Devil's Deal Published

 

Hi all,

 

I logged on to my blogspot today and couldn't believe that it has been nearly a year since I last made an entry! Amazing how time flies. Anyway, I though today would be a good day to restart the blog.

 

This morning, the postman arrived with copies of Devil's Deal. It's always an amazing thrill when you hold the finished product in your hands and as always, this did not disappoint.

The story is about  Ethan Van Kirk who was an ace Confederate sharp-shooter during the Civil War.  Now the war is over, all he wants to do is lead a quiet life on his homestead with his eight year old daughter, Lucy - but the past will not leave him in peace. He is plagued by nightmares and his worst fears come to life when he meets an old officer from his army days. Suddenly, he finds himself caught up in a plot to assinate a Senator and is forced to use his deadly shooting skills again in a deal with the Devil. Ethan must kill an innocent man to save his daughters life.

 

And the clock is ticking... 

 

Devil's Deal is published by Robert Hale Ltd and is available in libraries and Amazon. 

Preview of Pay Dirt Cover!

It's always an exciting moment when you see the artwork for your forthcoming book for the first time; and this did not disappoint!

Thanks to all at Robert Hale for consistently coming up with exciting and eye-catching front cover designs. They may not always relate directly to the plot but hopefully, they capture the excitement and pace of the story and give the reader a flavour of what they've come to expect from a Black Horse Western.

Pay Dirt should be available in January 2012 and I look forward to holding a pristine copy in my hands.

The Story Behind The Story

Here's an interesting post showing some ideas behind the writing of a novel - in this case The Guns of Ponderosa by Chuck Tyrell.

It's amazing what triggers that germ of an idea that grows into a novel. Sometimes it's a title, a name, a place, a character; it seems everyone's got a different starting place.

This is a really interesting article in the story behind the story.

What Makes A BHW So Good?

I'm still amazed at the amount of people I meet who have never dipped their nose into a Black Horse Western. If you ever wondered what you are missing, read Gary Dobbs (aka Jack Martins) take on the imprint in his Tainted Archive blog.

Read it HERE

New BHW from Jack Martin

After the spectacular success of his debut novel, The Tarnished Star, (it is the fastest selling BHW western ever!) new author Jack Martin announces the release of his second book, Arkansas Smith.

Find out more on Jack Martins blog and don't forget to preorder your copy from Amazon.co.uk

National Novel Writing Month

A few weeks ago I posted some information about National Novel Writing Month - also known as NaNoWriMo.

Well, I decided to register as an official participant to see if I could indeed write a 50,000 word book during the month of November. What I'm hoping to do is to 'brain storm' a first draft which after a lot of rewriting may be suitable as a BHW. I've never tried anything like this before so it should be interesting!

I'm beginning to put some notes and ideas together prior to the big event which starts at midnight on 31st October.

If you want more information or if you want to have a go yourself, click on the icon on my blog and it will take you through to the official website.

I'll let you know how I get on!

Time Life Westerns

A recent query on the Black Horse Writers forum asked where a good place would be to start researching the history of the Wild West. A few people suggested that the Time Life series of books on the West would be a good place to start.

This was a series of 26 handsome, leather bound books (27 if you include the master index) covering all aspects of the West including The Cowboys, The Miners, The Gamblers, The Mexican Wars, The Women, The Pioneers etc.

They were very popular when they were first issued but now are no longer produced by Time Life. However, they have become something of collectors items.

Following the advice of the forum I went onto Amazon and was delighted to find a lot of them from second hand dealers - and quite cheap too at about £2 or £3. I ordered The Cowboys, The Gamblers and The Forty-Niner's as I am currently writing a book set in the California Gold Rush of 1849 called Gold Fever!

The books were great! In very good condition and with a wealth of information that is invaluable to the western writer really trying to understand the context of the stories he/she is writing. I found the style informal but informative - an easy read - and unlike more 'academic' tomes, the book is liberally filled with photographs, maps, paintings and drawings which brings the whole thing to life. It's true about a picture being worth a thousand words!

Already it has given me a load of information I can include in Gold Fever which I hope will make the story more credible and interesting for the reader.

It also gave me an idea for a short story which I am currently editing called Angels and Devils which I will post on this blog once it is complete.

Part Ten of the Short Story Challenge

You can read part 10 HERE

Enjoy

Writers Groups

To join or not to join? That is the question!

Recently there was a passionate debate on the Black Horse Western writer’s forum concerning ‘How To Write’ books. Both sides of the fiery debate, for and against, were well represented.

I think that Writers Groups (or Circles as they are sometimes known) have a similar polarising effect.

Personnally, I knew that there was a local group called The Lanark Writers but I resisted joining for many years. I really didn’t understand what they did and therefore couldn’t consider what they had to offer – or indeed, what I had to offer them!

I’ve been a member now for over three years and for me, it’s been a great experience and one that I would heartily recommend – but I realise it’s not for everyone.

Of course, I have only ever been involved in one writing group and I would suspect that we are one of the more proactive and innovative but I don’t know. It would be good to hear about other peoples experiences.

I think if you were considering joining a writers group, you might wish to weigh up the following:

POSITIVES

You’ve got to write something every week! No sitting around waiting for the muse to visit. I’ve been amazed how many times I’ve been asked to write about a subject that I have absolutely no knowledge or interest in and would never have written about it under my own steam and yet something half decent comes out of it.

It exposes you to other styles of writing, ideas, genres etc that you just would not discover on your own. I would never have written my first Black Horse Western if I had not been listening to a guest speaker relating his experiences with Robert Hale and I thought, “I’ll have a go at that!”

It helps you network. Authors, competitions, Arts Council, publishers, guest speakers and loads of other invaluable contacts.

As long as the criticism is constructive, it can really boost your confidence. Good ideas are reinforced and bad ideas are nipped in the bud before you go and churn out 50,000 words.

It’s a pleasant (and cheap) evening out sharing your enthusiasm with other equally enthusiastic writers.


NEGATIVES
You may end up writing to please the group. One of the great challenges of writing is to find your unique ‘voice’ which may not go down well with members of your particular group.

Harsh criticism can destroy the confidence of a budding writer. The key word is ‘constructive’ criticism.

You can find yourself distracted from your own writing goal. For example, if you are working on a novel and most of the group are into poetry you may feel frustrated.

Although I have never had this experience, a more experienced writer may dominate the group.


I wonder how many other Black Horse Writers are or were members of writing groups and what their experience was in terms of a help or a hindrance to their writing careers? Would be good to know!

Thinking of Writing a BHW Western?

Here's a great article for anybody who's considered writing a Black Horse Western. Good, solid advice that's stood many a beginning writer in good stead.

No Demand for Westerns?

I hear and read about it all the time.

The reason WH Smith, Borders, Waterstones etc don't stock Westerns is that there is no demand for them.

Really?

I for one am a big book buyer. However, I never bought Westerns when I visited the big chains because I couldn’t find them. Pure and simple. When I asked the assistant why they didn’t stock a range of Westerns when every other genre is so well represented, she told me, “They don't sell!" How do they know if they don't stock them?

Like many others, I get my Western fix from the local library where there are dozens of them - great! When you look at the inside back cover you find lots of scribbled initials, markings and symbols. These are, the librarian tells me, where people mark their books with their own ‘brand’ so they don’t take out the same book twice. Some of these books have twenty or more markings on them. The librarian tells me there is great demand for Westerns but budget constraints limit how many they can buy.

For the last couple of weekends I’ve been visiting our local car-boot sale where, I was glad to see, a pretty professional book seller has set up. The books are good value and generally of a high quality and I was delighted to see a few trays marked ‘Westerns’ but then disappointed to find only a few books in each. “Does nobody read Westerns any more?” I asked the bookseller.

“Quite the opposite,” he told me, “I can’t keep up with them! These trays were full this morning but I just cannot get enough cowboy books – especially those Black Horse Western ones they do in the library!” and to prove his point, I bought ten books from him – Matt Braun’s and Louis L’Amour's among them.

Since I’ve started writing Westerns and joined forums and on-line communities, I find there are literally hundreds of people out there who are real Western enthusiasts who would buy books if they were available and printed in a more competitive paper back and marketed as effectively as say, Mills and Boons.

Now let me get one thing clear! I am NOT criticising Robert Hale Ltd who have done a fantastic job in keeping the Western genre alive and kicking in the UK and without whom there might be no Western books being published at all which would be a calamity! They have also been fantastically supportive of new authors who might not be in print otherwise and for which I will be eternally grateful.

It’s just that, there is always a little niggle in the back of head that says that tastes and fashions in books like every other product come and go. Who would have thought that a book about a magician in a private school would have captured the imagination of children the way it did? Where did that sudden interest in vampires come from? A few years ago there might have been one or two harrowing tales of childhood now the book shelves are heaving with them!

So on the one hand, I’ve got to listen and respect the judgement of the professional publishers and retailers who have been doing this a long time and who say that there is no mainstream demand for Westerns.

But everywhere I come across Western books – libraries, car boots, online enthusiasts, I hear a different story.

What’s going on?

Keepin' It Real!

As a new writer, I have already came across a number of situations where my hero has found himself in a life threatening fix but with a mixture of ingenuity and guts has lived to tell the tale. I then have to stop myself and ask “Would this have really happened? Is the reader really going to believe this?”

The other night I was watching a favourite TV show of mine called Mythbusters, which if you haven’t seen it, is all about taking ‘urban myths’ and either proving them or debunking them using semi-scientific experiments. They often take examples of Hollywood stunts and test to see if they could have actually worked in reality and a lot of these stunts are from Westerns. For example…

Can you shoot the hat off a cowboys head? We’ve seen it a hundred times in movies but turns out you can’t! A handgun bullet travelling at a few hundred miles an hour will just go straight through hat material with almost no resistance leaving the hat unmoved. You can shoot a hat off with a shotgun but you tend to take off the top of the guys head as well which sort of defeats the purpose!

How many times have you seen a baddie get shot and fly off his feet through a window or door with the force of the blast? Won’t happen. No matter the calibre of gun, according to the Mythbuster guys, the body will just drop vertically – which of course seems kind of boring on the big screen so they’ve got to spice it up!

A few weeks ago there was a lively discussion on the Black Horse Western Writers Forum about whether you could ignite a barrel of gunpowder by shooting it. Again, big explosions are great TV but the consensus of opinion from people who know a lot about this stuff says it just won’t happen!

How many times did we see in the old movies our hero getting busted from jail by his compadre. They tied a lasso round the bars, tied the other end around the pommel of a horse and then pulled the bars out. The hero climbs through the square gap and is away before you can say, “Hi Ho Silver.” ‘Couldn’t have happened’ say the Mythbusters team. They constructed a replica frontier jail using the same materials and construction methods. A modern JCB couldn’t pull the bars out never mind one horsepower.

Not to be outdone, they decided to use a stick of dynamite! They’ve done that in the movies hundreds of time, haven’t they? This time it was a success! It blew the bars out sure enough but using pressure sensors on a dummy inside the jail they proved that nobody could’ve withstood the pressure from the explosion in such a confined area and even if they had, nobody could’ve got out the window because it was so small.

And so here lies the dilemma! Readers are looking for adventure. Writers have to keep coming up with fresh ideas and angles on old scenarios. It’s a fine balance between fact and farce and it takes a lot of skill to keep a story historically accurate and entertaining too but it’s a balancing act Black Horse Western writers are particularly good at!

I’d love to hear of any other Western Myths debunked!

Could You Write a Book in a Month?

A lot of people think they can – 119,000 people to be precise!

That’s how many signed up to the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) website last year to try and write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days (that’s about 1,666 words per day).

NaNoWriMo is the brainchild of Chris Baty who kicked it all off in July 1999 with just 21 people. But the idea has obviously scratched a creative itch for a lot of people and now, every year more people sign up and pass the magical 50,000 word target.

There is a full set of rules on the NaNoWriMo website but basically, starting at midnight November 1 people start churning out a novel which must reach a minimum of 50,000 words before 11:59:59 PM on November 30. Strictly speaking, of course, you will have had a year to think about your book and plan it accordingly but that’s okay as long as no previously written material is used.

Novels can be on any theme and in any genre and in any language. The definition of what is a novel is pretty relaxed. "If you believe you're writing a novel, we believe you're writing a novel too,” say the organisers.

50,000 is pretty short for a novel but is a perfect length for Black Horse Westerns. (It’s not a novella which is generally agreed to be about 40,000 words.) Notable novels around 50,000 words include The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Brave New World and The Great Gatsby – proof if any were needed that a ‘short’ novel can punch way above its weight!

Organizers of the event say that the aim is simply to get people to start writing, using the deadline as an incentive to get the story going and to put words to paper. What is really refreshing is that there is no prize - anyone who reaches the 50,000 word mark is declared a winner and the only reward is the achievement of the finished novel.

So if you need a deadline to get down that best-selling novel you’ve sitting on for years, why not try NaNoWriMo this year? Chris Baty has also written “No Plot? No Problem” which is a guide to the whole process of trying to write a novel in 30 days.

I’m seriously considering doing it myself to see if I can churn out a BHW. I’ll let you know how I get on!

Good Luck!

New BHW Review - Packing Iron by Steve Hayes

Thanks to Thomas McNulty for this great review. Read more about Steve Hayes remarkable career at Black Horse Extra

The Western is not dead. I say this with total assurance because I have just read a Western that has rekindled my faith in a genre the critics have attempted to flog to death with their incessant negativism. It’s true the Western has had its high and lows, but this is natural for a genre so fraught with the very essence of the American experience.

The book I’m referring to is Packing Iron by Steve Hayes and it’s published by Robert Hale in London as part of their famed Black Horse Western series. For those unfamiliar with the Black Horse Westerns, they appear monthly and are generally lending library titles with a small print run. They have a devoted and passionate following among readers and writers alike, and in recent years the Internet has made acquiring titles a tad easier. The stable of Black Horse writers include many British, Australian, and American writers (men and woman) devoted to the thrill-a-moment action story that made Louis L’Amour a household name.

These writers are not getting rich; they are writing these books because they love the genre and they love to write. The books all run no more than 45,000 words and are packaged as small hardbacks with classic pulp-style illustrated covers. Certain titles, such as Haunted Pass by Lance Howard, command premium prices from collectors. It’s not uncommon for titles to go out of print within a few weeks because of the high demand and low print run. The stories are all noted for their attention to detail, fast pace and solid action scenes. Some occasionally rise above the traditional, entertaining oater. This brings us to Steve Hayes.

Steve is no rookie; he’s enjoyed a fantastic career as a screenwriter and novelist. Now he’s turned his attention to Westerns. It’s not necessary that you read his previous Western, Gun for Revenge, although that fine book does introduce the central character in Packing Iron. Gabriel Moonlight is one of the more refreshing characters to appear in decades. He is the heart and soul of Packing Iron. A third Gabriel Moonlight novel, A Coffin for Santa Rosa, is forthcoming.
Steve isn’t a writer to waste words. His style is concise but each paragraph is loaded with more description and insight than you’ll find anywhere. This is a writer that cares about his story. Caring is a rare commodity among writers these days. While Packing Iron fulfills its obligation to be a traditional Western on one hand, on the other it’s unconventional simply because it’s so good.

With Packing Iron part of Gabriel Moonlight’s history is told in flashback, but Hayes is more concerned about Gabriel’s immediate plight. Wounded in a shootout, he is rescued by a young girl named Raven and her mother, a young widow named Ingrid Bjorkman. Raven is not your usual teenage girl. She had rescued a black stallion from an injury and hand-fed it water until the horse recovered.

Raven has a knack for handling horses. She’s also impetuous and highly intelligent. The heart of Packing Iron involves Gabriel’s growing fondness for Raven and her mother. His slow recovery from a near fatal wound offers him plenty of time to get to know them. But Gabriel has unfinished business, and there are men hunting him. To say more about the plot would be an injustice to the author. I leave it to inquisitive readers to discover Gabriel’s story on their own.
What distinguishes Packing Iron from other Westerns is the emotional investment Hayes offers his readers. As the story builds, it became impossible for me not to care about Raven and Gabriel. I soon forgot this book was even a Western. Naturally, Steve Hayes doesn’t let his readers down. Those requiring gunplay will find it, but the real heart of Packing Iron are the splendid characters.

In his introduction to his 1921 novel, To the Last Man, Zane Grey wrote: “Romance is another name for idealism; and I contend that life without ideals is not worth living.” I recalled those words as I read Packing Iron because Gabriel Moonlight lives by his own code of honor. Moonlight is the literary descendent of Zane Grey’s Lassiter from Riders of the Purple Sage or Buck Duane from The Lone Star Ranger.

It’s this attention to detail and, again, this compassion that Steve Hayes infuses into his narrative that elevates the book above the usual fare. Hayes has written a novel that outshines anything you’ll find among Dorchester Publishing’s monthly offerings, and Signet hasn’t published a notable Western in decades. The New York publishers have lost the footrace when it comes to Westerns, but the Brits at Robert Hale Publishers have kept it alive. Novels like Packing Iron are precisely why the Black Horse Westerns are prized by collectors.

I was fortunate to read an advance copy of Packing Iron. Hayes is a superb storyteller, with masterful pacing and plotting, strong characters, and swift action; his novels belong on a shelf with Louis L’Amour and Jack Schaefer. Given that the demand for Black Horse Westerns is growing, I suspect copies of Packing Iron will be scarcer than hen’s teeth upon publication. I recommend ordering it the moment it’s available, either through Robert Hale’s website or at Amazon.com (UK).

No, the Western isn’t dead. It’s in the hands of Steve Hayes and Robert Hale Publishers, and may they ride a long and fruitful trail for all of us to follow.

Gun Law - Now Listed on Amazon and Ready for Pre-Orders!

Holy smoke!

I was looking at some other Black Horse Westerns last night and decided just to punch 'Gun Law' in for a search and lo and behold the image of my new book came up! The official launch date is not until sometime in December so I was surprised to see it listed for pre-order.

Time to take a leaf out of Jack Martin's book and get moving with some marketing activity and spreading the word!

Feel free to order it through your local library!

Meet The Gang!

One of the many pleasant surprises in getting involved with Black Horse Westerns was discovering just how many other Western authors and enthusiasts there are out there.

Not only that but in these times of rampant self-interest it was refreshing to see how willing they were to share their wealth of information, help, news and views. They really are a very encouraging bunch - especially to beginners like myself - thanks everyone!

Many doom-mongers will have you believe that the Western genre is dying on it's knees - not according to this group. See for yourself at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/blackhorsewesterns (Ps - that's not really them in the photograph...)