Journal Notes

As an author I primarily work alone. I co-write material with Howard Kazanjian, but he is in Los Angeles and I’m in the northern portion of the state. My day begins at my desk by myself and ends the same way. I’m not complaining. I couldn’t write any other way, but there are times I wish I had someone close to discuss the industry with. I found out yesterday that the Elizabeth Custer book will be released in March. I’d like to know the best way to launch the material to the general public. I need wise counsel. A life coach. Someone in a top hat maybe to pop out just before I make a crucial error singing a song entitled Mistake. I have been invited by the Single Action Shooting Society to participate in their annual holiday conference in Las Vegas in December. It sounds like a lot of fun, but so did attending the Western Writer’s Association meeting last year in San Antonio and that turned out to be one of the worst experiences I’ve ever had. And I’ve had some awful experiences. My judgment making skills are not state of the art. The initial financing for the film Thunder Over the Prairie fell through at the last minute, but it looks like Nomadic Pictures will pick up the project. They produced a movie with AMC entitled Broken Trail. I have every confidence they will do right by Thunder. It’s an odd career I’ve chosen for myself. At 49, however, I’ve got too much time invested in it to give up now. Although, some serious vocational changes will have to be made in the next few years. There’s got to be nothing more pathetic than a 50 plus year-old woman hanging around Hollywood still trying to pitch screenplays. My publisher asked me to update the book Outlaw Tales of California for a re-release date in 2012. I’ve got that along with the Sam Sixkiller book due to be released in May 2012. I know I’m going to need more to keep going financially and to combat the hurt and torture deep inside that has brought about the sadness deep in my soul and the scalding pain of hate over my brother’s situation. As long as there is a western story to be told with revenge as the central theme, I think I’ll make it through. As I mentioned, I need wise counsel. So did Charlie Pitts in 1876. Pitts was a gang member who was killed in a gunfight near Madelia, Montana in which the Youngers were captured after the Northfield bank robbery. A derringer belonging to bank teller, A.E. Bunker was found in Charlie’s pocket. Even if Pitts weren’t killed there was no way he was going to get away with saying he had nothing to do with the Northfield robberies. Then again, I’ve seen liars get away with murder, so maybe Pitts could have talked his way out of the situation.

A couple of months ago I was notified by cowgirl LeeAnn Sharpe that I was going to be the recipient of the Spirit of the West Alive award. LeeAnn is not just a cowgirl, but a writer and the creator of the award that honors those people who preserve the spirit of the west either through books, art, and/or film. The award is co-sponsored by the publication the Wild West Gazette and past recipients of the award include Bruce Dern, Buck Taylor, and Hugh O’Brian. The award ceremony takes place on Saturday, October 16 at 130 p.m. at the Wild West Festival in Saguaro Ranch Park. I am looking forward to it, but wish my brother could be there to share it with me. I always wish my brother was able to be well and home. Home being any place away from those that lie and murder. Throughout the history of the Old West brothers and sisters stood up for their siblings, fighting for them if they were falsely accused of a crime or had their lives taken away by a harlot and her lover. I’m reminded of western lawmen Dallas Stoudenmire. Stoudenmire had a reputation for being exceptional with a weapon. His claim to fame was killing four men in a five second gunfight. In 1882, Stoudenmire was about to finish off Doc Manning, a diminutive man with the fighting instincts of a terrier. After Dallas shot Doc in the chest twice, Doc’s brother, Jim, rushed onto the scene and dispatched Stoudenmire with a shot behind the left ear. Jim missed with his first shot at only 8 feet. Stoudenmire lived and was later ostracized from the community for his abuse of power. Jim never gave up the quest to see that Stoudenmire was brought to justice for what he did to his brother. That’s the spirit of the Old West I happily try to preserve everyday. I’ll keep at it until the real outlaws are sent to jail for a very long time for what they’ve done.

Dressed in my Dale Evans costume, complete with a fringed shirt, riding pants, and white cowboy boot, I’m ready to start the work day. I’m traveling to Lake Wildwood in a few hours to do a book signing and give a lecture about the cowboy film duo of Rogers and Evans. Clint Black has been working hard to attract interest from production companies to back the film project about the couple’s life. Hope this studio green lights the movie. His efforts are much appreciated and I’m looking forward to meeting with the studio heads. The book Outlaw Tales of California is doing well. I’ve been asked to update the tome and add a few more outlaws to the mix. Crime was rampant in the Old West so finding additional bad guys to write about won’t be hard to do. I’d like to finally have the book I wrote about the outlaws in my own sphere of influence released, but timing is everything. Now isn’t the time, but soon. And speaking of outlaws, on this day in 1896, Killin Jim Miller ended his feud with Sheriff Bud Frazer by blowing off most of Frazer’s head with a shotgun in Toyah, Texas. Frazer’s sister roundly cursed him for it and he threatened to shoot her too. His tough talk didn’t stop her from making him pay for what he did to her brother. Now that’s a women worth admiring. Still settling into my new place. Hope to locate the box with my undergarments in them today. I can’t keep wearing the bottoms to bathing suits. More on the new books to come in the Women of the Old West series in the next post.

When pioneers moved west they loaded all their belongings in wagons, carts, and onto pack mules. They packed everything they had for the trip – sets of fine dinnerware that had been passed down from generation to generation, stacks of books, several outfits of clothing, etc.. East coast newspapers, encouraged by the government to write glowing articles about westward expansion, reported that the way west was easy and that no complications should be expected. United States politicians and wealthy entrepreneurs wanted the land populated and would have said anything to get hordes of people to stretch the boundaries of the country beyond the Mississippi.
The trip was anything but easy as the pioneers found out. Wagons had to be disassembled to be lowered down sides of mountains, carts had to be pulled through sand and dense rock, mules fainted under the constant weight of the cargo they were saddled with and some had to be eaten when the food source was depleted. The majority of the possessions the pioneers started the journey out with never made it to their destination. The trail west was littered with dishes, picture frames, furniture, and clothing. Only the bare necessities actually made it to the end of the trail.
I recently moved across town and found myself in much the same situation. I foolishly believed I could easily transport 18 years worth of belongings to a new house, unpack the items quickly, and go on with barely a hic-up in my daily routine. While attempting to settle into the home, I’ve had to throw away mountains of books, miles of knick-knacks, and a river of clothing. Why I was hanging on to a pair of jeans I wore when I was a junior in high school is a mystery. Why did I pack three bottles of aspirin with only three tablets in each bottle? Why do I have two sets of china? I don’t cook and have never formally entertained. Unless you count having people over for Ring-Dings and a liter of Pepsi formal dining, and even that doesn’t require china. Many of these useless items had to be gotten rid of in order to make the move.
Still in the process of unpacking, my home looks a lot like an episode of the show Hoarders. I’m ashamed and embarrassed that I have so many unopened boxes of Wheaties. I love Cap Ripkin and years ago purchased boxes of cereal with his image on the front. I guess I thought someday I’d sell the items on eBay. Why do I have so many decorative pillows for my bed? Has anyone ever equated the number of decorative pillows one has with personal wealth? I find I’m now having to take the example set by the tired, misinformed pioneer and am getting rid of even more items I have no place for in the new home. With the exception of the unopened Cal Ripkin cereal boxes. I mean – come on! It’s Cal Ripkin.

About 17 years ago today I began my professional writing career. Some of the material has been well received and others have been highly criticized. Perhaps it’s human nature, but it’s always easier to remember the harsh reviews. It’s hard to forget someone who sends you an email that reads, “You are an author worth watching. Not reading…just watching.” Recently, however, I received an email about my work I’ll recall for a long time. Candis from Tucson wrote, “I so wanted to drop a short letter to you. In lack of anything new to read on my shelves I have started sorting through some of my favorite ones I’ve already torn through. Only today have I noticed that you have written some of my favorite books on females in the west. I am sure you are contacted on this often, but I, as well, wanted to give you my due gratitude in bringing so many of these unsung female everyday heroes to light. Without you so many would not know their stories. I find my own strength in these women every day. If they can do the impossible so can I. You’ll never know how much it means to me. Thank you and looking forward to many more reads.” I thought this message would be a good way to mark my writing anniversary. I look forward to many more years of writing and yes, reviews. If only they could all be good. I will not be updating this site for a few days because I’m in the process of moving. I don’t want to conclude this entry without sharing what was going on in the Old West around this time. In 1857, Brigham Young declared marital law in the Utah Territory. The atmosphere was tense, as many Saints remembered the murder of their first prophet in Nauvoo, Illinois, and the subsequent exodus to Council Bluffs. With the territory under martial law, President Young forbid any US armed forced to enter Utah. It would prove to be a fatal decision. Happy Trails until we meet again, readers.

Out in the wild, wild West, the men were strong, the women were hard, the horses were fast, and the talk was rough – rougher than the saddle on a rustler’s steed, rougher than a barroom brawl, rougher than the face of a lonesome drifter, rougher than…well, you get the picture. I like the fact that a cur on the rugged frontier could be called out for what he or she was and there were no reprisals because everyone knew the truth was being told. The only place I see that happening now of days is in a western film. In the movie Duel in the Sun, Senator Jackson McCanles, played by Lionel Barrymore, tells his son, Jesse McCanles, played by Joseph Cotton, exactly what’s in store for anyone who harms his family or tries to take over his land. “You mean to shoot down unarmed men?” Jesse asks. “Just like they was rattlesnakes,” the Senator replies. Henry Fonda’s character in Fort Apache doesn’t mince words when telling a corrupt Indian agent just what he thinks about him. “Mr. Meechum,” he says, “You’re a blackguard, a liar, a hypocrite, and a stench in the nostrils of honest men.” I think that line would be applicable when referring to many government officials today. In my estimations it also applies to anyone who would manufacture evidence in order to put someone in prison. Rough talk in the Old West was generally followed by harsh punishment for being a “stench in the nostrils of honest men.” Now of days blackguards go about their everyday life unpunished, like they’ve done nothing wrong. They lack a soul or a conscious. They attended college, fish with friends, get married, have children, all without the weight of their sins pressing on their hearts. In the movie Forty Guns, Barbara Stanwyck’s character, Jessica Drummond points out the consequences for living such a cold life to murderer Griff Bonnell played by Barry Sullivan. “You don’t want the only evidence of your life’s work to be bullet holes in men.” Griff eventually recognizes that Jessica is right and corrects his mistakes. I don’t hold out much hope for that happening with the people who manufactured evidence against my brother. I live for the day the rough truth comes out. I hope I have the presence of mind to say something equally as profound as Robert Mitchum’s character in the western Pursued. “See that rise,” Michum’s character points out to his wife played by Teresa Wright. Both characters were aching to see justice come to the real criminals in the film. “They’ll be coming over that rise. They’ll come killing. But we’ll be ready to stop them this time and put them away for good for what they’ve done.”

What happened in the Wild West on this day more than 137 years ago reminds me of the dangers of lying and believing lies. On August 26, 1873, outlaw Tiburcio Vasquez and six others were robbing a store in Tres Pinos, California. They promised no one in the store would get hurt and the shoppers in the store believed them. But the bad guys lied. Violence erupted and three townsmen were killed and a child was beaten unconscious. Now I think most reasonable people wouldn’t deny that some lies are harmless little isolated episodes of convenient untruth. Gentle inaccuracies like: “Hey, a lime-green paisley tie, great!” Or “This mutton sorbet is delicious!” But on the whole lying is the horns, claws, and teeth we weren’t born with. A great many lies told are not harmless they are cruel and have far reaching consequences. People lose family members and suffer greatly. Once we found out we could hunt animals by trickery, the tool of deception became our sharpest stick and we soon learned to turn it on each other. To this day the ability to lie remains the most well-oiled wrench in our box. Okay, perhaps it’s a bit harsh to call all of us liars. Whatever you prefer. Fast deconstructionists…truth managers…reality stylist…Whatever you want. The truth is that the truth has become more malleable than Stretch Armstrong in a Navajo sweat lodge. The truth used to be the Holy Grail. The truth used to be the brass ring, the mint-condition Solo Spotlight Barbie in the original box, the Babe Ruth rookie card with the original stick of gum still intact. But I think we may officially consider the gum to be chewed and stuck under the theatre seat. The bottom line is this, lying merely for personal gain is morally and ethically wrong. And I feel I can say that will all integrity and conviction to you, the smartest journal readers that I have ever written for in my entire life, I love you all. By the way, Tiburcio Vasquez was captured, tried, convicted for his legitimate crimes, and hung by a rope until he was dead.

Researching and writing about the unsettled frontier has become an obsession with me – which works out well since that’s what I do for a living. I check a variety of sources every week to see how the books I’ve written on that subject are doing. Most days I’m encouraged by the sales, but then there are the days where I look past those stats and glance at some of the reviews the work has received and feel like I’ve made a huge vocational error. Some people can be incredibly cruel and I don’t fully understand the reasoning behind it. It did get me thinking about criticism though. Why is it that every single activity in our lives is subject to a mean-spirited critique? Who wants to listen to some unqualified blowhard, having convinced themselves that their uninformed opinion is somehow relevant, yarble through an insufferably long-winded diatribe…Oops. Okay, I’m guilty here too, but having copped to that, I must say we truly are a nation of critics, sniping from La-z-Boys at a few active individuals struggling to effect political change, make a movie, write a book, tell a joke, design a better faucet-okay, that guy is a jerk. The faucets are fine, stop screwing with them, all right. The ones in airports are like science projects with the electronic eyes and motion sensors, water-saving springs – Faucet guy! Stop it! Look, we used to keep this need to criticize bottled up in the Arts Swamp where it caromed harmlessly off giant soup cans, blank verse, and untalented exhibitionists smearing themselves with chocolate. But now, it’s spilled over the media flood wall, and into every activity of our lives: Sports, pet training, home repair, snow removal-you name it, somewhere there’s a cable show dedicated to ripping it. I’m not saying there isn’t a place for solid, intelligent, constructive criticism. But when was the last time you read a review of something, a movie, play, book, that gave you a real feel of what the author was trying to say. For many critics, no matter what they write contains a personal shot at the writer, pet trainer, and yes, even the faucet guy. Now I don’t have any personal ax to grind here. I’m not the kind of person to name names – in fact, I have a hard time remembering the name of the insensitive blowhard that left a review on Amazon.com under the handle Jolie-de-livre. But uh…I feel so cleansed… The key thing to remember about critics is that they remain dependent on the innovator, the person doing the real work of creating. And because they just sit on the sidelines of life, never the hunter, they are doomed to be forgotten. But it’s not all their fault. I mean, we give them their chance when we rely too much on critics to make our choices for us. We think we need help, that somehow we don’t have all the facts. But you know something? We don’t need help! You like the Red Skelton painting? Buy the Red Skelton painting, all right? You know what you like better than they do. I’d be happy to send you the book in question and you can render your own opinion. Drop me a line and I’ll get a copy of Buffalo Gals to you as soon as possible. Use the contact section on this site to reach me. I’d be pleased to hear from you. Now, on to what really matters. On this day in the Old West in 1877, McNelly’s bulldog, John Barclay Armstrong, arrest John Wesley Hardin on a train in Pensacola. The outlaw, Jim Mann, was killed in the fray. Happy Monday.

For a long time now I’ve been considering going back to school. I want to study communications and I have enough credits from my previous college years to pursue a degree in that area. The thought of having to take courses I’m not all that interested in to acquire the degree isn’t that appealing to me however. I always liked school, but nothing I learned in school prepared me for life on any level. My first book should have read, “See Dick balance his checkbook. See Jane leave an unhealthy relationship. Run, Jane, run!” After meeting with a college advisor I learned it would take a little more than two years to get the degree. I’d begin the studies in January 2011. I’m undecided about what to do. How is it possible to be 49 years-old and still unclear about the direction you should take? I have a good friend who got her master’s degree in psychology a few months ago. She’s over fifty, still single, no kids, with 6 cats, but now she knows why. I’m not unclear about what I want to continue to write. I love the Old West and I’ll keep writing on the subject as long as I can. There’s so much Old West material to write about. For example – on this day in 1884, Doc Holliday shot Billy Allen in Leadville, Colorado over a five dollar gambling debt. Doc was arrested, tried and acquitted in that shooting. It was to be Doc’s final gunfight. Bad guy John Wesley Hardin left this world on this day in 1895. Hardin was attacked and killed from behind by John Selman during a dice game in the Acme Saloon in El Paso, Texas. So much great material! I could write about Holliday or Hardin, gambling or gunfights – the possibilities are endless. Too bad the local college won’t let me major in something like “Wild West Women” or “Outlaws and Lawman.” That’s a pursuit I’d get behind without hesitation.

In my humble opinion one of the best westerns ever made is Tombstone. Written by Kevin Jarre, the dialogue is some of the most brilliant and honest I’ve heard. The dialogue the Doc Holliday character recites about Johnny Ringo resonates with me. It pains me to say it, but I can understand Ringo’s angst. Doc Holliday says to Wyatt Earp, “A man like Ringo has got a great big hole, right in the middle of himself. And he can never kill enough, or steal enough, or inflict enough pain to ever fill it.” Earp asks, “What does he want?” Holliday tells him, “Revenge.” I’ve felt that way a lot over the last six years. I just want revenge. It pains me to see how much my brother suffers and to watch the bad guys get away with it. It pains me because I know an unforgiving spirit binds me to the abuser. I may think that in order for the person to be punished, I need to remain angry, but all I’m doing is hurting myself even more. I want to get past it, but the more Rick slips away the more I struggle with the command to forgive. It’s a daily fight and I’m just tired of it all. Thank God I have my work. I’ve started to fine tune the chapter outline for the Sam Sixkiller book. I’m anxiously awaiting copies of the case files he kept to arrive from the National Archives. I can begin writing once those get here. Picked up a couple of copies of the August edition of True West magazine. The ad for a few of my book are in that edition. I’m pleased with the way it turned out. Thanks to Cattle Kate’s for teaming up with me on the advertisement. Continued prayers go out to Brent Harris and his family in Dodge City. Hope he’ll be up on his feet again soon. On this day in 1873, corrupt law enforcement officer Happy Jack Morco participated in a quarrel with Ben Thomson that resulted in the shooting death of Sheriff C B Whitney in Ellsworth, Kansas. Whitney was a participant in the Battle of Beecher’s Island against the Sioux in 1868. Happy Jack let his anger and drive for revenge get the better of him. It didn’t end well for him. Jack was shot in the head by a fellow policemen.