The Story Behind the Story: Ida Tully and the Telephone

I'm gonna date myself severely here and admit that I grew up with a telephone party line.

In this future-I-never-imagined, where everybody has instant access to a phone of their very own, the concept of a communications line shared by several neighbors seems almost surreal. But it's indeed how we lived.

The big plastic phone with the rotary dial went off twice in quick succession, and we knew it rang for us. If it went off with one long ring or three quick rings, or any other combination of rings, it was for somebody else. Which didn't stop my mom from picking up the phone to listen to the conversations there.

They say there's no privacy in small towns, but back then there was no privacy in the country either.

So I always wanted to write a story about a phone.

Last week, I had a chance.

I was typing waist deep in a story called "Drowning on Dry Land," treading water. The hero was a greenhorn cowboy with a twisted ankle, stuck with a newborn calf in a flooding creek and more rain on the way. I needed him to find a way to call for help.

Insert handy plot device: a low-hanging telephone line. My hero finds an unlikely branch and miraculously tosses it up, snags the line, pulls it down. The old busybody on the other end notices the phone is out of order and sends a posse from the ranch to repair it. Naturally, they find the hero and all is well.

I typed THE END, reviewed the story, wasn't satisfied with it (did it seem phoned-in?) and archived it for later.

But the image of vexing a telephone busy-body by tearing down the line stayed with me.

So with a new blank document, I sat down and wrote "Ida Tully and the Telephone."

A new story from the fragments of another. Have you ever had that happen?

Ringing in around 2,500 words, this one took three sessions (not counting the original story) --one hour and two half hour sittings.

Please read "Ida Tully and the Telephone" here.

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. In 2016, Richard roped the Spur Award for short fiction given by Western Writers of America. Read more at www.RichardProsch.com

Kaye Spencer, western romance author – New to Western Fictioneers

Hello everyone.

I'm romance author Kaye Spencer, and I'm a new member with Western Fictioneers. Since today is the first of my regular blogging contributions for Western Fictioneers, which will occur on the fourth Saturday of each month, I thought it appropriate to share a little about myself and where my fascination with the American Old West came from.

I'm a native Coloradoan, and I also write under the pen name, A.L. Debran. I grew up on a cattle ranch in northeastern Colorado and, during those childhood and teenage years from the mid-1950s through the early 1970s, I spent hour upon hour reading Louis L'Amour's westerns and listening to Marty Robbins' gunfighter ballads. I watched all the *classic* television westerns when they were the primetime shows, and I didn’t miss a western movie when it came to the downtown theater or to the double-feature drive-in.

I loved the 'Sons of Katie Elder' so much (well... maybe I had a teeny-weeny crush on Dean Martin), that my grandfather carved a wooden pistol for me and carved in the name 'Tom Elder'. I had a bucking-barrel in my backyard so I could pretend to be a rodeo cowboy. I used my allowance to buy candy and gum cigarettes and roll caps for my pistols and rifle so I could run around the yard pretending to be whichever Hollywood cowboy I was currently obsessed with.

I was nine years old when I got my first horse—a black and white Welsh pony named Corky. It was Katie bar the door after that. I couldn’t get a saddle on Corky, but bareback was okay with me. Since he rode with a hackamore, I didn’t have to struggle with getting a bit in his mouth. All I had to do was sidle him up to the rail fence and hop on.

When I needed a new storyline to act out in my sibling-less imagination, I wrote my own, even though they were clearly retellings of episodes of the Virginian, High Chaparral, or even Yancy Derringer. This is where my writing began. I believed early on in my life that I was born in the wrong century. I’ll even confess that I named my oldest son Heath (after Heath Barkley) and my youngest son’s name is Cameron (after Cameron Mitchell – Uncle Buck on High Chaparral). My daughter, the middle child, is named Robyne—oops! A story there, just not a 'western' one. :-) 
 
I can, and often do, get lost in historical research of just about any time period, but it’s the Old West that I love the most—myths and truths alike.

My first novel, Lonely Places, published in June 2006,is a western romance that I started some 27 years before I finally decided to polish it up and submit it for publication. My western novella, Gunslingers & Ghostriders, followed in October. While my choice of story-writing genre is historical, particularly westerns, I’ve penned a vampire and a couple of contemporary stories—cowboys included.

My latest western is in an anthology from Prairie Rose Publications, which will release in a couple of months. The anthology is called Lassoing a Mail-Order Bride, and my story is A Permanent Woman.

I retired June 1, 2013 from a long career in public education that included administration and teaching English and history. I am loving every writing minute of retirement. ;-) I'm a review editor for the romance review site, Joyfully Reviewed, and I take on occasional manuscript editing projects.

I’m excited to be a member of Western Fictioneers, and I’m looking forward to sharing my love of the American Old West here on the fourth Saturday of each month. I’ve been reading the WF blog for a year or so, and I’ve learned so much from the wealth of Old West history that many of you have shared in your blog posts.

To read reviews of my books, watch my book videos, or download my old family recipes, visit my website and blog – http://www.kayespencer.com

You’ll find me on Twitter – @kayespencer – sharing daily history trivia, and I’ve recently started a recurring blogging topic on my blog called “Spotlight on History”.

Until next time,

Kaye

Fall in love…faster, harder, deeper with Kaye Spencer romances