Back to Writing

I may be back, or at least I hope I’m back. With a little luck, a fast horse, the grace of God, and lots of fair weather and sunshine I am going to attempt, again, a five or six times a month blog post.

It’s been a long year. I have dealt with things I never wanted to, none of us do. Family, health, finances, aging, the same things all of us have, or will have to deal with at some point in our lives. I didn’t handle any of them well and wrote only a handful of blog posts and little of anything else in an entire year. I have several books in various states, one a finished rough draft, one 80% complete and another off to a good start. Goal – I will finish something before the year’s end.

Did I learn anything from my time off? Yes. The less I did, the more my sales fell – I know, shocking. I also kind of missed the three or four thousand words a week I was writing.

Thank you to all my patient readers who keep asking when the next book or blog is coming. Looks like there will be more.

Wanna take a look? Find all my books, available in softcover, and eBook here – https://www.amazon.com/Neil-Waring/e/B00XV26KLC

Now back to work on the third in the series of my Blade Holme’s Western Mysteries, this one, tentatively titled after a completed rough draft – Wendover

My Writing Week

Feeling Better – It seemed to take too long – seven weeks, but at last, I am feeling better. So much better that my wife and I have got in a couple of nice hikes in the park. Now, come on spring.

Taking a break

Writing Week – A good one for me, this week a bit over 3,000 words. Three thousand might not be a lot for some writers, but for me, that is not a bad week. I saw a tweet this morning where someone’s goal for the day was 5,000 words – wow.

Book Sales – January was okay, not great, but not bad. I did not sell as many books or eBooks, but my KDP pages read was up. Up for me means above 10,000 pages, about $50.00 worth. Some books sell, and others do not do so well seems to be a fact that everyone selling books has to face. My historical western mystery- Commitment – has been a consistent and reliable seller. If all my books sold as well as Commitment, I would be making thousands, not a hundred or two each month. As one of my kids used to say, “Oh well!”

My nonfiction gardening, humor and mystery book – Beginning Gardening & Other Entertaining Lies: Including – 4 Garden Murder Mysteries, is, at this time my slowest seller. Going to try a new cover and maybe with spring coming some advertising to see if it picks up a bit. The gardening book I really like, and thought it was a unique idea with the chapters of garden tips broken up with short, murder in the garden mysteries, but, alas, it never caught on. Maybe someday.

It is still too early yet to tell how my newest and fourth in the series of kids chapter books, Howling at the Moon, is going to do. It will be the second to the last book in the series, and I have been told it has a great cover – hope that helps.

Writing Goals – I seem to be on track for my goal of a quarter million words this year, and that’s good.  

From the Old West – Do not tamper with the natural ignorance of a Greenhorn.

Photo of the Week –

Mule Deer Buck looking at Me

As always, you can find all of my books here on Amazon

Follow me here on twitter at @wyohistoryguy

Keep on Reading and keep on Writing

  & 

Have a wonderful February.

my site

garden book – Beginning Gardening & Other Entertaining Lies: Including – 4 Garden Murder Mysteries

three books last one Melvin books

Commitment

Christmas skies

Ghost Dance

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07M8JD3B1/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i14 Howling at the Moon

New Site Coming Soon

In the near future – who knows what that means – I will be moving most of my blog posts to WordPress.

With Google+, shutting down soon anyone that would like to continue following me, can find me here on my new Facebook author site –

Or find me on Twitter, here –  @wyohistoryguy

I will still be on blogger, but may start doing more with my WordPress site just in case Google abandons it blogs also.

I still blog on several Google sites but will be doing much more here on WordPress, including a new author/writing site – information coming soon.

 

Western Short Stories – What A Ride

I cannot say how terrific it feels to see my book of Christmas short stories is still selling. Although the stories are set around Christmas, they are stories for any time of the year. The short tales are more of love, hope, relationships and most of all, the west.

The book did well before Christmas and is still going strong, selling a few copies, now, nearly every day. I often get notes on blog posts or by email about my books, and occasionally by mail. Recently I received a most heartwarming note about this book. It was so appreciated, as all of us that write hope that we are making a difference in our readers day, if nothing else, but to bring a bit more pleasure and happiness into someone’s life.

Take a look here, you can read the entire first story for free. Now that’s a good deal.

Interested in westerns? Read my western writing blog posts here – http://confessionsofawriterofwesterns.blogspot.com

Writing – 2016

Christmas is over, and now we are counting down to the New Year. Each year I make a few resolutions, and each year they seem to go quickly by the wayside. Last year I decided, for the first time, to keep track of how many words I wrote and published. I did it, but am not sure I will keep track this year, seemed to put too much pressure on me, and I started worrying about the days I didn’t write. Sometimes that causes a bit, or a whole bunch of bad writing, not worth saving. (Oh, for the record, I wrote a tad less than a quarter of a million words this year. Quite a bit for me but partly because I wrote a lot recently, trying to finish up last year’s goals)

This year my goals are simple – 2017

1. Publish the third of my kid’s books – This book is finished but is yet to have a cover. I am sure to get this one out. The first two of the Mike, Moose, and Me series were fun and sold a good number of copies, I hope this one does as well.
2. Publish the second, in what I hope will be a series of five, western mysteries, with Marshall Blade Holmes as the protagonist. This one is 90% written, but has some things I need to clean up. Then editing.
3. Finish my modern day mystery, set in a Wyoming small town with murder on a golf course. This is to be a novella, and I am about the halfway Fun, especially for golfers and mystery lovers. (still in the western genre)
4. Publish a book for gardeners, yep gardeners. This one started on a whim and now is about 2/3 complete. Gardening tips in the western high country with every fourth chapter a murder mystery.
5. Continue research and writing of my second nonfiction book. I hope to add another 20,000 words to this one before the years is out.
6. Keep on blogging, for the past few years I have written more than 100 blog posts each year, twice over 200, this year about 10-12 each month on my various blogs should do.

2016 – This year I published one book and one short story. I also ran a five-day reduced price, promotion on my Christmas book, which was well received. I also did a giveaway of a short story, that story is still doing well, selling for .99 cents. My newest book, Ghost of the Fawn, has enjoyed a good run on Amazon, staying in the top 200 for several weeks.

Will I Make This Year’s Goals? – Maybe I will do more than my stated resolutions in the New Year, I hope not to do less, it often depends on our travel and my love of photography and golf. Several things I am sure of. I will run a couple more promotions for my books, I will take lots of photos, I will write and edit, and put some time in at far away, but not too far, destinations.

See all of my books and my Amazon author site by clicking the link    https://www.amazon.com/Neil-Waring/e/B00XV26KLC

Been Away Too Long

It has been three years since I have used this blog. Way too long, but I am back. Where was I?

Writing, I guess. I have published six books since I last posted. You can find them all here. I will not be away that long again, maybe a few days.

The End of the Old West

As I was writing an introduction to a book that I am working on several thoughts crossed my mind. The book, about Fort Laramie and the American West, has been a much more than interesting research project. Fort Laramie may be more a symbol of the old west and last frontier than anything else.

Fort Laramie 1849-1890

Throughout most of its active years, Fort Laramie was the most important fort of the West. The fort protected an area that was mostly unsettled when it was established as a military fort in 1849. One could argue that the 41 years the fort was active, were the defining years of what many called the old west. Yes, there were people, quite a few, in fact, Native Indian Tribes who would soon be displaced, and a few hunters, trappers, and wanderers, and with Fort Laramie, Soldiers.

Here I am at Fort Laramie Trapper and Trader Days Last Summer

 

 End of the Frontier

During the active years of the fort the country rapidly expanded. The Gold Rush, Transcontinental Railroad, Telegraph, Pony Express, Civil War, and economic woes in the east all lead to the end of the old west. By the time 1890 rolled around, Benjamin Harrison was president and the United States Census Bureau announced the end of the frontier. In 1893, Fredrick Jackson Turner wrote an article for the Chicago World’s Fair, stating that there was no longer a line of Frontier in America. With the closing of Fort Laramie in 1890 also came the disgraceful Massacre at Wounded Knee and statehood for Wyoming. When Owen Wister published the first Western in 1902, The Virginian, the old west was gone.

Wild West

What about the Wild West? If it ever was, which it was not, it was a part of the old west. The Wild West was a creation by pulp writers turning out dozens of dime novel westerns and a few years later, Hollywood expanded the myth.

My part of the Wild West – 30 Miles from home last March

 

Fort Laramie was the first sign, or last sign, of civilization to an American people who farmed the land or lived in cities on the east and west coasts and in the south. It was also a sign of things to come, and 41 years after it opened, the buildings were sold off for salvage.

4th of July at Fort Laramie

 

The Time’s They Are Changing

At my age, we just returned from our weekend 50-year high school reunion, I am not always in favor of the changes I see taking place. It was no different with the ending of the frontier, some saw it as a good sign, others hated the Idea of everything settled. Such is life, change and time march on.

Thanks for reading it’s great to be back.

Modern Day Western

Just finished reading, Cormac McCarthy’s, No Country for Old Men, I liked the story line, and have always enjoyed, so called, modern day western’s. The trouble I had with this book, and one other of his that I have read, is trying to figure out where dialog starts and ends, or story narration is taking place. Part of the way down each page I would figure it out and then often start that page over. But somewhere along the ling I realized I could not put it down—I really liked the story, and now I want to read another of his works. Good book, but beware of the lack of punctuation.

Western Movies

In just a few days the new version of True Grit opens. Will it be a winner or just another western that today’s audiences don’t like? Fifty years ago nearly everything on Television was some kind of western series and many feature films were westerns. Did too much cowboy time on TV kill the western? Twenty-nine series westerns in 1959 –Over exposure, maybe! And maybe that is what killed the big budget westerns on the silver screen. There have been some exceptions but for the most part westerns, of today, are marginal hits at best.

Maybe westerns don’t lend themselves to enough special effects and big screen tricks to keep today’s young viewers in their seats.

Or likely we oldsters don’t go to the theater enough.

Just for fun here is a list of my favorite westerns (some well know some a little more obscure) – not in order just my top 15.

What are your favorites?

       Here is mine.

1. Open Range

2. 3-10 to Yuma

3. The outlaw Josie Wales

4. Winchester 73

5. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

6. The Shadow Riders

7. Last of the Dogmen

8. Jeremiah Johnson

9. Dances With Wolves

10.  Stage Coach

11.  Unforgiven

12.  The Good the Bad and the Ugly

13.  Rio Bravo

14.  Treasure of the Sierra Madre

15.  Ride the High Country

Lauran Paine

Every few years a new list of greatest of all time for something comes out. Westerns are no different with a little research I was able to find, greatest western novels, greatest western short stories, TV series, mini-series and movies.
Never have I read a list of the most prolific authors. I have one particular author that I really enjoy, William W. Johnstone, who wrote what I felt was a great mountain man series. He wrote in several genres, but mostly westerns. He was published for only about twenty-five years but managed to write and impressive two-hundred books.

But that does not come close to Lauran Paine the author of Open Range Men, a novel later made into the movie “Open Range”. If you have never heard of him, how about these writers all pseudonyms for Lauran Paine: John Armour, Reg Batchelor, Kenneth Bedford, Frank Bosworth, Mark Carrel, Robert Clarke, Richard Dana, J F Drexler, Troy Howard, Jared Ingersol, John Kilgore, Hunter Liggett, J K Lucas, John Morgan.
Lauran Bosworth Paine was born February 25, 1916 in Minnesota and has written more than 900 books.

–WOW-

Have you read anything by him?

Wyoming in Summer

Second night in a row I am setting out on the patio enjoying another beautiful Wyoming evening. We pay for it when winter comes but summers are spectacular.  Seventy-one degrees, southwest breeze and 27 percent humidity can’t beat it. Last night we sat outside until ten-thirty, put the blankets over us about nine. Temperature went down to 48 last night but back around 80 today.