Close Encounters of the Moose Kind

Vacation mostly means reading, not cooking, cleaning, but still writing for me. I'm not sure I can take a vacation from writing. My head just goes on doing what it does anyway, but with much better scenery and much better inspiration. I write western historicals and this country is full of history and evidence of that. And for poetry. Actually, this writer's haven.

So, pack up trailer and head up to the high Uinta mountains for fishing, hiking, spotting animals, looking at wonderful scenery, seeing cattle ranchers at work and nature, hearing the whispers of bygone days. Perfect. The fishing is mostly for my husband and I go along when he goes down at the shore of the reservoir, but when the fishing is slow, often I wander back to the truck to read.

I was deep into Kaki Warner's new book Bride of the High Country when for some reason I looked up and saw a few other fishers pointing behind the truck. Of course, I looked.
The black dot was a moose. Slowly I put the bookmark in my book. I didn't want to lose my place, then got out my camera. I slipped out of the truck, but left the door open, afraid shutting the door would scare the moose, and I started shooting.

He got closer.

This was my picture of when he stopped and looked at me. No, there is not a moose in this picture. I was trying to remember if he was one of those animals you do  not want to look in the eyes. I think he was trying to figure out if I was a threat.

I almost missed this one, too. I was busy trying to start my heart again.

Finally, a full picture.

Peace reigns and my heart is almost normal. I told my husband, if I had had my big camera I would have much better pictures. Yeah, right.

Making a Trail and Pictures

As I’ve been working on rewrites for Ella and the Tie-down Man and Heart’s High, developing Heart’s Ease and writing the blogs about character, I’ve been learning and, maybe, relearning.  I’ve come to several conclusions, too.

You can never have enough notes for your novels, especially on rewrites. Now, I know most writing goes from developing the story to first draft to rewrites to editing in a nice chronological and linear fashion. I’m also certain, many writers have done as I have—written books that didn’t work or were out of favor and years later revisited them. I’ve heard of writers taking many, many years to work on a book.

To do that well, you need notes, good solid notes on what you are thinking on a particular character, setting, plot point. I’ve been lost in this world I made, several times wondering what my thoughts were, where I was heading. So, I wished I’d done a better job of making a trail. And I wished I’d done one other simple thing. I wished I had attached a picture to each character sketch or the name of an actor—just something solid to envision. For me, on character, a picture or actor sets more than the look. It cements an attitude.

I search through magazines, pay attention in movies and TV for characters. Pictures are good, also, for costume and set design. It isn’t a waste of time or ‘busy’ work to find the perfect snapshot of clothing, setting, objects that serve a role. Looking through a few magazines, copying a few pictures out of books is great, but for Western Historicals that can sometimes be difficult and slim pickings.

That’s where a camera comes in. And great western scenery, native flora and fauna, animals and people. I have a wonderful camera I keep in my purse. I find the best props and locations when I least expect to and with a camera always with me, I catch it. I just purchased a little bigger camera for research, with a little more zoom, a little better quality and ability for photographing in museums and antique hunting.

Antiques are a passion of mine and one of the reasons is the stories behind the object. As I wander through the antique booths and shops, I can’t tell you how many props I find. The stories come, too and I can dress them with real finds I’ll never be able to afford, but ‘find’ for set design. I always ask permission before I photograph and have never been refused. I’ve grown a wonderful detailed ‘catalog’ of authentic props and ‘dressed’ many a setting with them while I browse.

So, as I read somewhere: To keep from getting lost, stay found.

And take pictures.

Retreat, Recharge, Relax

I’m back from a retreat, of sorts. A short four-day camping/fishing trip to the high Uintahs. Autumn was but a whisper, as we entered the mountains. Minor splashes of pale tangerine and amber among the willows marking the creek, hints of straw yellow scattered through the aspens, wine red and crimson in the maples. When we were there in June, the snow still capped the high peaks, but it was long gone and vegetation looked dry, but wild asters bloomed pale lavender and the wild roses sported poppy-colored hips as big as my thumb.

It had been a particular tough month and I looked forward to a rest, but I wanted to do some writing work of some kind. My thought was to work on hunting for poems. The camping trips feed the poetry and I needed a break from editing. I didn’t spend much time with that, but I came home feeling a bit rested, with photos and ideas. I consider that a success, given how I work a nd how this last few years have gone.

I do a lot of what I call paper thinking. Writing down doodle words, hunting up words that relate to a poem idea, or even a scene, that I’m not getting crisp enough. The paper thinking helps me. Gets my mind loosened up, my mind wandering, or maybe, analyzing. I’ve done this from the beginning, as a eight-year-old. Yet, all these years later, I forget and start writing like a person walking up hill with all the determination of a angry bear.

I have to remember to stop pushing so hard. Hanna Nyala said it best in Leave No Trace: Keep your nose over your toes. Don’t get your head to far out in front. It puts you out of balance and wears you down. But when I’m focused on the finish I tend to do that, forgetting to enjoy the work (‘cause I do). I forget and get too hard on myself.

I did a little paper thinking while there, along with extra sleep, a break from caring for an elderly parent, photos of wonderful scenery. Although with all the photos I took, I got nothing of the autumn color. Instead, I ended up with a lot of pictures of sunsets. The skies were overwhelming and for some reason spoke to me this trip. It seems so cliche, but I'm trying to trust that I have a reason that I needed pictures of skies at sunset.

We spent several hours one evening on a knoll in the middle of the forest, listening for elk. We were a bit too early in the season, but the silent hours, wind in the aspen (we could hear it coming from three canyons over), the distant thunder, the short bursts of rain fed me just what I needed.

We travel a seventeen-mile dirt (washboard) road to get to the campground. This year we were surprised. The first half of the road had been blacktopped. It made for a smoother, faster drive in. The downside may be more people in the campgrounds, less wildlife. We have enjoyed solitary camping in previous years. We’re not unfriendly, but we do like getting away.

I'm glad to be back and back to writing. I think I needed the break. I think I need to get back to work.

Research

Over the years, I’ve taken hundreds of pictures for my research files. I write mostly western historical, so I haunt museums. Nothing gets the details down quite like the actual item: studying it, imagining your character using it, feeling it. Many of my pictures are the old-fashioned film kind and admittedly, I never did find a good way to file them so they were easy to find.

Digital photos help with that, but replacing all my film photos with digital would mean revisiting a lot of museums. I wouldn’t mind. Virginia City Nevada was a step back in time, mysterious and haunting. I didn’t get enough of Cody, Wyoming, but the truth is, right where I live is rich with museums and western history.

My local amusement park has a pioneer village tucked in among water rides and carousel where homes and cabins, a livery, a church and furnishings can be studied and photographed. Wednesday I spent a few hours doing just that.

It’s not like I don’t have all the details, props and facts already researched and figured out for Ellie and the Tie-down Man, but I wanted to get the feel and reality of the times. It would have been even better if I could have touched the table worn smooth by scrubbing, run my hands over the quilt made with one inch squares from a family’s worn-out clothes, or felt the heat of the potbellied room stove.

Instead, I stood at the glass partition separating me from the relics and tried to erase all the other looky-loos and put myself into that cabin with the best of my imagination. It worked, too, for the most part, (aside from the smell of chlorine, hot dogs and fries.)

I came home with wonderful pictures, a sense of time and place I needed and notes for some poetry that’s been wanting out, wanting attention. You see, as hard as I’m working on my novel, I still sneak time for my poetry. I have to. The poetry demands it. And as I said, poetry has always lead me into my best writing, helped me find my voice and taught me about concise wording.

I have been gathering together poems I’ve written with the hopes they could become a chapbook. I’ve figured out the title and direction I want the book to go. And the two projects are keeping me focused. Better yet, the research was a boost to both and a good day spent out of the office.

Setting Again:

I’m just back from a much-needed vacation, doing nothing much more than eating, napping, reading, shooting (yep, shooting) and enjoying nature. As I’ve been in the frame of mind of setting, here I was in a setting that…forms a great deal of warp and weave to the tapestry of my life. Our family has been vacationing to the Uintah Mountains since before it was a family. This place is part of my husband’s family history. Not so much mine, but I was introduced with complete awareness to the importance of that, (Maybe, not complete) and, after some difficulty (on my part mostly) I have come to love the area.

(This is Smitty's Basin where an old sawmill use to be.)

It didn’t come over night, though. That love. First, I am a secret obsessive compulsive. Secret because I try to hide and fight the worst of it. Second, after the first two introductions: I got carsick driving over the seventeen-mile dirt road. (At that time, most likely more than seventeen… I never got carsick except when my father drove), I fell off my horse when it jumped an unexpected ravine ( yes, I got back on. I had to. The poor horse looked embarrassed for me), I didn’t go back until I brought with me, my first and second born. Now, being obsessive compulsive and an overprotective mom to boot, the place felt like the farthest wilderness. What the hell was I doing there?

Rough terrain, dark forests, a night sky so deep with stars so bright, elk, deer, bear and…WOODTICKS. The Amazon. Foreign, frightening. I was way out of my comfort zone. I was an alien in a strange world. I wanted nothing more than to go home. I was Dorothy and there was no fake wizard, no balloon.

And… I had history with WOODTICKS.

Setting, the way character reacts to setting and emotion.

My shooting started out as research. As a writer of western historical, I wanted to learn a little about shooting a pistol. I had passed a NRA class many years before. I knew how to shoot a rifle, could look up what I needed as far as parts of a revolver, the mechanics and such, but I wanted to know how hard it was to be accurate, what it felt like to hold the pistol in an outstretched arm and sight down the shorter barrel.

I love to shoot as long as it’s a paper target or soda can. I love the smell of gunpowder, the smoke rising from the barrel, the ricocheting sound off canyon walls, the kick of a gun.

I love fishing. I’m just not all that fond of catching. But I had three boys and learned to help them take fish off the hook, fill a bobber with water from the lake, catch and release, restring a fishing pole, untangle a line, retie on a proper fly. Yes, sometime, in some story I write I will use every bit of it.

Aren’t we lucky, us writers? No better way to stay curious and young.

(The big fish is mine.)

Shotgun

It sits in the corner of my office, a relic. A Damascus twist double barrel glinting gunmetal old, the stock, hand-worn walnut filled and repaired. The etchings on the frame and hammer rubbed away in places speak of use and whisper history and stories I long to hear.

I’ve lusted after double-barrel shotguns at every antique fair I’ve ever gone to. I’ve always wanted one. But this, an early Valentine gift, is more than I’d ever hoped for. It’s not mint condition; rather, it’s charming in its imperfections.

I don’t know how old it is. Can’t find out anything about it on the internet, other than it was likely built before 1899, which is just another reason to love it. I love old things and nothing as much as old western things.

So, what stories could it tell me? What quirks would it have if it were safe to use? Who owned it? What were they like? What story will I grow from this unexpected gift? This seed.