IT WAS VERY IMPORTANT TO KNOW HOW TO CUT UP A CHICKEN by CHERYL PIERSON

Our generation has lost so many important talents and skills. Technology makes it easier for us, but in some ways, it takes away our independence. Maybe that’s one reason we love to read (and write!) historical fiction. We can go back in time vicariously without having to live through all the hardships and trials of everyday life, experiencing only the top layer of what must have been difficult, by our standards, every moment.

Does anyone know how to cut up a chicken anymore? My mother did. I remember her getting out the wickedest looking knife I’d ever seen every Sunday and cutting up a chicken to fry. They had started to sell cut-up chickens in the store, but they were more expensive. Mom wouldn’t have dreamed of paying extra for that. By the time I began to cook for my family, I didn’t mind paying that extra money—I couldn’t bear to think of cutting a chicken up and then frying it.

This is my great grandmother with my mom (far left) and three of her siblings. Probably taken around 1928 or 1929.
It’s all relative. My mom, born in 1922, grew up in a time when the chickens had to be beheaded, then plucked, then cut up—so skipping those first two steps seemed like a luxury, I’m sure. I wouldn’t know how to begin to cut up a chicken. I never learned how.

Hog killing day was another festive occasion. Because my husband was raised on a farm, he and my mother had a lot of similar experiences to compare (this endeared him to her in later years.) Neighbors and family would gather early in the day. The hog would be butchered, and the rest of the day would be spent cutting and packing the meat. When my husband used to talk about the “wonderful sausage” his mother made, I was quite content to say, “Good for her. I’m glad you got to eat that when you were young.” (There’s no way I would ever make sausage.)

Very rough times. My mom, again, far left, with younger siblings. Probably taken around 1937-1938. Dustbowl/Depression Era Oklahoma.
Medical issues? I was the world’s most nervous mother when I had my daughter. But being the youngest in the family, I had a world of experience to draw on. I also had a telephone and I knew how to use it! I called my mom or one of my sisters about the smallest thing. I can’t imagine living in one of the historical scenarios that, as writers, we create with those issues.

The uncertainty of having a sick child and being unable to do anything to help cure him/her would have made me lose it. I know this happened so often and was just accepted as part of life, but to me, that would have been the very worst part of living in a historical time. I had a great aunt who lost all three of her children within one week to the flu. She lost her mind and had to be institutionalized off and on the rest of her life.

My mother was the eldest of eleven children. She often said with great pride that her mother had had eleven children and none of them had died in childhood. I didn’t realize, when I was younger, how important and odd that really was for those times. My father’s mother had five children, two of whom died as children, and two more who almost died, my father being one of them.

My mom's parents, courting. This would have been about 1919.
It was a case of my grandmother thinking he was with my granddad, and him thinking three-year-old Freddie was with her. By the time they realized he was missing, the worst had happened. He had wandered to the pond and fallen in. It was a cold early spring day. Granddad had planted the fields already, between the pond and the house. A little knit cap that belonged to little Freddie was the only evidence of where he’d gone. It was floating on top of the water. By some miracle, my granddad found him and pulled him up out of the water. He was not breathing. Granddad ran with him back to the house, jumping the rows of vegetables he’d planted. The doctor later told him that was probably what saved Dad’s life—a very crude form of CPR.

My dad and his younger brother, Kay--this was taken around 1938-1939. Dad would have been 17 or 18.
Could you have survived in the old west? What do you think would have been your greatest worry? What would you hate to give up the most from our modern way of life? I’m curious to know, what skills or talents to you think we have lost generationally over the last 100 years?

My great great grandmother on my dad's side, Sarah Manery Casey--this was her Anglo name, we don't know her true Indian name.
I’m not sure I would have lived very long, or very pleasantly. I know one thing—my family would never have eaten sausage that I’d made.

The Failed and Flawed Exploits of the Jennings Gang - by Tom Rizzo

On the night of August 16, 1897, three members of an outlaw gang, hidden behind the tender of a southbound Santa Fe locomotive, climbed into the cab and ordered the engineer to stop.

When the passenger train lumbered to a halt, a few miles outside Edmund in Oklahoma Territory, four other gang members who were hiding in the tall brush alongside the tracks rushed the express car to rob the Wells Fargo safe. All attempts at opening the safe however, failed. They even tried dynamiting it—twice. The train robbers gave up and rode away, empty-handed.

Mugshot: Al Jennings

The Jennings Gang, as it was called, included Frank and Al Jennings, Little Dick West, and the O'Malley brothers.

A couple of months later, they struck again—this time, the southbound Rock Island passenger train near Chickasha, Indian Territory. Again, they were unable to crack the safe and, instead, blew up the express car.

Rather than leave  empty-handed this time, they robbed passengers of about $300, and managed to get away with a jug of whiskey and bunch of bananas.

Third time's a charm, so the saying goes. But not with these guys. On the next attempt, they stacked railroad ties across the track, but the engineer merely coaxed more speed out of the locomotive, smashed through the barrier, and kept going.

The gang then turned its attention to an express office, then a bank, but found the places surrounded by authorities each time they showed up to rob them.

You only get so many chances to prove your skills at being a successful outlaw and the gang's comedic attempts to practice outlawry ended a few months later when US Marshal Bud Ledbetter took Al Jennings into custody outside Muskogee after a shootout at the Spike S Ranch, an occasional hideout for outlaws.

Newspapers described the gang as "penniless, hungry, and wearing tattered clothing."

Others dubbed Jennings the worst outlaw in the West. But, even though he lacked the skills to succeed as an outlaw, Jennings wasn't a total bumbling fool. He ended up being a shrewd self-promoter.

Jennings was born in 1863 in Virginia. He and his brothers followed in the career footsteps of their father - who served as a judge - got law degrees and began practicing in the Oklahoma Territory in 1889.

Six years later, his brother Ed was shot to death by another lawyer—Temple Houston, son of famous Texas General Sam Houston. Temple was eventually acquitted. But Al and Frank Jennings, bitter about the verdict, vowed payback. They pursued Houston, but never caught him.

It was then the brothers made their decision to give up law and turn criminal.

Following his capture at Spike S Ranch, Jennings was convicted in May 1898 of assault with intent to kill, and given a life sentence at the federal penitentiary in Columbus, Ohio.

But his exploits didn't end there.

Serving time in the same facility was William Sidney Porter, later known to readers as short story writer, O. Henry, who was imprisoned for embezzlement.

In three years behind bars, Porter collected enough material from fellow prisoners to write stories that would rank him among the country's most famous literary personalities.

In 1904, Porter published a couple of stories based on fictionalized exploits of Al Jennings, who the writer alluded to as an expert in train robbery.

His association with Porter enabled Jennings to pump up his own image and credibility despite the lack of actual facts.

President William McKinley, in 1902, released Jennings, reducing his life sentence to five years with allowance for good behavior and, ultimately restored full citizenship. Jennings returned to Oklahoma and established a law practice in Lawton with his brother, John.

Ironically, crime paid off for Al Jennings.

He ran for public office, unsuccessfully, including a bid for the  Democratic gubernatorial nomination in Oklahoma in 1914.

The next year, his life story appeared in the Saturday Evening Post, followed by a motion picture, Beating Back, in which some scenes featured Jennings playing himself.

Jennings moved to Hollywood, California, and served as a consultant on films about the West. Although he regaled folks with tales of his wild outlaw years, most all of it amounted to complete fabrication.

"Old Al Jennings was around California for years," said Sheriff Jim Herron of Oklahoma, ". . . stuffing dudes with nonsense and telling them wild yarns about himself in the early days."

Jennings died December 21, 1961, at his home in Tarzana, California.

-tjr-

Tom Rizzo

• Website & Blog
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Author, Last Stand At Bitter Creek

I WAS A TEENAGE BUSHWHACKER: PRODUCER HERMAN COHEN'S RECOLLECTIONS OF LON CHANEY by C. Courtney Joyner

My first meeting with producer Herman Cohen happened almost by accident. Attending college in Los Angeles, time better spent studying was usually taken up with going to old movies, or better, meeting the people who made them.

One afternoon, I’d made my way to Raleigh Studios, the small lot opposite Paramount, to talk to Terry O. Morse about his directing GODZILLA with Raymond Burr. Walking to Terry’s office was when I saw a sign that read: COBRA MEDIA – HERMAN COHEN.

I had to knock on the door of the little bungalow, and at least try to shake hands with the man who produced I WAS A TEENAGE FRANKENSTEIN. Herman was there, let me stammer my fan worship, and then we arranged for a lunch. Quite a few lunches occurred over the years following, always filled with tales of his work as a producer of legendary “B” flicks.

Herman Cohen produced the very first horror movie I ever saw in the theater (BERSERK! starring Joan Crawford), and even more movies I stayed up late to watch on Saturday nights: I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF, HORRORS OF THE BLACK MUSEUM, KONGA, BLOOD OF DRACULA, and TROG. In the 80’s, he was distributing horror films (WATCH ME WHEN I KILL) through Cobra Media, rather than making them, but kept talking about getting back into production.


(PRODUCER HERMAN COHEN, WITH HIS STAR JOAN CRAWFORD,DURING THE SHOOTING OF ‘BERSERK!’)


Herman never made another movie, and died of throat cancer in 2002.

The following interview was done informally, as I was writing about Lon Chaney’s westerns for Gary and Sue Svehla’s MIDNIGHT MARQUEE ACTOR’S SERIES, and wanted Herman’s input. He’d told me these stories several times, but I needed them for the “official account.” He was always happy to oblige with a trip down memory lane.

Before creating his teenage horrors at American-International, Herman produced a number of movies for Jack Broder’s old RealArt company, three starring Chaney.

The first, 1951’s BRIDE OF THE GORILLA, with Chaney and Raymond Burr, remains an odd, interesting movie, despite its insane title. But the title is what sold it, and it became a moneymaker for the young producer, who was just getting his feet wet, and ready to move on to two westerns:


(POSTER FOR BRIDE OF THE GORILLA, HERMAN COHEN’S FIRST FILM WITH LON CHANEY)


HERMAN COHEN: All right, you’re going back a hell of a long ways, Courtney! You’re going back forty-five years ago. Have you talked to anyone else about these pictures? I don’t think anyone else is still alive! (laughs)

COURTNEY JOYNER: Your first work with Lon was on BRIDE OF THE GORILLA, when you were at RealArt with Jack Broder?

HC: When I worked for Jack Broder I did BRIDE OF THE GORILLA, that is correct. I did three pictures with Lon. That one also had Raymond Burr and Barbara Payton.

CJ: Even though he was working with his old pal Curt Siodmak, (writer of THE WOLFMAN), Lon was cast as the police inspector, rather than the guy who turns into the gorilla.

HC: Well, because we had Raymond Burr for that part.

CJ: Broder was putting so many of Lon’s Universal horror pictures back into theaters in the 50’s -

HC: RealArt was putting the old Universals into the theaters again (in the 1950’s) and doing well with them. Abbott and Costello, Maria Montez and the horror films…

CJ: It seems only natural that Broder would want to star Lon Chaney in his company’s first original horror film.

HC: Well, first thing, let me tell you something about Lon, like I said, I worked with him on BRIDE OF THE GORILLA, I was the Associate Producer on that because I was Jack Roeder’s executive assistant at that time. In fact, I wanted Lon Chaney to play Chief Pontiac when Jack wanted to do BATTLES OF CHIEF PONTIAC, and then of course THE BUSHWHACKERS was, I think, came first, and then The BATTLES OF CHIEF PONTIAC - but Lon was always professional, I mean whatever he had to do, he did. He had a reputation for the boozing, but I never saw it affect his work in any way, and I’ve worked with a lot of drinkers.

CJ: THE BUSHWHACKERS was Rod Amateau’s first film as a director, and Tom Gries (WILL PENNY, BREAKHEART PASS) co-wrote the screenplay?


(THE BUSHWHACKERS POSTER SHOWS CHANEY IN OLD AGE MAKE-UP THAT LED TO CASTING IN HIGH NOON.)



HC: With Rod, right. A terrific guy, and we gave him a break to direct the picture. It has a very good cast. Rod Amateau got along great with Lon Chaney, and John Ireland, Dorothy Malone. Those were great people for a cheap budget picture, believe me. We did THE BUSHWHACKERS out in the valley, at Corriganville, or one of the western towns. So we didn’t really get to know Lon on that, it was a fast shooting schedule, and you’re in and out, you know. We did THE BUSHWHACKERS in twelve days I believe, the entire picture.

CJ: Apparently it was THE BUSHWHACKERS that Stanley Kramer saw that made him want to bring Lon into HIGH NOON.

HC: Now that I never knew. Stanley is an old friend of mine. I met him because we had offices at the old Charlie Chaplin Studios. That’s where I did TARGET - EARTH, and THE MAGNIFFICENT ROUGHNECKS with Mickey Rooney and Jack Carson. And Stanley did NOT AS A STRANGER with Robert Mitchum, and Frank Sinatra -



CJ: Lon was in that, playing Mitchum’s father!

HC: Really? Everything brings us back to Lon Chaney! (laughs)

CJ: I always thought he was underrated.

HC: He was. He was underrated because he was Junior, because of his dad. He was so good in OF MICE AND MEN, I mean he was brilliant in that. It’s because of OF MICE AND MEN that I wanted to use Lon in the three pictures that I cast him for. Of course, we never mentioned his dad, because he had that all his life with people. But these were low budget pictures, and they were made fast. And when you have a picture like that, you don’t have time to know people, except for BATTLES OF CHIEF PONTIAC, I got to know Lon quite well because we went on location to Rapid City, South Dakota.

CJ: An old publicity release states that Lon was camping out, and staying with the Indians during shooting.

HC: It was the Sioux tribe that we worked with in Rapid City, and the fact that Lon was playing Chief Pontiac, they got a kick out of that, and he thought he was Chief Pontiac! (laughs) Lon wanted to get to know the Indians well, and the Indians, we had an encampment for them, and they were staying in tents, you see. And Lon had a room at the Hotel Alex Johnson, and many a night he would spend - we had a tent for him - and he wanted to sit and listen to the various stories from the old timers, in the Sioux tribe. He wanted to get to know the Indians better. And he really lived and loved that part. He loved that part.

CJ: Even in the press releases, he spoke very fondly of the part, and the fact that he appreciated finally being able to play an Indian, which he had always wanted to do.
HC: He loved the part. As far as he was concerned, he was Chief Pontiac. He had a great feeling for the Indians.


(BELGIAN POSTER FOR CHIEF PONTIAC, FEATURES A GREAT PORTRAIT OF LON CHANEY IN ONE OF HIS FAVORITE ROLES.)

Lon was no trouble. Let me tell you something about Lon - he was a very private person. Lon did not associate, and did not want to associate, with the director, the producer, members of the crew. I think he thought it would throw off his performance somehow. Like Chief Pontiac in Rapid City South Dakota, he wanted to be with the Indians.


(MEXICAN LOBBY CARD FOR BATTLES OF CHIEF PONTIAC,WITH LON AND LEX BARKER)

Where I got to know Lon is when we went out to Rapid City, South Dakota and he was there for about three weeks. He would come into the hotel to take a bath, or this or that once in a while. Lon had that thick, type of voice that was very commanding, but he was very funny! The Indians used to laugh with him all the time.

But being with the Sioux is how Lon wanted it, but boy, when we started shooting? He was always there, right on time, knew his lines, always had something to add to his part. I was still basically a kid when we made these movies, but Lon was a real pro, was great with me, and a hell of an actor.

My favorite western, kind of.

Cheryl asked me to do a post on my favorite Western novel. My immediate reaction was The Time It Never Rained. Of course, this relatively modern story does not fit the Western Fictioneers definition of Western. But still . . . .

My second reaction was Redemption, by Richard Wheeler. Except I can’t find a Redemption by Wheeler, so the title must have been something else. Never mind, Cheryl said to go with my first choice.

My love of this book starts right in the introduction. First, listen to what Elmer has to say about this iconic novel.

The Time It Never Rained as you read it here is my third version. I began writing the first shortly after the drought was broken. It failed to find a publisher, as did the second version in the early 1960s. I set the novel aside for about ten years. After critical acceptance of The Day the Cowboys Quit in 1971, I decided to try again, completely rewriting it. Perhaps I had become a better writer after ten years, and perhaps editors were more prepared to accept the premise that all which comes out of Washington is nor necessarily golden.

Elmer Kelton, as we all know, wrote western novels as few others can or could write them. Still, as you can see from his very own words, this story had a difficult time finding a home. I don’t remember when I picked the book up, as I went on an Elmer Kelton rampage in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. But it has stuck with me every since.

In a way I empathize with Elmer (I call him Elmer because that’s the way I knew him. Last names in articles, the rules say, but to me he will always be Elmer.) because the first Western novel I wrote and submitted to a Louis L’Amour writealike contest didn’t win. It didn’t even get an encouraging word. These were the days when I was garnering advertising and corporate literature awards by the handful so I immediately assumed that I couldn’t write fiction, and relegated the MS to the bottom righthand drawer of my desk. (Note that I didn’t throw it away.) It moldered there for twenty years . . . but that’s another story.

The Time It Never Rained

Westerns are often about loners. And in the town of Rio Seco, Charlie Flagg seems to be the loner. He’s one who will not go on government dole, wants nothing to do with new or old government programs, and figures what he built he can tear down. At the end of the first chapter, government men discuss Charlie Flagg.

Nicholson’s supervisor had come out into the hallway to listen. He said, “One of those rugged individualists, isn’t he?”

“Someday he’ll just be a ragged individualist. He’s standing still while time goes on by. But he’ll be in to see me one of these days. He’ll come in like all the rest.”

The supervisor frowned, watching the rancher go through an open door. “Somehow, I hope he never does.”

Nicholson’s eyebrows went up.

The supervisor said, “He’s gone out of style, but the world will be a poorer place when it loses the last of his kind.”

“You sympathize with him?”

“I pity him, a little. A man can get awfully lonesome standing out there all by himself.”

At the end of the first chapter, we know that Rio Seco’s a dry place that’s bound to get drier, and that Charlie Flagg’s not about to give up his independence. Wow.

The drought came. Sheep did well at first. They’re bred that way.

It was the cattle that suffered first; they were bred for the green midlands of England. The calves had no bloom, and Charlie was sure they would come up thirty or forty pounds light this fall.

Now in September, the days were still hot but the nights cooled quickly, and the early mornings mad a man hunt for a light jacket. Charlie knew he could no longer put off his annual prewinter visit to the bank.

And right after he got his line of credit, Charlie had a run-in with the federal government. He wanted to buy some wheat to plant for winter grazing.

Jim Sweet lost his grin. “Sure, Charlie. Only, it’s been a long time since I remember selling’ you any wheat seed.”

“Been using oats. Thought this time I’d try wheat and see if it stands the winter better.”

Uncomfortable, Sweet rubbed the back of his neck. “I can sell you all the seed you want, Charlie, but I’m not sure you can plant it. There’s government regulations on it now. You can’t grow wheat without you got an allotment. On account of the surplus, you know.”

“I just want to graze it. I don’t figure on turnin’ none of it over to the government.”

“Ain’t my doin’, Charlie. Me, I’d as soon cut the whole thing wild aloose and see where it lights. But they got the regulations, and they’ll bear down on you. It just happens that the PMA man is in my office right now, lookin’ up some figures. I’ll get him to tell you what you can do and what you can’t.”

Charlie goes on and on, and then the PMA man tells him:

“There’s a certain logic, Mister Flagg, if you’ll think about it. If you weren’t allowed to grow that feed for yourself, you’d buy it from somebody who did have an allotment. That would help keep down the surplus.”

Which Charlie doesn’t like. He doesn’t think anyone has the right to tell him what he can or can’t plant on his own land. Then the government man got mad.

“But harvest wheat from it without an allotment and you’ll pay a fine or go to jail! If you don’t like laws, Mister Flagg, perhaps you should move to some country where they don’t have any.”

“I liked this country before it was saddled down with so many of them.”

Nicholson gave up the argument and stamped away.

Now we can see what’s coming. And the title of the book tells us it isn’t going to rain.

Elmer’s story shows what small-town Texas is like. He’s a man with permanent ideas about what roles are about. When a friend’s daughter helps a boy pick a horse, her dad has a problem.

Page ruefully shook his head. “I didn’t count on him picking the best colt I’ve raised on this ranch in the last two years.”

Charlie grinned. “Then you oughtn’t to’ve had that colt in the pen. You know these Mexican boys . . . they got an eye for good horses.”

“Wasn’t the boy, it was the girl. My own daughter, she done me in.”

“If you’d trained her in the kitchen where she belongs, she wouldn’t of done it.”

What does that tell you about where Charlie Flagg comes from?

Maybe the reason I like The Time It Never Rained so much is that it reminds me of the lifestyle of my youth. While my father was not a full-time rancher, between him and us three boys, we ran pretty near a full time ranch. As a matter of fact, we still have about twenty mamma cows that belong to the family trust, and we have farmland that we can go back to if there’s ever a need. Until then, it’s in alfalfa and grass, ready to be plowed and planted. Cousins have tractors and some have workhorses, if that’s what things came to.

Things don’t go well when the government gets involved, especially in West Texas. When feed got scarce, the PMA got people to order $34 hay. Here’s what happened.

Yancy Pike glared a moment at Rounder. “Some things ain’t to be laughed about. These are hard times.” He took a wrecking bar and twisted the metal seal. Nicholson had to hammer the door latch to work it loose. He put his shoulder against the door and slid it open, straining.

“Well, Yancy,” he said, breathing a little hard, “back your truck up here and we’ll fill your order.”

Pike maneuvered his bobtail truck into place and cut the engine. He climbed up into the truckbed, waiting eagerly. Other men mocved close to see what this cut-rate government hay would look like. Nicholson and Emil Deutscher climbed into the boxcar.

Charlie thought he heard a woeful “Uh-oh” from Emil. Nicholson said, “Here it comes, Yancy.” The two men caught hold of the bailing wires and swung out the first bale. It landed with a thump in the bed of the truck, dust flying, the bale breaking open as one of the wires slipped off. Men nearby leaned forward to look, then went silent, disappointment pinching their faces.

Yancy Pike’s voice lifted angrily. “What kind of gyp is this? Let me into that boxcar! Let me see!”

Needless to say, they refused the old moldy hay, cut-rate though it was.

Of course things go from bad to worse. Charlie can’t keep his Mexican help. His son Tom breaks a foot and can’t do the rodeo circuit. He brings his high falutin’ wife to live in the Mexican’s old house.

And things get worse. Then the other ranchers come wanting Charlie to go to Washington to lobby for more support. Here’s what he has to say.

Charlie swung his gaze to Page Mauldin. “We’ve always had our up times and our down times in the cattle business. We take a stiff dose of medicine and then the thing gradually corrects itself. But you let a price-support crop get sick and it stays sick. The day the government goes to supportin’ cattle, the cow business is lost, and the cowman is just another peon with his hand out to Washington.”

Everyone got mad at Charlie, including his son Tom.

Mary’s eyes were on him. Impatiently he said, “Well, you’d just as well speak your piece, too.”

Mary just stared. “There’s still a slice of that chocolate cake left. You want it?”

Charlie looked at her for a moment, trying vainly to read what was in her mind: he never could tell what she was thinking when she didn’t want him to. He shook his head. “Don’t you know it’s fattenin’?”

I like the way Elmer told the story. I like the attitude of Charlie Flagg. But the words of his old friend Rounder Pike puts it best.

Rounder stepped to the curb and relieved himself of a wad of chewing tobacco. He paused, pensive. “Don’t think too hard of us. We all want help. But there you stand like our own consciences talkin’ to us, tellin’ us how far we’ve strayed from what we believe in. Nobody like his conscience naggin’ at him, even though he knows he’s wrong. We envy you for your guts, Charlie, but I reckon we resent you a little, too, for being stronger than the rest of us. Times past, they used to crucify the prophets.”

If you've not read this Kelton classic, do it. I recommend it highly.

EVERY HUMAN BEING IS A STORYTELLER: JORY SHERMAN'S MASTER COURSE IN WRITING by Jeremy L.C. Jones

A student stops me in the hallway. He wants to know what writing manuals I recommend. He's about to get on an airplane and return to Germany where he feels cut off from other writers.

Three titles come to mind, immediately: Ray Bradbury's Zen in the Art of Writing, Stephen King's On Writing, and Jory Sherman's Master Course in Writing (High Hill Press, 2011).

The instructor standing next to me, a game designer and speculative fiction writer, nods at the Bradbury, nods at King, and then says, "Jory who?"

We’re at Shared Worlds, a speculative fiction writing and world-building program. The first two titles, the Bradbury and King, make a certain sense in that context. They are, essentially, predictable. But Master Course in Writing? By a Spur Award-winning writer of westerns?

Bradbury duct tapes a hand grenade to your creative bicycle, pulls the pin, and shoves you into the big, scary world of writing. King weaves his tough childhood and his relentless commitment to craft and storytelling with practical advice. And Sherman… he takes you inside the flow of the creative experience, holds your hand as you take your first tentative steps into the dark caves, stays by you as long as you need him to, and sets you free so you can see the dancing lights.

"In the cavern of my mind, there were stories that cast shadow on the wall," writes Sherman, midway through Master Course. "I could follow those shadows into the deeper recesses of my mind and discover stories lurking in the recesses and passages of that vast cave."

And in that vast cave "there was always a lamp" and that lamp "could be lit" and "its light could illuminate the stories that lurked and loomed in those dark recesses."

That’s what this book does—it takes you into the magical darkness and shows you the lights, your lights, your stories.

In Master Course, Sherman is both lamplighter and just another spelunker who's been there before and who is willing to show us how to light our own lamps.

Right now, I want to quote the book extensively. I want to write for hours and across many pages about this book. I want to hold it under your nose and point out wonderful passages.

I'll restrain myself.

But only a little.

The book is too good for too much restraint.

"Writing is writing," writes Sherman in his Introduction. "Except when it's magic."

These simple lines are emblematic of the writing throughout—simple, present tense, tip-of-the-iceberg sorta stuff.

Makes you think.

Writing is what it is. But it is also something more. Much, much more.

"I believe that every human being," says Sherman a few lines later, "is a natural born storyteller."

Sherman isn't saying, dismissively, "Meh, anyone can do that." He is saying everyone has it in him or her. There's a difference there, a big one, an open, egalitarian bent that fits with everything that follows in Master Course.

After the introduction, five lessons guide the reader from the naming of that shadowy idea in the back of her mind through to building one scene upon another scene. I’ve run through the lessons many times. The ebb and flow of Sherman’s prose, the intimate, right-there-with-you tone, has a way of opening the floodgates and sending me off on gloriously thick word floods!

Next, there are ten essays on craft with topics ranging from character to hypnotic writing to scene, two short stories, and an essay on the Ozarks. Any one of these I’d buy separately.

It’s hard to believe this book has only been out since 2011. Always fresh and new, it still feels as though it has always been there, on my shelf, on my desk, woven into my creative process. A lean 113 pages, this slim volume extends well beyond itself.

Lastly, Master Course in Writing brings us deeply into the world of one of the great literary figures of our time and into the timeless creative process of a great storyteller. Master Course is a privilege and a thrill.
http://www.amazon.com/Master-Course-Writing-Jory-Sherman/dp/1606530364/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1376599575&sr=1-1-catcorr&keywords=Master+Course+in+Writing+by+Jory+Sherman

FASCINATING FLAWS: The Scars That Bring Us and Our Characters to Life ---by Marc Cameron

If you looked closely at the inside of my bride’s left hand, you’d see the a little web of scars under her wedding band. The story behind them typifies her personality, and, frankly, the reasons I was attracted to her in the first place. She didn’t have these particular scars when we got married, but she did have one on her neck and a little one on her ankle—and each of those tells a story as well. Now she has gobs—of scars and stories.  So do most of us, I’ll bet. Babies, breast cancer, emergency appendectomies, horseshoe nails…heck, just living life, does that to you.

They say: “clothes make the man”, but I think our scars…or at least the wounds that give us those scars make us—and the characters we create—interesting.

Some of the scars on my hands are from police work, but most are from shoeing, or otherwise working around horses. At least three are from stupidity with pocketknives. I have a scar between my eyes from an overzealous deputy marshal during defensive tactics training. She thought I was ready and attacked me with a baton while I was explaining a particular technique to the rest of the class. I could pinch my nose together and blow blood-bubbles out the wound so it was really kind of cool. Anyway, she and I both have stories to tell over that incident.

My two newest wounds—that will shortly become scars—are from changing the oil on Modestine, my BMW motorcycle, before we ride down the Alaska Highway to Texas in coming weeks.

A guy I once fought flipped himself (at least that’s the way I remember it) through a sliding glass door as he was trying to get away from me. This was pre-shatterproof days so the door all but exploded into horrific daggers of glass. The guy froze on his back, legs in the air, as still as a statue with a long shard of glass sticking out of his…let’s just say below his hip pocket. Missed anything too important by a few centimeters, but it sure stopped the fight…and he’s got a heck of a battle scar.

My grandpa on my father’s side was one of the kindest men I ever met. He was a muleskinner, building roads with his team in the 20s, owned a honkytonk when my dad was a youngster and worked in the oilfields in West Texas. Now, that man had some scars. It baffled me as a boy when I’d help him build fence and he’d skin a knuckle and keep working—when I was sure we needed to go back to the house and get a band-aid before he bled to death. He had a scar on the back of his neck shaped like a half moon, apparently left years before when someone in his honkytonk smacked him with the base of a broken beer bottle. As a boy, it was a big deal to know that my sweetheart of a grandpa had a past that included a bar fight or two.

Our oldest son has a scar over his eyebrow from the nine stitches he got when he got bucked of a little horse I was training. He was six years old and should never have been on that particular horse by himself. I carry some internal scars from the guilt of putting him up there in the first place.

One of my defensive tactics instructors in US Marshals Basic had a long scar across his cheek. He was an accomplished kick boxer and all around tough dude. As basic deputy trainees, we came up with dozens of scenarios of knife fights, arrests gone bad, and all sorts of great stories. After graduation, the instructor told us the truth. The chain had broken on his heavy bag while he was kicking it, snapping back and impacting his face. Essentially, he’d been knocked out by his training equipment.

Some of our scars are internal--physical and more figurative. I came off a patrol horse when I was a young mounted police officer in what we affectionately called an “involuntary rapid aerial dismount”.  Six ribs snapped in the process, putting me in the hospital. Every few months those internal scars decide to act up and re-tell me their story, prompting my wife to force an aspirin on me just in case I’m having a heart attack.

Sometimes it’s the emotional scars that affect us the most deeply.  Bad decisions, inaction, harsh words—both spoken and received—illnesses, loss of loved ones, shattered relationships, all scarify our souls. Hopefully, a friend or pastor or bishop or rabbi or whatever sin eater we put our faith in, can help us get past the really bad stuff. But we still come out changed—maybe even better.

Over the course of four books my protagonist has had little pieces of his body and soul whittled away by the life he leads. When last I left him, he could hardly walk, had just lost someone for whom he cared deeply and…well, I don’t want to give too much away. The point is, he ends up with lots and lots of scars. That’s what I believe makes him real.

In the MUSIC MAN, Professor Harold Hill says “the sadder but wiser girl” is the girl for him. I feel that way about people and literary characters who look too perfect.

I don’t care about being married to a hand model. I prefer the sort of woman who, knowing little about horses when I married her, would pull over when she saw a young foal tangled in barbed wire and do all she could to free the poor thing, even if it meant a trip to the emergency room, stitches, and getting her wedding ring cut off.

It’s a scar—and a story—she can be proud of.

Marc Cameron is a retired Chief Deputy US Marshal and 29-year law enforcement veteran. His short stories have appeared in BOYS’ LIFE Magazine and the Saturday Evening Post. He has published nine novels, six of them Westerns (several as a ghost writer and two under his pen name, Mark Henry).  His present Jericho Quinn series—NATIONAL SECURITy, ACT OF TERROR, STATE OF EMERGENCY and TIME OF ATTACK (February 2014 Kensington) features an adventure motorcyclist, Air Force OSI agent and renaissance man who spends his days sorting out his life and kicking terrorist butt.  Marc lives in Alaska with his beautiful bride and BMW motorcycle.

Visit him at:

www.marccameronbooks.com

http://www.facebook.com/MarcCameronAuthor

Wild Cow Milking, Lawmen, and the Beatles @JacquieRogers #OldWest #Western

August in the Old West
by Jacquie Rogers

Confession: I didn't have time to scour the news-papers for juicy tidbits this month because of deadlines because ...  tada!  I was there!  Yep, headed out to Owyhee County to get my country fix. There is one Old West article -- which is at the end of all my self-indulgence, er, blog post.

What a fun week!  (All except for the three days I spent head-down finishing my deadline book.)  One of the aspects of rural life that I really miss is the connection with community and the generations.  The Owyhee County Fair is all about those two things.  Here's Daria Paxton with her art entry:

This is Daria and her proud papa, Matt Paxton, with their cattail arrangement:

And here's Florence Paxton's (Matt's mom, Daria's grandmother) entry:

To me, this is the spirit of the Old West--creativity; making a full and rich family life out of desert; taking pride in your family and your accomplishments.

And who knew the British Invasion even came to Owyhee County?  I have pictures!  Take a good look at Matt in the middle picture.  Well, he has an alter-ego. :)

That's Matt on the left and his brother, Jim, on the right.  They're in a very accomplished retro-Beatles band called Get Back, and played a three-hour concert in 100-degree heat--yep, full costume and wigs.  These guys are terrific, too, although they could use some work with their between song patter.  Their British accent has a decided Owyhee County twang.

Let's Rodeo!

Then there's the Owyhee County Rodeo, where you'll find some rugged fellows and not a whole lot of polish.  A lot of the local men compete, and do pretty well, too.

They start 'em young there, as is the case in many rural areas.  To the left are some mutton busters.  This boy is probably about six years old.  The winner of the event was a little girl in pink chaps who showed them all how it's done.  She even had the strut back to the chutes down pat.

The rodeo has all the usual events, plus Wild Cow Milking.  I'm posting a picture but you won't see much.  Actually, we didn't see much, either, because this is a fast and furious event.  

These cows have never seen a human before and aren't all that willing to share their milk.  Final score: Cows, 5; Cowboys, 1.  The good news was that the EMTs got to watch the whole show this year, and that doesn't happen very often.

A Lawman's Solution

As promised, here's an article from the August 9, 1873, issue of The Owyhee Avalanche:

SHARP PRACTICE. Deputy Sheriff S. H. Small, of Baker County, Oregon, arrived in town last Monday night with warrants of arrest for two men who had deserted from the U. S. Army, and subsequently robbed a store on Powder River, near Backer City.  He tracked them to the vicinity of Silver City, and naturally came to the conclusion that he would find them here.  While taking a tramp round town the next morning, Small espied the two fugitives sitting in front of Sommercamp's saloon.  They had just arrived on foot and were resting themselves.  A dilemma now presented itself to the Oregon official.  He could have his men arrested and put in charge of the Sheriff of Owyhee till such time as a requisition from the Governor of Oregon would demand them, but he wanted to keep the matter quiet, and if possible take the fellows back with him.  A plan was finally hit upon, and worked admirably.  Small got an acquaintance to hire the two chaps ostensibly to work on a ranch at Camp Lyon, which is about 20 miles from here, and just across the boundary line between Idaho and Oregon.  Totally unsuspecting the trap that had been prepared for them the two culprits left town in a wagon, followed by Small and assistant on horseback.  As soon as they put foot on Oregon soil, the two ranch-hands were, of course, arrested and are now most likely bewailing their fate in the Baker County Jail.  It was decidedly a case of sharp practice, and Mr. Small deserves credit for the successful manner in which he carried it out.

May your saddle never slip.

Jacquie Rogers 
Website, Facebook, 
Twitter, Goodreads, 
Romancing The West
Hearts of Owyhee series
#1: Much Ado About Marshals
#2: Much Ado About Madams
#3: Much Ado About Mavericks