Man, I feel like a woman.

His horse was fleet, and gained on the cow quickly. The dappled white flanks heaved and strained beneath him, and his pony's neck was stretched forward, pointing toward their prey as straight as any arrow.

The selection above is from my book Plews. It is one of my favorite scenes in the entire book, even though it has little impact on the rest of the story. In this scene a Blackfoot man named Sleeping-Badger goes on a buffalo hunt. It sounds simple enough, but when I really started thinking about it, the whole idea became amazing. I imagined myself waking up long before the sun rose, leaving my warm buffalo robes and stepping outside my lodge. I imagined my moccasins crunching in the new snow as I went to catch my favorite horse. I imagined riding a long way through the darkness to reach the herd. I felt the horse heaving beneath me as I loped toward the herd. I listened to the sound of thousands of hooves thundering over the hard packed earth. I watched my arrow fly. I felt the fear when I realized that if I failed my family would suffer great want.

I think the section came out well because I imagined that I was Sleeping-Badger. The sights, the smells, and  the thoughts that came to him were mine. This part of the writing process has become one of my favorites over time. I'm sure that I still have no idea what it was actually like to be a First Nations man during the 1820's, but I had fun imagining it.

It has been pointed out to me recently that the women in my stories lack depth. The word 'cardboard' has been mentioned. Granted the subject matter of my books leaves little room for women to appear at all, but the few who do seem flat even to me. This is a concern not only because I want all of my characters to have depth and meaning, but also because the two projects I am currently working on have women playing a major role. I wracked my brain for some time wondering what I could do to make my female characters more real, until I realized that thinking of them as characters was the problem.

With Sleeping-Badger (and others) I imagined that I was the character, but I had never done that with a female character. The idea is daunting, not only because I shy away at the thought of imagining myself as a woman, but because of the difficulty presented by the exercise. It was hard enough to imagine myself as a fur trapper in the early part of the nineteenth century. How much harder will it be to imagine being a Mexican woman who owns a gambling hall in Santa Fe circa 1836? Will I be able to do it, or will I stretch my imagination to the breaking point?

I guess we're about to find out.

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My heroes have always been cowboys

     The Western genre has always contained peculiar elements. Whether it be in film, literature, or art, images of horses, guns, and broad brimmed hats are often what identifies the western as such. There are other elements though, which are more fundamental than the set dressing, which make a story great no matter the genre.
     The hero is a recurring element in stories which have charged our imagination since time immemorial. One might argue that every story has a hero, but when I use the word I don't simply mean the protagonist of a particular tale, but an actual hero. They don't always look alike, or act alike, but the hero has been turning up in stories since man first put pen to paper. That they don't often look the same is probably why Joseph Campbell called his book 'The Hero with a Thousand Faces'.
     When I think of a hero, I think of characters like Conan, James Bond, Josey Wales, and Jack Reacher. While I recognize that there are real heroes in our world, (support our troops) I am a book lover and I have the tendency to gravitate to those heroes which only exits within the pages of the novels I read.
     What makes me (us) love our heroes so much? In my case I think it might be that I never let go of the child I once was. The adolescent male world of muscles guns and machinery has never completely lost it's glitter, though the dullness of the adult world has done its best to tarnish the gleam.
     It seems that the concept of an ultimate hero is one that I forget at my peril. As I write my latest novel, I might delve too deep into the historical aspect of the project. In my quest to deliver realism in my work, I am in danger of making the hero just a little too believable, and thus quenching the fires of romance. So, as I try to stay rooted in the historical accuracy of my time period, I will remind myself to cut loose once in awhile and have my hero open up a fresh can of whoop ass.

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Aug 10, 2015

Elevation

     I reached a milestone today, and I hope you will celebrate a little with me. I have just finished the first draft of my (as yet untitled) fourth novel!
     I call it a milestone as opposed to an accomplishment because there are still weeks of work to be done editing, and polishing, before the work is ready to face the world. Nevertheless, I feel some sense of accomplishment getting the draft finished.
     The process of writing a novel is a long and lonely one. I think Stephen King said it best when he likened it to crossing the Atlantic in a bathtub saying: 'There is a lot of room for self-doubt'. Over the course of months of writing, I often find myself despairing over whatever story I'm working on. There is a certain point in every story (usually toward the end of act II) when I think that what I've written is garbage. If left unchecked, the 'stinkin thinkin' snowballs into the thought that I have wasted several years of my life working on nonsense that no one should have to read.
     Regardless of how strong this feeling grows however, I find myself getting up every day and typing my quota of words. There is something inside that drives me on that is stronger than my doubts. What this thing is, I have no idea. It could be my faith in Jesus. It could be my often noted mulishness, or it could be something as simple as momentum. I simply do not know what drives me in those dark moments.
     A similar thing on a much smaller scale happened to me today after I had finished my draft. By way of celebration, I took a bike ride up a long winding country road (yeah, I'm that guy). When I say 'up' I mean this literally. The road climbs steadily for two miles. To say that I struggled would be putting it mildly. My recent move (see my post two weeks ago) included a gain of approximately 6,000 feet in elevation, making the air feel rather thin to my tobacco ravaged lungs. Several times during the ride, I felt the desire to turn back. I was alone, so I didn't have to convince anyone that it was time to turn around, and there was no one around to fault me for throwing in the towel.
     Yet I endured.
     That nameless thing within me reared it's head and I struggled on, until I reached the end of the road and the top of the hill. I won't bore you with a description of the dazzling view because no matter how beautiful, the view would not have been worth the pain I endured to get there. The only thing that made the ride worth it was the sense that I had done it. With no encouragement nor promise of accolades, I had climbed the hill.
     That is the same feeling that I have when I think about my newly completed draft. It is not my longest work, and only  time will tell if it is my best, but I have finished. I will sleep well tonight knowing that I overcame the high hurdle of my own self doubt, and accomplished my goal.

See you next week,

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Aug. 3, 2015

Best Intentions

     Two posts and nine months ago, I posted a blog titled 'We need a new twenty'. If you don't want to go back and read my ravings, I suggested we take Andrew Jackson off of the U.S. twenty dollar bill because of his (integral) part in enacting the 'Indian Removal Act' of 1830. It recently occurred to me that, as dastardly as that act was, President Jackson must have believed he was doing the right thing.
     Without going into what 'Old Hickory' might have been thinking, we must realize that everyone who does anything has affirmative reasons for what they do. I can think of few instances where someone did something out of pure meanness, or committed and evil act simply for the sake of evil. The Red Stick Creek Indians who perpetrated the massacre at Fort Mims, Alabama thought they were doing the right thing by their people. The settlers who pushed the Creeks to the point of violent reaction thought they were doing what was right by their families. Andrew Jackson similarly must have thought he was was in the right by driving the Creeks out of the deep south.
     This doesn't just apply to the Creek war, but every conflict that has ever taken place. The British thought they were in the right to attempt to quell the colonial rebellion. The confederate gentry thought they were right to defend their rights as slave owners. The Japanese must have thought that it was their own version of 'Manifest Destiny' to conquer the Pacific. I could (and probably just did) site examples ad nauseam of people, or groups, who had perfectly affirmative reasons for doing what they did, even though we now consider their actions or ethos repugnant.
    In my most recent novel 'Nagodzaa' I tried to tell the story of two men who both had good reasons for their actions, but were brought into conflict nevertheless. Lt. Willard Riley of the U.S. Tenth Cavalry and Ka'edine of the San Carlos Apache, both fought bravely for what they thought was right, but their differing viewpoints made them enemies. It doesn't go well for either of my protagonists.
     At this point the reader (if there are any) might think that I am taking a stand for moral relativism. This is not the case. Regardless of what Andrew Jackson, or Joseph Stalin, or Jefferson Davis might have thought, they were in the wrong. Evil exits, regardless of anyone's viewpoint or best intentions.
     But it does beg the question: What are we doing now, that will be viewed as evil by future generations? What are we doing as a country that will make the U.S . a byword one hundred years from now? What am I doing as an individual that will horrify and shame me when I stand before the judgement seat?
     I have no answers to these questions. This is not that kind of blog. I do hope however, that I have offered up some food for thought in the maelstrom of information that we have in the twenty-first century.
     So until next week, find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Goodreads, and as always: Watch your topknot!
Arley L. Dial
7/27/2015

Coming home, or, What I did on my summer vacation.

Howdy everyone!
     It's good to be back after such a long hiatus.
     I recently (last week) moved from north Florida back to my native state of New Mexico, and I couldn't be happier to be home. The trip was fun, and to avoid this blog turning into a travel log, I will only tell you that Natchez and Vicksburg Mississippi are definitely worth a visit. The highlight of the trip was seeing an American Bison at the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge outside Lawton Ok.
     The thing that struck me most was the sense of relief I felt growing as we traveled west. In Oklahoma, when the last shreds of kudzu had been left behind us, and the land began to open up, it felt as if I let out a breath I had been holding for two years. Simply being able to see more than a few yards in one direction was like a weight had been taken off my shoulders. When we stopped for gas and an ice cream in the Texas panhandle, the dry air was like a balm to my heart. I breathed deep like a nineteenth century consumptive following doctor's orders to go west for a drier climate.
     Don't get me wrong. It's not as if I don't like Florida, or the Deep South, but it is just not home. Folks raised in the more heavily populated and greener climes of the east would feel the same way I did after living on the naked plains of the west for a couple of years.
     I am grateful to be back in my place in the world, and glad to have the opportunity to make my passion my work. I will continue to combine my passion for literature with my passion for the American West. I will pour out my love of these things, and use the talents that God has given me to produce novels which hopefully bless and inspire those who read them.
      I thank you for bearing with me on this rather personal edition of Westerlinglore. I assure you that next week I will return to the fun and interesting facts about life in the Old West that I discover during my research and travels. I would love to hear about what others find, as the West seems to have an unlimited supply of interesting stories. Find me on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram (it's not hard, there are very few Arley Dials in the word) and lets share our experience and love of home.

Adios for now,
Arley L. Dial, July 20, 2015

P.S. If you find yourself looking for a good read, have a look at one of my novels on Amazon. Once again, just put my name into the search engine, you'll find me.

We need a new twenty

We need a new $20 bill

While researching my novels, I learn quite a bit about historical figures, and that has changed my perspective on many of them. One of them in particular has been weighing heavily on my mind lately, and that is Andrew Jackson, sometimes called 'Old Hickory' but most often referred to by my contemporaries as 'The guy on the twenty dollar bill'.

Being a frequent visitor to social media sites, I watch with amusement (and sometimes boredom) while my Democrat friends vilify George W. Bush, and my Republican friends do the same to Barrack Obama. Neither of these men, as controversial as their presidencies sometimes are, comes anywhere near committing the moral outrages of Andrew Jackson.

I am not talking about his habit of dismissing all of the government officials who opposed his campaign and replacing them with his supporters. Every president since Jackson has done the same thing. I am also not talking about the personal scandals that one of his cabinet members (John Eaton) became involved in. Bill Clinton's infidelity blew poor Eaton out of the water.

I am talking about a particular bill, which was a platform of the Jackson campaign, and was passed into law on May 28, 1830. That law was known as the 'Indian Removal Act' and represents one of the most shameful periods in our nation's history.

For those of you who are not familiar with the act, it nullified treaties with what were then known as 'The Five Civilized Tribes' and made it a law that those people be forcibly removed to what is now Oklahoma. 'The Five Civilized tribes were, the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek and Seminole peoples living in what we now consider the southeastern United States.

The people of these first nations were not referred to as 'civilized' for no reason. They were farmers, stock raisers, traders and artisans who lived a relatively peaceful existence with the whites for generations. I say 'relatively peaceful' as opposed to the nomadic tribes of the far west who seem to have maintained raiding as one of the pillars of their economy. The Americans in those southern states did not call for the native's removal to protect their settlements or their lives, but mainly because gold had been discovered in Georgia. 'Old Hickory' answered that call.

After the enactment of the Indian Removal act, many terrible atrocities were committed (by both sides) in the conflict between the First Nations and the Americans of European and African descent. I don't mean to say in any way that the act was the ultimate 'low point' in relations between the two groups. It does however, signify the start of years of institutionalized oppression by the U.S. government.

In my job as a cashier, I am struck by the irony that if a customer hands me a picture of
Andrew Jackson, I will give him a T-shirt featuring a representation of Osceola (I live near Florida State University). Most people that I have spoken with do not think about (or often even know) who Andrew Jackson was, and what he represented. So perhaps we should keep 'Old Hickory' on the twenty, lest we forget, and risk repeating a deplorable chapter in the history of our great nation.

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10/20/2014

p.s. My vote for the new model would probably be Cochise, but since I know of no extant picture of him, here is Sitting Bull for your enjoyment.

 

Life on the Wire

Life on the Wire

Recently I was discussing my novel with a local book club, and I was asked which is my favorite part. After giving the question a little thought, I said that my favorite part would have to be the scene in which a group of Blackfoot Indians are hunting buffalo.

A brave is riding his horse across the snow covered plain approaching a large herd of running bison. He guides his horse toward the stampede and proceeds to loose arrows into a cow until she falls. When this image came to me, I was sitting idle (as I often do) and casually wondering what it would be like to hunt buffalo when the scene sprang almost full grown into my mind. The image lingers with me still.

Imagine with me if you will, rising from your pallet of furs long before the break of day and emerging from your buffalo hide teepee (or lodge) and emerging into the cold darkness of a winter morning on the plains of what is now northern Wyoming or southern Montana. You and your friends gather your horses from where they have spent the night and leap onto their bare backs, setting out to locate the nearest buffalo herd.

By the time you reach the herd the sun has risen, and thousands of huge animals are spread out before you on the plain. You ready the bow that you made with your own two hands, and kick your horse toward the milling beasts. Soon the horse beneath you is running full tilt, and the panicked buffalo are streaming around you. You release the reins because you need both hands to fire your bow and now you are holding on with only your feet. The buffalo around you are nearly twice the size of your horse and the impact of their collective hooves shakes the frozen earth. It is difficult to aim from this position, so you wait until a buffalo is right beside you, at point blank range, before firing.

Close your eyes for a moment and really imagine it.

Sound a little dangerous?

It does so to me. OSHA would never stand for such a thing.

Now imagine that you had to do this thing regularly simply to survive. Imagine that if you failed in this insane task, you and your family (possibly your entire communtiy) would be hungry and possibly starving before long. Imagine that if any one of a thousand things went wrong, you or your horse could be crippled or killed, leaving your family without the resources to house, clothe or feed themselves.

That adds to the intensity a little doesn't it?

When I imagined this for the first time I was outside my workplace waiting for my shift to start. At my current job, we are not allowed to carry a pocket knife and are only allowed to use retractable box cutters to reduce the chance of us cutting ourselves. The dichotomy between the two realities struck me in that moment as I'm sure it did you.

The First Nations hunting buffalo, the Anglo pioneer woman literally carving a home from the earth, and the Vaquero rounding up cattle in the vast arid plains lived on a level that I will ever know. Granted, their lives would have been difficult, uncomfortable, and for the most part extremely short. I'm sure that each of them suffered their share of boredom and drudgery, but they were living with a capital 'L'.

I don't want to sound ungrateful for the conveniences of modern life that I enjoy every day. We live in a time of wonders, and by no means do I wish to disregard the amazing advances in technology which make our modern lives possible. I can't help but think however, that the comfort and security of twenty-first century America may preclude me from a depth of life that might have been possible in a less civilized time.

It would have been difficult, and at times terrifying, but to quote Karl Wallenda:

“Life is on the wire, everything else is just waiting around.”

10/13/2014

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