thing I advise is get on social media such as Facebook on a regular basis and be "sociable" while providing links to your website and books. It works."

Dusty Richards …was very generous and I have edited his response some…
“There is not any one answer on how to sell your books or some of us would have discovered it.  …  I have a professional web site. Anywhere I can I post that address for them to go look. I pay to have it up and it isn't cheap but gets some results.  I have a page on Amazon and I have to scream to get it kept up to date.  People like a book you wrote they will go look for them at that site.  I have books on the WWA button.  …
 I always write a letter to my readers in every book and give them my email.  If you write me or email me you get a list of my books in return and a copy of our magazine  www.saddlebagdispatches.com.  … I try to get the book reviewed. I write blurbs for other authors to get my name out there. A western reader reads my blurb he may go look for my books. That is  better than all the e business you can get into. I answer interviews like this to get my name out there.  ….
 I have a column in a tri-state farm magazine--no get rich deal but it brings me readers. I have column in StoryTeller magazine.  She shows my books on back cover in trade.  I have book signings at events, library, shows. In the right place I make several sales and new fans.
 My first e-book/printed was with a small publisher.  It had been out for five years.  He gave it away one weekend . …  We handed out 10,000 copies.  Neither of us could not believe it. I had never gotten a 10 whatever for the IRS in income on it.  In the next 18 months the total sales reached what a good New York book publisher paid out for a western.  I plan to try that again on another project in the future. 
I am disappointed in so many western books being published that no one edited and are a mess.  They give us a bad name.  .."

 James Reasoner (Rough Edges Press)
Maybe the most important thing a writer can do today to sell books--whether they're traditionally published, self-published, or come from a small press--is to maintain an active presence on social media. That can be overwhelming and too time-consuming, so it's probably best to limit those activities to a few of the available platforms. I use my blog, Facebook, and Twitter for the most part, but a writer should do whatever feels comfortable. Just get your name and info about the books out there!

Livia Reasoner (Livia J Washburn) (Prairie Rose Publications)
Other than writing good books to start with (always the first step), I think the key to selling is to keep writing. Each book's sales builds on the last, and when you have enough work out there it's easier to run special sales and promotions with the earlier titles. So when you finish a book, it's fine to pat yourself on the back--but then start thinking about the next one!

Cheryl Pierson Prairie Rose Publications
When you submit your work, be sure you have had it professionally edited AT LEAST for grammar, tense agreement, and punctuation. Most editors have at least three different price lists, dependent upon how much editing
is required or asked for. This would be the cheapest for some--mid-level for others on their pricing. When you send your work to a publisher with poor grammar or punctuation, the publisher sees that you really don't know what you're doing--or care. If you don't care about your own work, why should a publisher, or a reader?

Sowing:
I had an exchange with Vonn McKee about my idea to use Westerns (and fiction in general) as a means to promote corporate goals (goods, values, and services.)  She thinks it’s a tough sell and I share with you:

 “I have some experience in commercial advertising and my sense is that corporations trying to promote an image by drawing on artistic works or examples prefer to use something their audience will recognize. If the western fiction quoted was by a well-known author or a quote from, say, a character like John Wayne or a Clint Eastwood, that known image or emotion would be communicated onto the firm’s brand. …but getting a firm to use just any character or literary excerpt from an unknown author would seem a hard sell. …the exception would be if you happened to have a killer slogan you could lift from your work and pitch…”

One final note on Sowing.  I told you about Writer's Relief.  Well, I subscribed.  True to their word 29 my initial queries are out doing their work for me.  Well, 25 are still at work, I have already received four “unfortunately, this one doesn’t sound like it’s right for us.” I was pleased with their efficiency and helpfulness in the first cycle, so I am risking a second.  I’ll keep you posted.

E-mail Edward Massey with comments. Buy Every Soul Is Free here, or buy Telluride Promise here.

WESTERN FICTIONEERS & ITS MEMBERS---A BRIEF ANALYSIS by Charlie Steel

Welcome to Western Fictioneers

An organization of professional authors of western novels and short stories.

http://www.westernfictioneers.com

What sort of person becomes a writer and meets the requirements to join Western Fictioneers?  I would have to start with age, most of us are old.  The majority of us have a long life experience to draw upon to write what we write.  Many of us are senior citizens and those who are not, are not far from becoming one.  In analyzing the biographies of the members of this organization, it is clear most have accomplished various careers of merit before turning to writing.  Some are scholarly in their backgrounds, others come from the military, some were journalists, policeman, teachers, ranchers, etc., etc.  From all walks of life our members have carried out various occupations to raise families and meet their needs.  The point being most of us have attained a modicum of success and to some extent stand out as hardworking individuals in our society---all of whom have written and published a Western book.  And, of course, some have distinguished themselves as professional full-time writers with extraordinary output of novels and stories published by New York houses and other venues.  It was those very same professional full-time writers who graciously extended their expertise to start this organization.  That core group consists of Robert Randisi, James Reasoner, Livia J. Washburn (Reasoner), and Frank Roderus.

Robert Randisi is a prolific writer of unparalleled output, crafting over six hundred books to date, millions of words, a lifetime of daily focused effort, carefully written for the reader to enjoy.  He writes Mysteries and Westerns and is responsible for creation of at least two writing organizations including Western Fictioneers and The Private Eye Writers of America.

James Reasoner, New York Times bestselling author has penned over three hundred books, a phenomenal output.   Humble about his 35 years of writing successes, he pays tribute to his life partner, his wife, Livia J. Washburn/Reasoner, for her assistance and support.  His Civil War Series has huge critical acclaim.

Livia J. Washburn/Reasoner has penned dozens of books.  She has written Westerns, Romance, Historical Fiction, and her famous culinary Mystery novels.  Livia has been the secretary of Western Fictioneers and is the premier orchestrator behind the scenes that helped launch this writing organization and made it what it is today.  She helped set up the Yahoo Western Fictioneers web site, the biography section for its members, and a Western Fictioneers internal writing forum where individuals can daily express ideas to each other.  She has worked hard to promote writers, written book reviews, set up a Western Fictioneers Blog to reach the public, and most importantly published and promoted a plethora of books for other authors under the Western Fictioneers label.  Among these are THE WEST OF THE BIG RIVER series, an idea offered by Kit Prate.  They are iconic stories of real life characters presented in a fictional format---books Livia edited along with Kit Prate and James Reasoner, She designed the cover for, completed the layout, and published the series.  She is undoubtedly the one single individual who has been the workhorse of Western Fictioneers and should be commended and recognized for her inexhaustible accomplishments in making the organization the success it is today.  Livia J. Washburn/Reasoner has also entered the publishing business with her partner Cheryl Pierson and formed Prairie Rose Publications for women Romance Writers along with a number of offshoot publishing houses, promoting Westerns and Children’s Stories.

Frank Roderus is a professional Western writer with a lifetime of work accomplished and over three hundred books published.  In 2014, he was awarded the Life Achievement Peacemaker award, the highest award offered by Western Fictioneers.  His novels are currently and daily on the Amazon.com best selling Western Authors list.

In addition to the founders, these other prominent members have joined this organization.

Jory Sherman, is a multi-award winning author who is recently deceased.  In 2012, Western Fictioneers also awarded this noted writer the Life Achievement Peacemaker award.  Jory Sherman has published more than 400 books since 1965, more than 100 articles, and 500 short stories.  In 1995, he was inducted into the National Writer’s Hall of Fame.

Robert E. Vardeman is a nuclear physicist and an award-winning writer in the field of Science Fiction and has written hundreds of Westerns under various pseudonyms. He is a one man writing force (having published over 350 plus books) and cannot go unrecognized among this organization.

Robert Vaughn is a distinguished writer with over 350 books published and his past involves three tours in Vietnam as a helicopter pilot and decorated soldier.  In 2013, he was awarded the Life Achievement Peacemaker Award.

Another prominent member is Dusty Richards, a double Spur Award winner.  He is a well-known author with nearly a hundred books published.  He recently started a Western publishing house and an on-line Western Magazine.

This list would certainly not be complete without mentioning former Western Fictioneers President, Dr. Troy Smith.  A full college professor of Indian Studies at Tennessee University, Dr. Smith is both a Spur and Peacemaker Award winning author.  He is the creator of the well known Wolf Creek Series and developed the idea of multiple writers contributing to a single book about a growing town in the Wild West.  Recently, Dr. Smith, along with his wife, has branched out taking over the publishing company, Western Trail Blazers.

Cheryl Pierson, the current Western Fictioneers President is a Western writer and has written more than sixty books.  She has been instrumental in helping others set up a writing schedule for W F Blog and in promoting members of Western Fictioneers.

Among others who stand out in the organization is marketing promoter and book reviewer, Kathleen Rice Adams, who is not only a writer but a prolific wordsmith who has helped promote Western Fictioneers’ writers.  Her daily output of promotional material for writers is indeed impressive.

Mr. Tom Rizzo has been a journalist his entire adult life and continues to write and post well researched historical articles about the west on his blog nearly every day.  He has worked in radio, news, and as a correspondent.  This vast experience gives him the skills to research and write his pieces which reach the World Wide Web through his blog and Google+.  His STORYTELLER7 series of interviews of writers is a vastly important legacy documenting the lives and careers of Western authors.

Another prominent hard-working member is Western writer and publisher, L. J. Martin, who has created Wolfpack Publishing.  As a marketing guru extraordinaire, he has managed to push Frank Roderus, Robert Vaughn, and himself, L. J. Martin, into best selling Western Authors status on Amazon.com.

We even have among us Hollywood actor, Ken Farmer; a practicing medical doctor, Dr. Keith Souter (current vice president, writing under the name Clay More); and screenwriter/director of twenty-five movies, Courtney Joyner.

To be more specific, currently there are eighty-four members listed publicly on WESTERN FICTIONEERS’ web site.  Going over the bio’s of those willing to reveal information, there are eight writers from California, seven from Texas, with the rest coming from nearly every state in the union.  There are two writers from England and one each from Canada, Spain, Germany, and Japan.  Many are writers with various major awards including the Peacemaker and Spur Awards.

Those writers and members of Western Fictioneers not mentioned (because of limited space) are a mature and skilled group, working hard every day to produce a work of excellence in the many avenues of Western writing and their publishing success shows this.

Why was Western Fictioneers started in the first place, given that another Western writer’s organization existed?  Cheryl Pierson, current president, pins the following on WESTERN FICTIONEERS HOME PAGE:  “Western Fictioneers is a professional writing group that encourages and promotes the Traditional Western.”  Vice President Dr. Keith Souter writes on Western Fictioneers ABOUT page:  “The members of Western Fictioneers are doing their best to satisfy the reading public’s almost insatiable appetite for Westerns. Through Western Fictioneers Library we are producing a steady flow of novels and anthologies. And with the increasingly popular Wolf Creek series of novels we are seeing a virtual Western town become a place that seems as real as Dodge City or Deadwood.”  Dr. Souter goes on to state:  “It is the friendliest writers’ organization that I have ever belonged to and I consider it a privilege and an honor to serve a term as vice-president.”  This gets to the core of what WESTERN FICTIONEERS organization is about for its members.  To reemphasize, it promotes writers, it offers publishing opportunities within the organization and by members of the organization, it has a membership list allowing writers to submit a bio, and what is crucial and extraordinary is that it is interactive, promoting communication among its members.  This site allows the unique opportunity to explore ideas, expound on Western history and many other subjects, thus increasing and expanding the creativity of the members of the organization.  There is also other communication going on by extending access to each writer’s private email.  In addition there is a Western Fictioneers Blog written by Western Fictioneers members exploring Western subjects for each other and the public on-line.

WESTERN FICTIONEERS recognizes outstanding writing each year with the prestigious PEACEMAKER AWARDS.  With the prolific output of books by its members, Western Fictioneers has become a force to reckon with.  For these reasons it can be said the fresh blood of this new organization has done more to promote Western writing and Western authors, than any extant organization existing today.   This is categorically an active writing group, challenging its membership to write and publish quality Western manuscripts.

Clearly, members of Western Fictioneers are hardworking and determined people.  It takes effort, skill, and fortitude to sit down and craft a story and our members, all of them, do it well.  Of course, as is in the case with competitiveness, some write, market, and sell their manuscripts better than others.  In this way we are all in competition with each other.  Even while in competition, such remarkable members as Dr. Troy Smith, made a call for writers and exhaustively worked on developing a western town and created the incomparable series WOLF CREEK---each with multiple members contributing chapters.  He also single-handedly orchestrated several WOLF CREEK ANTHOLOGIES to go along with the series, which very shortly will include 14 books.  Livia J. Washburn/Reasoner has published for Western Fictioneers members THE WEST OF THE BIG RIVER SERIES and has published or republished a large number of Western books for members of the organization.  To date, the enormous output of its members has already created notice and best sellers.  As the membership increases and as publishing opportunities morph and change, it is believed future success can only increase.

What I have stated here, in part, can be backed up by the number of books this group has published on behalf of its writers.  WESTERN FICTIONEERS is one of the finest writing organizations on the WORLD WIDE WEB and in the ENTIRE WORLD.

Charlie Steel   wwwcharliesteel.net   plus.google.com/+CharlieSteelAuthor

MAKE USE OF THE GOLD: DUSTY RICHARDS' WRITING THE WEST BY JEREMY L.C. JONES

I've never met Dusty Richards. But I feel like I have. I know that's a common feeling for readers and I've read a fair number of Richards' novels. My sense of knowing Mr. Richards--that intimacy beyond the storyteller/audience relationship—comes, though, not so much from his dozens of novels so much as from his “real how-to book”Writing the West with Dusty Richards: A Western Novel Roundup (High Hill Press, 2010).

This "other" relationship, is sort of a cross between the teacher/student and the editor/writer relationship.

Writing the West contains sixteen chapters by Richards followed by five written by friends of his who, as the cover puts it, are "folks who sell the sagebrush scented pages," including John Duncklee , Mike Kearby, John Nesbitt, Jory Sherman, and Jodi Thomas. The book is illustrated with artwork by Michael Andrews.

The first 141 pages from Richards alone would've been enough to satisfy even the most persnickety consumer. The roundup of experts at the end is a drink on the house just because... well, just because. It feels like Richards saying, "I've said my piece, now my friends here are going to pitch in on romance, young adults, mountain men, traditional westerns, and some mistakes you want to avoid. Don't get fidgety, you're in good hands."

As I indicated above, I haven't met Mr. Richards, so I don't know if that's how he talks. I'm merely speaking to the effect.

I'm get ahead of myself, though. Let's take a step back and look at Writing the West from the beginning-approach it in the order Mr. Richards intended.

"Between this book's covers is how to write a western novel," he writes in the introduction. "This isn't your usual how-to-write book. You can buy books all day long that will instruct you in writing basics. What I intend to show you are the things I've learned in the process of writing close to one hundred books. These are the little details that make the difference and bring your book to life."

You "may have to read this book two or three times," Mr. Richards warns, and that is the appeal, here—both the need to read and re-read, to dig for those nuggets of gold, to sift for a little color in your pan.

But I don't mean that the way it sounds. You don't have to take a pick axe to the worthless rock and dirt or spend hours crouching by a stream with numb hands, aching back, and high hopes that you'll strike it rich. You will strike it rich. The claim will pay out. It's all valuable. The gold is there--everywhere.

All the reader needs to do is persist, focus, put in the time. And be willing to notice the color, the vein of yellow or the flakes in the top layer of pay dirt. And to make use of it.

"If you want to be a selling writer, that's what you must do," says Richards. "Write and read all the time. Your fingers need to be spilling things on that screen or, if you don't have a computer handy, writing in a log or diary. Carry a notebook and make notes about people, their dialogue, how they look, so you can steal parts of them for your characters."

I'm not sure why I wrote those sentences in here. Not, yet, anyway. Perhaps, they illustrate and reinforce Mr. Richards’ belief in the seemingly little things and the fact that you need to be aware. Watch. Sift. Notice. Read. Write. Steal from life for your writing. Be ready to see the value of the world around you.

Reading through my now ragged copy of Writing the West, I’m struck by how much of my own ink is splattered all over the pages. I’ve underline and made notes, gone away, and returned to do more of the same.

Of all the chapters in all the writing books I own, Chapter Four of Writing the West just might be the one I've returned to the most often since the book came out. "Novels Must Take a Path or Tack" seems like a straightforward enough title and, indeed, the chapter's discussion of "laying out your book" is just shy of overly simplified.

And that's exactly where it should be: just shy of. It teeters on the edge. Perfectly balanced. Glorious.

"A book comes in four sections," says Mr. Richards, "so quarter your book as you write it."

This idea--a novel as having four sections--isn't revolutionary unless you've never heard of it before.

The four sections of a book are, according to Mr. Richards: "Your main POV character is LOST", "Your hero is an ORPHAN", "He becomes an emerging HERO", and "He becomes a HERO/MARTYR". He explains what he means, but I’ll leave a little to your imagination and also not spoil the fun when you get your own copy and flip straight to Chapter Four and Mr. Richards’ Four Quarters plotting strategy.

"This," he says, "is the simplest way to write a book."

Yep. You can say that again.

"A simple guide," Mr. Richards reiterates, "without much restraint, yet it makes a book flow."

Exactly how I like it. Structure without restraint. Guidelines without shackles. A nice room with windows and a view.

And a book that flows.

Because when the book flows, the writer finishes it and the reader reads it, and gold surfaces.

I don't know Mr. Richards, but I am pretty sure that he was thinking of me--a guy with a whole lot of technical training in creative writing, but an inability to contain all those ideas into a coherent novel--when he wrote Chapter Four.

I just know he was thinking of me and folks just like me.

A moment ago, I cracked open Writing the West and noted the first underlined passage that caught my eye.

"High notes, then low notes," says Mr. Richards. "But I would find one thing that could be used to further the story line and use it."

Find something that furthers the story line and use it. Sounds like a good plan, Mr. Richards.

AM I GOAT ENOUGH? BY JEREMY L.C. JONES

I love books about writing. That includes writing guides, style manuals, biographies, memoirs, craft guides, and how to write books. Anything about writing or writers. Hundreds of these books line my shelves and piles of them teeter precariously on my office floor.

For many years, before the Internet made communicating with other writers so much easier, I depended on books about writing for companionship, camaraderie, and conversations on lonely road that is writing.

I really got hooked between college and graduate school, when I was starved for craft talk. Fortunately, I was savvy enough not to believe everything I read and greedy enough to buy three and four books at a time, so that I became immediately aware that no single book or individual author had the final word on any one subject.

During the summer of 2001 while helping my father recover from a traumatic brain injury, I gorged myself on just about every title published by Writer's Digest Books. I crammed book after book onto my shelves, under-lined furiously, and day-dreamed for hours, weighing Bradbury against Maas, Kress against Bell.

At first, I bought books by writers I admired. Then I bought books by topic--character, plot, dialogue--and then by genre--fiction, poetry, and drama, as well as mystery, romance, fantasy and sci fi. Soon, I acquired indiscriminately any book about any aspect of writing. And they kept me company, inspired and informed me.

But something was missing.

I wanted to read about writing Westerns.

There are, are, very few books on how to write a Western novel, especially compared to the number of books on writing mysteries, thrillers, or romances. Sure, back then, there was Matt Braun’s How to Write Western Novels (Writer’s Digest Books, 1988) but that had already fallen out of print. (Braun has since repackaged it as How to Write Novels that $ell, stripping away the Western focus.)

These days, there just aren’t that many books on writing Westerns. There are books by writers known for their Westerns who also sling ink in other genres, such Terry Burns’ A Writer's Survival Guide To Publication (Port Yonder Press, 2010), Loren D. Estleman's now out-of-print Writing the Popular Novel: A Comprehensive Guide to Crafting Fiction That Sells (F+W Media, 2004), L. J. Martin’s Write Compelling Fiction: Tricks to the Writing Trade (Wolfpack Publishing, 2011), and Jory Sherman’s Master Course in Writing (High Hill Press, 2011).

You also can bulk up the numbers a little by including manuals for writing historical fiction. James Alexander Thom’s exceptional The Art and Craft of Writing Historical Fiction (F+W Media, 2010) comes readily to mind.

But, right now, in the heat of an e-book boom that has been very kind to the Western, there are three guides explicitly about (as Dusty Richards puts it) “writing the West”:

• Write a Western in 30 Days, by Nik Morton (Compass Books, 2013)
• Writing Westerns: How to Craft a Novel that Evokes the Spirit of the West, by Michael Newton (F+W Media, 2012)
• Writing the West with Dusty Richards, by Dusty Richards (High Hill Press, 2010)

Morton, Newton, and Richards take different approaches. Richards’ book is a collection of essays written by him and six other writers. He reveals the “little details that make the difference and bring your book to life.” Newton “examines what a Western is, while teaching you how to “research and write on.” Accordingly, he adds that research, talent, and imagination are the keys to writing a successful novel.” Morton emphasizes a “plot-plan” and adds a time limit of 30 days. By days, he means eight not necessarily continuous hours of work time.

Individually or added up, these three how to guides could serve not so much as a road map to writing a novel but as a conversation that might lead to your writing a Western.

Each of these authors agrees, explicitly or implicitly, that his way of writing a western isn’t the only way.

Or as Morton puts it, “There’s no right way to write a novel. There are plenty of wrong ways, of course.”

There’s no right way to write a novel. There are many.

How to books offer advice which, ultimately, is about timing, about re-considering your own perspective and being open to another writer's point of view.

As I read about writing, each bit of advice or statement about craft forces me to respond—to carry on a conversation in my head, to engage in a dialogue with the author of the book. I must choose to accept, to ignore, and to evaluate in some way or another.

Just as no two of my friends see the world in the same way, no two writers see the craft of writing in the same way. Agreement can be dull. Talking to yourself in the echo chamber of your mind can be doubly dull. Discussion, ambivalence, disagreement are far more interesting than everyone nodding and saying, "Yes, yes, that is the way, the only way."

I've learned to weigh each bit of advice or method, to experiment with and tweak various approaches. And, in my humble opinion, the best books on writing explicitly encourage you to take everything with a grain of salt.

If Mike Newton contradicts Nik Morton or Dusty Richards contradicts Jory Sherman, I'm not confused, I'm excited. Hot dang!

If Jory Sherman tells me to close my eyes, imagine a scene, and then just write it without worrying where I am headed, then I'm going to do it.

If Nik Morton warns me to sketch out a plot-plan before I start actually writing that first chapter, then I'm going to do that, too.

If Dusty Richards tells me to think of the Western in quarters--“your main POV character is lost,” “your hero is an orphan,” “he becomes an emerging hero,” and “he becomes a hero/martyr”--guess what? I'm going to try that, too.

Why wouldn't I? I respect these writers. I love their fiction. Why wouldn't I try to learn as much as I can from them?

At times in my life it has been easier to sit alone in a room and not write—to stare at a blank screen or blank page and not get started. It’s been easier to put off the novel, to toss out the half-written short story, to give up. My antidote for that has been to read books about writing.

“Strive for the best,” says Richards, “and you will find publication—if you persist like a brush-eating Billy goat.”

The first time I read those lines from Richards, I moved forward. I wrote. I persisted. I researched and outlined a novel. Richards pointed me in the direction of the brush and encouraged me to eat.

In Master Course in Writing, the great Jory Sherman calls writing “a disease,” a “magical journey,” and an addiction. These metaphors force me--and, perhaps, you--to reevaluate my chosen path, to reconsider the act of writing.

“I know that my words will open doors into your own imagination and that you will never again fear the sight of a blank sheet of paper,” writes Sherman. “You will want to fill it with words, words that come from your own heart and mind.”

Sherman promises doors swinging wide as I follow his writing exercises, and behind many of those doors I know that I will find more questions than answers. I want to open those doors. I want to find more questions, not answers.

I know a lot of writers who despise books about writing. I’ve heard people say that it’s better to write than talk or read about writing.

Me? I love the companionship, the camaraderie, the inspiration, and perhaps most of all I love the questions I am forced to ask of myself. Small questions. Big questions. Huge questions.

Questions like: Am I goat enough? Do I have the self-discipline to be a fearless, disease-ridden Billy goat on a magical, brush-eating journey? Do you? Do any of us?

Jeremy L. C. Jones is a freelance writer, editor, and lecturer living in his wife's hometown in South Carolina. He teaches part-time at Wofford College, volunteers at the Carolina Poodle Rescue's dog sanctuary, and sends Troy D. Smith regular (and often impatient) e-mails asking when the next Ford Fargo book will be available for Nook. The son of a son of a son of teachers, Jones is the founder of Living Words, a creative writing programs for seniors with dementia, and of Shared Worlds, a writing and world-building camp for teenagers. If he can ever get Ford Fargo on the phone, he's going to pitch a Western writing program. When he met Robert Randisi for the first time he "drooled on his sleeve," as Marthayn put it, and he still tells people he ate a steak with the Gunsmith. He is currently working on a series of stories for High Noon Press about a character created by one of his literary heroes, Frank Roderus. Over the coming months Jones will review books on writing written by members of the Western Fictioneers, starting with Nik Morton's Write a Western in 30 Days.