There’s been a lot going on and writing the weekly short story fell off the priority list. The main reason...time. There just isn’t enough of it. And really it’s not just about time, it’s about mental cycles. There’s only so much thinking I can do in a day and between trying to write my second book, my day job, and life in general, I got burned out trying to come up with a short story every week. It started to feel more like something “I had to do” instead of something “I wanted to do.”
There wasn’t much I could do about Frank Rogers, there was no official warrant for his arrest, in the eyes of the law he was just another passenger on the train to Denver. Mayhap he was just minding his own business, but I knew better, Frank Rogers showing up on a train carrying cargo worth enough to pay me and Tuck three hundred dollars each to guard was no coincidence.
Mary stood in the doorway of our bedroom with her arms crossed and a concerned look on her face. Her strawberry blond hair was pulled up in a bun and her warm blue eyes stared me down. “What am I supposed to do when you don’t come back? What about the boys? Did you think about that?”
There was no sense in delaying the conversation, might as well face it head on. At least that’s what I said to myself. Truth be told, I wanted to run. Leaving Mary and the boys behind wasn’t an option. That decision was made ten years ago when Mary and I settled down on the farm. At the time it seemed like the right thing to do. One decision can dictate the rest of your days on earth, life is strange that way.
Sam set a plate of bear sign and fresh pot of coffee on the table. A trail cook that could make bear sign was a rare thing in the West, those fluffy sugar filled biscuits could put a smile on the roughest cowboy’s face. I waited until we ate the tray clean before asking the question that had been rolling around like a boulder in my head all night.
Sheriff Anderson was crooked as a Virginia fence and not much of a lawman either. My plan was to wait for him to go on his nightly rounds and take the Deputy by surprise. Then I just needed to persuade the Deputy to unlock the cell holding Mr. Jacobs, the Bar-T ranch owner and Bill Nelson, the Bar-T foreman. As far as I could figure, that was the easy part, escaping the lynch mob that would show up at the ranch in the morning … well, there wasn’t a plan for that yet.
The Bird Cage hotel was not where I wanted to be, the place was filthy. When a man lives out on the range he gets to know the difference between clean dirt and and filthy disease ridden dirt. If a cattle outfit camps in one place for more than a few days, which is rare, the dirt gets a grimy disease ridden feel to it. At that point, you don’t even want a bath, you just want some clean dirt.
I sighed. It isn’t often than a man in the West runs across a woman like Kate. We were what a more educated man would call ‘kindred spirits’, I just figured we were sinners. Kate and I both had problems, but somehow we meshed together. Yes, Kate is a lady of the night, but I have my own flaws and see no point in making judgements. Things just felt right when we were together, I'll leave it at that.
I smiled at the sight of Georgina’s long ears flopping in the moonlight. Every cowboy I rode with questioned me about riding a mule. I didn’t have enough fingers and toes to count the times Georgina saved my bacon. Mules have a bad reputation because they won’t allow themselves to be mistreated, they’re a heck of a lot smarter than horses. You can beat a horse and get it to follow your orders. That doesn’t work with a mule, a mule is your partner. You treat them right, and they’ll respect you. They’ll also keep you out of trouble on the trail. A horse will put itself in a precarious position on the trail without knowing it, then spook at the first sign of danger, not caring whether you stay in the saddle or not. A mule on the other hand will rarely get itself into a bad situation, they’ve got more trail sense than any cowboy I've ever met.
Five months ago, in the dead of winter, Erin agreed to go on a summer camping trip with James, her husband. James brought up the idea on a cold February evening, when she was in the depths of a mid-winter Michigan depression.
Ian pulled into the parking lot of the Arqia corporate headquarters building at 9:15 a.m. on a Wednesday. He opened the car door and took a deep breath of fresh air, the smell of apple blossoms calmed his mind for a moment. He reached into the backseat for his laptop case and pulled the zipper open a few inches, one last check before going inside.
There are no humans in my world, I walk among shadows. The humans faded into shadows five years ago. A meteor didn't collide with the earth, there was no flu pandemic, and artificial intelligence robots did not turn the human race into batteries. If one of those scenarios happened, Bruce Willis, Dustin Hoffman, or Keanu Reeves would be there to save us.
The voices in your head are real. They are not what you imagined them to be, but they are real. You might ask, what makes you so sure? Well, I’m the one responsible for the voices, my name is Erick. To be clear, I might not be responsible for the voice in your head, I’m only assigned one thousand customers at a time.
While on a stroll through the forest, you find strange footprints. Do you follow them?
I started reading American Assassin by Vince Flynn, which is the first book in a series about CIA Agent Mitch Rapp. The action scenes are great and it hits all the marks for a political thriller. What I don't like is that the main character, Mitch Rapp, doesn't go on a hero's journey. What I mean by hero's journey is this, the hero needs to leave the tribe, take his walking stick and go into the woods. While he (or she) is in the woods, fight some dragons, and eventually bring back to the tribe either an elixir or a piece of knowledge. The hero comes back a changed person, and the tribe benefits.
We spent a few days in Paris this week for vacation. I thought it would be best to gather my thoughts with a list. Clever sentences are beyond my grasp this week, I'll blame it on the jet lag and lack of sleep.
Yes, it's fiction, but as the person writing it, I have to be comfortable with the decisions I make while telling the story. Easier said than done. There are some big questions that have to get answered and a lot of responsibility comes with the answers.
I hesitate to say it, but I think I'm finally on the right track. I wrote five chapters and was very nervous about the direction. I had my first line editor, a.k.a. the beautiful bride read it before moving forward. She has a great sense for distinguishing between works and doesn't work. I got the go ahead from the beautiful bride and I think things are finally settling into place.
All that's left is turning blank pages into chapters. Nothing to it, should be a breeze :)
A friend recommended the book to me and I reluctantly took it. I honestly had no idea what to expect, what is 'Japanese Fiction'? I'm not sure that's even a genre, but that's the label I put on the book in my head. I was totally wrong to put that label on the book. The characters and scenarios are very familiar, in the book, if the author replaced Tokoyo with New York City, a reader would easily think the book was written by an American author. What I think I'm trying to get at is, the book isn't a book by a 'Japanese' author with 'Japanese' themes and characters. It's a book written by a human about human experiences and it's got some serious depth to it.
This was not my most productive week. My plan was to start writing this week, it didn't happen. I could come up with a hundred reasons why it didn't happen, but none of them matter. The only thing that counts is sitting down and doing the work.
