Sugar Beets and Montana Colts.

Settled in at the fairgrounds now over to Sidney. Worked the first night of the harvest in my "short term" job in the Quality Lab. I'm training up a gal to run the scale... since I'm not going to be able to do that this year once the harvest starts in earnest on Sunday.

Left my BLM camp and rolled to the Cabelas in Billings. Figured I'd go inside and buy some "Lil" thing so  could get use of the Dump Station for free.

#1 - I have a cabelas card so it would have been free anyway... sheesh. annnnd #2 - buying boots and a shirt to save the five bucks to dump is the sort of math you learn from modern public educashun. :-/

But with some fresh gear I moved on find a wally world camp for the night in Miles city.

Next day took me to looking at a horse a ways above Glendive, Montana. She was in the far out and wild "Plains" of eastern Montana.

Took about an hour to find her bunch out on a section pasture. The colts had divided into three bunches and hers was the craftiest at staying out of sight for a while. They'd brushed up in the bottom of a pretty deep creek bottom. Wasn't till we rolled around the other side that we could spot 'em down below.

Those unbroke/half broke young horses, filly or colt, I pretty much call 'em all colts. This one is a young horse I think has a lot of potential... and will be one of my winter projects this year. She's got a very few saddles on her so it should be a busy winter what with all I've got planned...

She's locked down and waiting for the end of Harvest over by Circle... then... there's another I really want to take a look at... but she's over in South Dakota. It's a bit of a gamble... but if she's still on the ranch come the end of harvest there's a real good chance I'll go try and put her in the trailer to haul south too.

*The first Montana Filly*

*Last sunset on the Yellowstone*

*September snow in Montana*

*Storm over Montana*

For those interested; Leather and Stone, my sixth western novel is available at Amazon It is also available through Smashwords and all of it's retailers on Pre-order as well. Click one of those links to go right to the book in Amazon or Smashwords... or you can search me up at Barnes and Noble or Apple... and the others.

It will release on the 28th. Anyone who is planning to buy a copy that does it on Pre-order gives me a boost because all those are credited on the same day which gives me a lil' bit of a ranking kick! So, many thanks in advance.

Gotta go get ready to work the lab now so we'll talk at you later.

-Brian

Beware the Black Hatted Buffalo Nudger

Yeah... I didn't know such a thing existed either.

So there I was after a few days of fighting ee-lek-trawn-icks... struggling to get a book published... The sixth western novel and the first to cause difficulty uploading...

Well, after multiple crashes, regroupings, re-Nuking and reformulation I surrendered and sent the manuscript to a computer geek lady who had it fixed and back in the time it takes to write a couple emails... and refused compensation claiming it was too small a job to bother.

One tiny little missed "click" in the formatting process on a used to be clear and open and now hidden screen... crashed the whole deal. ALL attributable to Microsoft's penchant for taking working software and improving it into cumbersome, awkward NON-intuitive malware...

SO! with the thing fixed, uploaded and published - FINALLY - I decided to reward myself with a drive through the northern end of Yellowstone before I pull out in a day or so...

Hmmmm... traffic has thinned considerable__but there's still plenty. I came to a patch of it where folks that normally live in concrete pastures were busily building a Buffalo Jam. Now__sitting on the asphalt for who know how long watching townies take pictures of Buffalo cows silhouetted against somebody's church van is not my idea of a well spent afternoon... so I kept moving.

Yup... if you idle along the Buffs will generally move out of the way. 'course if they stop you've no option but to stop too.

Well, these didn't stop... I moved... and they moved and I was on my merry way... for about 15 miles... and then the flashing lights behind me said; "Tsk Tsk Tsk... you were a bad boy!" except, I couldn't for the life of me figure out what I'd done... seeing as I was rolling 10 miles under the limit.

I pulled into a wide spot and this dang near 6' blonde Amazon Ranger walks up and wierdly... was really looking at and all over the truck.

"How are you doing?" she asks...

"Well... I -WAS- doing ok. What's up?" I say.

"I stopped you because we got a report phoned in that you were "Nudging Buffalo" ...

"Um... " I friggin' cracked up... "Are you serious? ummm... if I HAD BEEN you wouldn't be stopping me HERE! You'd be responding to the disabled truck sitting in the middle of the road with it's front end torn off!"

"If you Nudge Buffalo... those buggers Nudge Back!"

Well she grinned and laughed... and Agreed. "That's why I was looking at your truck so close... looking for damage."

Fact is... I DID... exactly what the Park Boys and Girls WANT you to do... keep moving... NOT cork the road...

We talked for some little while and she checked out my "Papers" to ensure that I wasn't some heinous jihadi looking to terrorize not only the american sheeple but a deviant terrorist hoping to sneak around NUDGING BUFFALO...

Laughed my way all the way back to camp... Walt Disney educated nature lovers are like somebody walking on a treadmill... they put out a lot of effort... they just don't get anywhere.

- Brian

P.S. Leather and Stone is now working through the distribution channels and is or soon will be available for Pre-order at Smashwords (and it's retailers) and Amazon! (I'll get an Amazon link up as soon as it's live)

On The Banks of the Yellowstone

The smoke along the Front Range... from Momma Nature using fire to prune the overgrown Washington forests having become pretty obnoxious... even if it did make for interesting sunrises...

...I rolled out like I said and pointed the radiator north... bound for Montana.

Been set up here in this camp for most of a week. Planned on staying down by West Yellowstone... buuuut... hitting there a couple days before labor day makes it kinda tough.

On top of that, this rig is a little dicier getting through tight spots. Being as it's built to haul some loads... the axles are set back to be centered under where that load (Horses) stands. The result being that though it's purt near the same length as the old fiver it cuts the turns a lot deeper...

sooooo... wigglin' through the cleverly laid out camps the forest service/park service are so skilled at constructing...

... with Hurry-Up!-I've-got-to-get-to-my-camp-NOW! townies trying to see how close they can get to your tailgate (apparently thinking ol' cowboys are prone to being bullied by folks with bicycles strapped on the top of their volvos) becomes a greater adventure.

Trying to worm through an area looking to find an empty camp with enough swing space to allow the truck to jack around during the choreography to back in... with Speedy Nature lover inching closer every few seconds trying to get you to move faster... is a gol darn good time!

The ones I truly admire are those that SIT there as you start to back up to work out a bigger swing. It being plainly obvious that you've got to back up a mite to take the "turn around"  cut-off... or better yet ... while you're trying to back IN to the spot you finally found... that THEY are now sitting in front of... squeezed up tight behind you...

Buuuuut are those mental giants going to concede an inch to let you do that? ...

Yes. They are! when that 18,000 lbs of steel and aluminum keeps coming they actually DO tend to back off and give a grumpy ol' fella some room!

But anyway... after just a night on the shore of a lake north of West Yellowstone I rolled up and around through Bozeman and Livingston... to come back down the valley of the Yellowstone. Found one nice night in a Montana Fish and game river access...

*The Yellowstone river for a back yard*

*Sunrise over the Yellowstone*

How-some-ever... me being the cheapskate boondocker that I am... the $12 a night, even if it had cell signal... was too steep for my long-term blood. A quick scout that night with just the truck located the right sort of place for me just another twenty miles south. Was surprised to find such this close (twenty miles) from the Yellowstone gate!

*Somewhere in Montana*

Still camped with the Yellowstone River out the door, Montana sunsets over the sound of the river... and plenty of room now that labor day has come and gone. A nice BLM site with few amenities and no fee. Suits me just fine.

Been working slowly on the editing to finish up my current project... The #4 book in the Jebediah Taylor series... more western shoot'em up!

That's just about done. Ever'thing's been built and formatted. I'm down to the last and final read through check before I upload to Smashwords and find out if I've done it all right... One. More. Time.

Soon as that is approved I can upload the Amazon copy... Thinking I'll do a pre-order again... release date to be determined but if I get it uploaded in the next two or three days I'm thinking a short pre-order time of maybe a week... we shall see.

I was getting pretty cross eyed so a couple days back Arlo and me took the afternoon off for a slow jaunt through the north end of Yellowstone...

Ok... so if I'm slow... and generally there's a four or five car stack that coax's me to slide into a pull out ever so often to let 'em rush on by... what do you call the pikers in a lil' bitty car, that can't even keep that between the shoulder and the center stripe? ... and go so slow they stack up 18 or 25 cars behind 'em?

... and then pass by EVERY wide spot without exercising the etiquette to pull over?

Rather than waste time trying to conjure a name or even an excuse I just swung out in a wide spot to soak up some scenery... a time or two... and let them play with their own lil' traffic jam as they rolled on away from me.

Um... No... I still managed to catch up... rolling road block that -I- am. Yup... 15 mph for I think 30 miles or better? yeah... took a lil longer than I'd figured... hard to slow down and back off of somebody when ya gotta take time lapse pictures to see if they're actually moving.

Oh well... the country is starting to empty out... I've got a couple of horses to look at before I start workin' over to Sidney on the 21st... and the final work to get done to button up this publishing project... so all's well.

- Brian

Sitting in The Back Of My Horse Trailer House...

... Braiding up some reins on my writing desk/braiding stand...

Works good for braiding... less good for writing... and with all my junk piled behind it__ kinda keeps horses from getting loaded...

Sooo... there's something else to be dealt with soonest. A storage shed of some variety is going to be needed at winter camp.

Just as soon as I leave the harvest job up in Montana at the end of October. 

Giving the book a few days to simmer now that it's finished... before I dive into the edits.

Best to start that with as fresh a view as possible. 

Sooo... back to work for me.

- Brian

Sorting Out the Future As I Go...

... life goes on whether we go with it or not... so... just take what comes and do the best with it...

Kind of a last minute thing, I've contracted out my October with the sugar outfit up in Montana again. That job will carry me into the winter well. And those funds will be sorely needed if I'm to keep this "back to horse" goal moving...

Till then, I'll be pulling out of here shortly, now that the latest repairs are done and the first steps of the tribulation of separation have been taken. My current need, to ride along with the beet harvest is to get this book I've been laboring on completed and published. Excuses don't pay the bills and feed my scrawny butt. Time to quit with that and just get it done.

My camera has not seen near as much use lately... The first three are actually from my phone on a lil' unexpected walk I took yesterday...

 

Truck went in the shop Tuesday for several hundred bucks worth of shocks, steering dampers and alignments to correct the tire scrubbing that started to get bad in the last few hundred miles...

Then Friday...

The truck in the past couple months has started getting a lot "warmer" pulling grades. When I got back from Missouri and took that time up to Steamboat it was getting warmer yet. Close inspection revealed a pretty good bug load down in the radiator.

So...  figured to just blow 'em out at the car wash...

Bad choice... turns out, that carwash wand had the power to fold over all the radiator fins it got too close to... That carelessness cost me a few hundred dollars for a new radiator... Maybe.

Buuut first... I dropped the truck off first thing yesterday, thinking it would only be a couple hours that I could kill at a coffee shop and/or people watching... wrong... they'd need it all day.

Since I'd not lined up a ride that left me with that unexpected walk I mentioned. Yep... a 7 1/2 mile stroll!  Dodging trains, trucks and liquor bottles. Seem like somebody does some pretty heavy drinking along those tracks. Every two steps there was one of those lil' "Shooter" bottles of some variety... just my luck of course - they were all empty! :-/

Google maps claimed I should get it done in two and a half hours... took me two hours and forty minutes to hoof it... what a wimp!

But then... when I found a ride back in the afternoon I got informed that the radiator I'd got put in back in 2010 was the wrong one! That was for a gas engine... not my diesel. It was maybe 1/3 less "Thick" so with less fluid and cooling surface... which is a wonder it worked as well as it did for a hundred thousand miles!

But on the way back to the Lakota I captured those three pics above. ;) so all's good.

Those below are just what's been passing by around me in the past few weeks...

He'd been running around and wading in along the shallow bank of this big pond... then came running down that lil' point behind him and jumped high... thinking he'd land in water six inches deep... only to find that there was a hole 'bout six FEET deep right there... he learned to swim right quick.

Talk about "keeping on"... This Plane is something on the order of 70 years+ ... and still flying... Circled over me several times... Makes a guy wonder what action it might have seen... and about the men that flew her...

... Which tends to dwarf our own sorry problems in comparison...

I'll head to that little patch of Arizona dirt I did a deal on in November; as soon as the beet harvest is done... and start putting a winter horse camp together...

That's how it's all laid out just now anyway.

Brian

Kaleidscoping Gypsy Cowboy Writer Tangling With Characters Talking At Him From All Directions...

... Hmmmm... isn't that sort of the definition of a fella bein' a Schizo? I mean a guy "hears voices" talking to him... that nobody else can hear? :-P

... and the neighbors can likely hear him through the screen door sayin'; "wait! wait! slow down"... as the keyboard rattles as his fingers bang away... "ok... I'm ready now... keep goin'..."  ... buuuuuut those neighbors are knowin' the old fool is sittin' in there by his lonesome?

Yeah... so...

I Moved to the Pima County fairgrounds a few days back... to provide shelter for during the continuing annual gem and mineral show buying trip. Since that stuff long past lost its shine for me... the town of Tucson has small attraction as well... and the rigs in the fairgrounds are wedged in belly to butt with Vaseline and crow bars... I've been brushed up inside with Brenn Hill crooning on the Ipod and my tiny lil' brain rattling around inside a mostly empty brain pan...

After publishing my fifth Novel, The Horsemen I was planning on taking a few days off to cool out. Readers are collecting copies of that book at what's a nice rate for me and my first review has come in... and a Five star too. :) oh yes... It is a purty simple thing to inflate the ego of a puss gut mountain cowboy!

So... even though I was taking a few days off... ideas started tickling unbidden so I couldn't help but start tinkering with my notebooks__ warming up for the next project.

One, #4 in the Taylor series that will come along behind "The Horsemen" is titled "Kincaid" and the other the long delayed third volume in the Jensen series; "A Cruel Wind" (Which is only a working title - Too many already published with that moniker)

I keep a composition notebook for each book I write. All the ideas, clips, scenes and quotes that come to me while I'm out and about doing other things get copied down in there. It's as far as I go toward any sort of planning of a story. Those notebooks are like jumbled up clips of a movie taken out of all context... just flashes in a kaleidoscope.

Mostly when I sit down to write I only have a very fuzzy starting point from where I just saddle up and follow along copying down the events as they unfold.

The stories truly do get told to me by the characters and I just relay 'em to my readers. I hear voices... they speak to me and I truly work like one of those court recorders just putting down the words.

Well... there I sat all cabin fevered last week, in the mud of Snyder Hill, while Tucson got washed out with nigh on to 48 hours of rain... drinking too much coffee and doodling down kaleidoscope flashes into those notebooks...

Now... about a year or more ago I attempted to deliberately strike off and write on two stories at the same time. I've had many people tell me they are impatient and I write too slow. :-P

My thinking was that one story might could feed off the other... or ... if one hit a spot with failing inspiration I could take off with the other.

Yeah... good idea that crashed and burned for lots of reasons. Anyway... I gave it up.

Now... In sorting through the ideas for the coming Taylor book... a few things occurred to me regarding the Jensen book and I scribbled 'em down... which led me to an idea for the OTHER story... Back and forth it went... one thing after another soon gained momentum like a truck going down hill with no brakes.

The upshot of all THAT is... a  New manuscript got opened up on the laptop for each story...

... and now, quite unintentionally, I find myself torn between the two Tales. Writing on one flashes keep coming for the other which I have to stop and scribble down...

Mornings one book is on the screen... afternoons the other... and jumping back and forth between notebooks like a crackhead squirrel ALL day... 

Yeah.... You've heard the old joke about How do you drive a moron crazy? ... Ya put him in a round room and tell him there's a quarter in the corner... so... spin spin spin I go...

Both stories have fleshed out in my head much farther along their trails than any have ever before. The urge to carve them out is keeping me at the keyboard for hours and hours to see how it all unfolds.

Funny thing this Writing game... It seems akin to being a gypsy in many ways... You move along when the urge pushes... and sit still when fatigue says sit.

Brian

The Sun's Coming Up and It's Getting Time to Roll...

Gonna move south today. The book's done and orders seem to maybe even be picking up a bit, so that's sweet!...

... so maybe it's time to move camp and change things up a lil' bit.

Had a bit of a didoe with the scooter last week. Murphy found me again and for some reason nobody knows, one of those seals I put in the forks chose to leak after less than 2000 miles... arrrrrgggghhhh.

So... I found a shop with a good rep down in Mesa... of course, round trip that's 180 miles from here... Loaded her up and hauled her in. Bein' busy as hell it took 'em most of a week to git-er-done... Went down of an afternoon to pick the scooter up... got her loaded and hauled back to camp.

Go out the next morning to unload and that's NOT when you want to find a puddle of oil under the once again repaired forks!!! sooooooo... a quick phone call and baaaaaaack to Mesa.

I don't expect a place to get it right the first time every time. Nobody does that. But my blood pressure backs way off when the first words out of a service managers mouth when he's told there's a problem is; "Get It Back Here So We Can Make It Right."

So... That's squared away now... a few odds and ends to put away and prepare as soon as the coffee's gone and my ambition for the day is sufficiently caffeinated... and then I'll roll for somewhere 'round about Tucson... maybe as far as Sulphur Springs Valley... I've thought of Cochise Stronghold a bit...

...who knows... when it feels right... I'll take my foot off the pedal and stop.

With this most recent book completed... and there bein' a bit of time available... maybe it's time to get back to pursuing my leather shed ambitions... hmmmmm... 

*a Foggy morning on the Tonto*

*Duck couples takin' a Sunday Cruise on Roosevelt in the Tonto*

 Must be comin' on to spring... the ducks are all paired up...

*Four Peaks in the Mazatzaals*

Just a gypsy drifter
Brian

Fifth Novel Completed... and Now A Few Days to Catch My Breath...

Got 'er done and THE HORSEMEN is published. After waffling back and forth for weeks what I was gonna do, I finally chose to set this release up in a Pre-order release. You can order it today. How-some-ever... you won't actually get it 'till the Oh-Fishul release on the 23rd of January 2015. It'll be downloaded to your device on that partic'lar day.

If you hadn't read the preceding volumes I'd suggest ya'll do that first... the first one in this series is FREE so you can't get hurt to awful bad. The whole listing of the two series is right here.

As always with Tech-nah-law-gee... the last few hours are a struggle. This perfected gizmo (laptop/internet)... that ever'body's so proud of is the only tool on earth that a feller can push one button... get a dozen different results... and with regularity... NOT... the expected one.

But, once you've fought with the dang whizbangs long enough you gain enough experience to learn all the many ways of pushin' that rope where you want it to go. So you when it doesn't you got other options to try... I got her there and now I get a couple days "off"... before I get deep into the next project.

Climate change is a bit behind the times in Arizona. At least this part. I've been burning quite a bit more propane here than in past winters... I was a bit lower then too I suppose...

I'd butted into a conversation the other day when I heard a guy telling somebody that the polar bears are threatened because the poles are melting... uh... really? "Then why s polar bear population growing... and why have they published stats that have both poles setting records the past two years for expansion of the ice in area and depth?" I asked him?

He answered me with his eyes rolling in frustration; "You just don't have the education to understand the science. Anyone who does knows that the rising temperatures are going to make it colder in places."

"Uh Huh!" I said... "And that makes the expanding polar ice actually melting?" Poor Ol' guy stomped off with his teeth gritted and his ears a smokin'. :) Not sure what he was grumbling as he thumped away... but I did hear somethin' in there about a long lost relative or two... and something about somebody escaping from a zoo or a circus or some damn thing... not sure what that had to do with me?! :-P

I tried his theory last summer too... I turned the furnace up on high to cool things down. Figuring it was cheaper than air conditioning... didn't work. :(

Only thing I can say is; "Don't pee down my back and tell me it's raining!" I got me 'nuff ed-chew-cay-shun ta know the diffurnce! 

That Ol' Boy has missed his calling. He should be a used car salesman... or a politician...

*Reflections on Roosevelt lake*

 A little bit of hopeful light after the storm...

 Not sure if this guy was singin' 'cause he's happy? or cryin' 'cause his feet hurt standing on a bed of thorns...

Birds of a different sort frequent this valley. It must be a low level flight path for the air force. Big boys like this guy... and the fast movers come thundering through two or three times a week.

 But most of the time it's a quiet place where your soul can breathe...

Taking a few days to chill out and regroup... then it's back to the writing desk to follow what Ben Jensen is doing these days ;)

Brian

I'm Spreading the Word - THE HORSEMEN - is COMING SOON

I'm in the home stretch now to publish novel #5, and book #3 of the Jeb Taylor Series - THE HORSEMEN.

There's another editing pass to make, front and end matter to write as well as building the Table of Contents... and then there's Nuking it to prep for the final formatting process... buuuut I did get the cover photo bought and the cover built so progress is happening.

I kind of like this cover... how about ya'll?

Let's see if I can get this project buttoned up and out in the world in the next two weeks!

So I can dive into the next book that's pokin' at me ;)

Brian

That Time of Year Again... Isn't It?

Well... I got permission to leave the rig sitting in my campsite and hauled butt for Colorado. Truth be known I was thinking hard of just goin' solo on the desert... I'm sorta kinda a scrooge... buuuut... a family medical thing came up that pretty much required my attendance.

Less than life threatening and more than trivial... so I ran the old 210,000 mile Dodge one more run to the Front Range.

I'm getting softer in my maturity though. Decided to make the trip in two days and pamper my cowboy butt with a Motel in Santa Fe.

'Tween that, the $2.69 diesel in San Felipe and a fine ale in that motel room it was an easy trip.

Already past the medical deal I believe and now just to get past scrooge's day and it'll be back to the desert for this grumpy Ol' Cowboy.

... and finishing up the editing (which is 'bout 1/2 done now) , table of contents building, cover building... yadda yadda yadda and get that Number Five Novel Published! HooYa!

Then straight into novel number six along with the Other work I am feeling a hunger to get hard after... which is regaining my leather work.

Much to do in the coming year... I'm sorta kinda anxious to get this bronc saddled and open the gate!

It always seems like life is often like climbing a mountain. Just as you get to the peak... the slope gets the steepest! ha ha... dig in and Cowboy Up! is purty much the only option... so Let 'er Buck!

Have a good Christmas all... and we'll see you down the trail in the coming New Year

Brian

Another Storm on the Desert...

It came in with a roar... and was gone in a whistle...

 A couple of neighbors spent a little while checking out the neighborhood a day or so before... and trying to get their bearings... Not sure they agreed on which way to go. The whole family lives in the mesquites and sage and palo verde around here. You can hear them talking every evening and often on through the day.

Mid day the clouds of the storm from the coast began building...

Truly it didn't seem so awful threatening... considering what news I'd heard... and then the lightning started flashing across the sky and it got to be one of those Desert storms... I thought; Hmmmm... this might could get interesting.

 Big ol' drops the size of a small bucket started coming down and the wind started whipping... For all of six minutes ;)

... and it rolled right on past headed for the Tonto Basin over east... and the sky started clearing right behind it just before sunset.

Yeah... it's a hard life in the desert.

Solidly into editing. Funny... I don't do that the way I'm supposed to either. They say you write it... and then you should go back and cut out 25% or better.

Hmmmm... maybe they should consider the way I write it... seems to save me a lot of heartache...

I put it down and end up adding some words when I edit! The way I go about things... I keep working on a paragraph the first time I put it down, until it's purty much where I want it... and then I move on.

So... when I come back to edit... all I have is maybe a little polishing and such. Works for me... Folks keep buying the books and leaving good words in review! :) So I must be doin' something right.

Still on sort of a roll here too. Solid story lines developed and stories are even well started on the next two books. Working on those in between editing stints on the finished book and... I continue tinkering on a cover...

That all seems to kinda balance out the dreary labor of editing... with the fresh excitement of a new story.

On the Arizona Desert
Brian

When There's Nothing Exciting to Write About...

... maybe the best thing is to just stay quiet.

Get up in the mornings as the sun is crackin' the night and put the coffee on... and the heater... Stand on the heater vent while I wait on the coffee...

*Sunrise on the Mazatzals*

Some times the dawn breaks soft like you'd expect...

*A sunset at dawn...*

Other mornings it tries to confuse you. You have to look at the clock wondering if you slept right on through the day until sunset... but then you think; "Hell, I don't sleep hardly at all... so that's kinda unlikely!"

Then... with a hot cup...

I go over my storyline diagram and what notes I use so I know where ever'body's at... to get my head warmed up for the story and then start peckin' the keys... Pretty quick it catches and I'm off...

Sometimes it takes off a runnin' and I get a 3000 word day or better... sometimes it just strolls along and a thousand good words get whittled... some days... My head is off somewhere else so I don't even waste the time of trying to move the story along.

It's all gotta come when the lil' wizards say it's time I guess... So I write when the words are flowin' and just breathe when it's time for that.

It's a slow and quiet time... I believe if I was one of those woo woo "the turnips are talking to me" psycho babble sorts I'd think maybe the Tonto Basin has a "vibe" flowing around that gives me inspiration to write...

whatever, the place or just the right time... I seem to be making good progress on what I "Think" is another good story...

"The Horsemen" is coming along well... I think (knock on wood)... I am superstitious ;)... Time will tell. Barring a major jam up... I could have the main manuscript zipped up middle of December...

Put in a focused effort on editing... Publish sometime in January? That'd be a fine way to start the new year. Publish my fifth Novel and start the sixth!

Back to work now to get Ol' Jebediah out of a jam before it's time to shut off the lights.

Brian

Me and The Weather... and I Don't Like Being Pushed Around...

~~~~~

A quick lil comment on the Technology post of a few days ago and then right back to today's effort... Wayne mentioned how he uses an email on his phone as sort of a "notepad" that he can keep and edit as needed... well... yeah... except that my BEST ideas seem to come when I'm rolling down the road looking through a windshield.

I can't write notes to myself when I'm shoving a rig down the road... and it seems by the time I can find a place to pull over to scribble; PFFFFFT! the idea is gone anyway! Buried up by the next idea in line flashing in my head! not to mention I'd never get anywhere if I had to stop ever'time an idea popped up...

yeah... it's often like a kaleidoscope inside this brain pan of mine... what with the flashing lights of ideas poppin' off all over the dang place!

So... in that fancy costs-to-much Samsung Galaxy gadget of mine there's a "Voice recorder" bit... so... I can roll on down the road recording whatever ideas and story lines come to me as I sit staring out the windshield while I keep on getting where I'm going at the same time!

Yeah... I think I'm kinda hopeless when it comes to gadgetry... excluding them is an enterprise unlikely to meet with much success ;)

~~~~~

 We now return you to the irregularly scheduled cowboy writer nonsense...

Yeah... so a big reason I turned to tuck back into this lil corner of Colorado for a while was because this country brings to mind, for some reason, the country I write about in my Jeb Taylor series...

It's juniper and oak brush, pines and tall mountains... and the folks around are a lot of what's left of that world. So... here I came.

*Another sunset on the peaks to the north of camp*

The first few days here I spent reading and editng the first twenty chapters or so that I had written of the next book in that series. The idea of doing that here and now was to get myself back "in" to the story...

It was after I'd gotten those written that I fell into kind of a writing funk... I don't know... when I'm surrounded by the sounds of trucks and airplanes... tractors and a soh-sigh-uh-tee that I've always had difficulty fitting into... my inspiration can have some trouble breaking out and telling a story.

So... going back up to the "front range" zoo for the summer... turned out un-conducive to fermenting the machinations of a fevered cowboy writers brain. ;)

*sunset view through the Mancos oak brush*

Basically, I think I needed to get back into country where I could fence out the majority of those distractions and focus on the work. The sweet part of that is, once I succeed in immersing into a story that fence gets taller and thicker and all those distractions lose their power and fade away.

It's as if the tale comes alive in my head. I can feel the wind on my face coming off the mountain and the rocking of the horse under me. I can hear the voices and SEE the faces in my mind... as if I was right there.

I don't have to write the story any longer. I only need copy down a description of what I see. Damn... talk about "I hear voices!" ;)

*storm clouds building*

Ha ha... I expect there's a guy with a fancy office and diplomas hangin' on the wall that could tell why that's bordering on some sort of an insanity syndrome or some such. I bet he's got just the drug to prescribe to "fix" me too... buuuuut... I do believe I'll keep that feeling I get when I'm writing... as my OWN private pharmacy! ;)

Well it worked! Fixed a "problem" in an early chapter, got my "head" back into the weird "reality" show running inside my brain and been making solid progress.

So...The only problem here, is getting to be the weather. A common problem this time of year... How long does a guy push it? See... I'm hesitant to pull out with things singin' along... buuuuut... that Canadian express that's froze up the country north and east of here is tickling this area a mite as well.

I'm sitting on the SW fringe of it I guess. While it's been down right furnace exercising chilly at night the days had been pretty fine. Now today it's broke off cloudy with some chance of rain tomorrow and Friday... but then "nice" again.

For a short they talked of snow flurries too... but now just 20% for rain again... the weather man can't make up his mind... He keeps jabbing me; "Time to get out of the mountains cowboy"... buuuut... that Jeb Taylor story keeps prodding me to stay at the keyboard and get it put down... so what's a fella to do?

Figuring to hold out here till some time Friday or maybe early Saturday to start rolling again... trouble is... I always fear getting out of sync again and having to struggle to find that looking glass again to jump into my Wonderland. ;)

We'll see what happens...

Wondering and Wandering
Brian

Spring Keeps Coming... Slowly...

The warm and sunny days got run off by a couple of stormy ones... Yesterday bringing hail and some much needed rain... a good day for laundry and completion of indoor tasks.

The Journal is complete... Ready to deliver to the Charity Auction...

 Built a leather clasp closure with a nice carved pin secured with a braided cord.

Today it's threatening to shine some. I'm hopeful. Wishing to get to work on applying the epoxie resin to that saddle bag lid... so I can get 'em painted and re-installed.

Just need a relatively nice/calm day so I can get that accomplished without a lot of wind planting junk and crud in the freshly applied Resin!

Then there's the riding mower I retrieved a couple weeks ago... its blades have seen better days... They leave a grass Mohawk on every pass. Not exactly a prime job... soooo... with a bit of ambition I'll get them pulled off today and replaced...

... So I can do the mowing that machine will do... and pay my "rent" here on the farm.

Have sort of a noisy neighbor. For bein' such a purty fella... his call sounds sort of like an anemic turkey. Sort of that coarse scratching on slate kind of thing. Him and his harem live in a bit of rough pasture on the other side of the wind break. 

Time to get at it in the shop... so I can get back here to the keyboard and put some more work into a couple of books of fiction in the making... which is kinda urgent... I've gotten waaaaay off schedule with those... :-/

Yes sir... time to do do do...

Brian