Hon-dah, Bienvenidos and Welcome to my
blog,
Since I began writing novels a few
years ago, many have asked me why I write, and how I chose the
subject matter. My motivation for writing is fairly simple: I love to
read. When I was a boy of ten or twelve I was given a book with the
legends of King Arthur written in a simplified manner for children.
Since that day, more than twenty five years ago, I have been a
voracious reader. As I grew older, I felt the desire to produce some
work of my own as opposed to simply consuming the work of others.
The reasons for what I write
are a little more complex. My favorite genre of literature is
fantasy, and that has held true for most of my life. Why then, do I
write westerns? When I made the decision to write a book of my own, I
considered writing something in the fantasy or sci-fi vein, but
something felt wrong about it. I had no context. I did not grow up in
England like Tolkien, nor am I a scientist like Arthur C. Clark. I
was reared on the dusty plains of New Mexico and the mountains of
eastern Arizona. It was then that I began to consider the land where
I grew up as a setting for my work. After all, we write what we know.
The more I thought about writing books
set in the west, the more the idea made sense to me. Did characters
like Lancelot, Conan, or Drizz't lead lives any more interesting than
Jim Bridger, Doc Holiday or Cochise? I think not.
What about the common tropes of
fantasy fiction? The swords, the dragons, and fantastic places. Is
the Colt single action army revolver (more commonly known as the
peacemaker) any less romantic than Excalibur or Andรบril?
Have we any need of a chimera when we see a pronghorn outpacing an
automobile along the side of the highway, or a grizzly bear moving a
log that weighs hundreds of pounds to find the grubs beneath? Is
there any fantasy landscape that can match the stony escarpments of
the mogollon rim for grandeur?
Again,
I think not.
But
these things are merely window dressing, sets if you will, for the
drama that was played out in the west during the nineteenth century.
It is the people which make a region interesting, and there are no
more interesting people in the world than those of the American west.
Those who lived (and now live) in the west are at the end of a long
line of restless men and women. The sons of discontent if you will,
who sought a new and better life beyond the frontiers of their
respective civilizations. By no means am I speaking of only European
immigrants. The descendants of the First Nations (or Native
Americans) were at the end of a long line of forefathers who looked
east from ancient Siberia and Mongolia and crossed the land bridge
from Asia in a trek which would have been unimaginably difficult, to
reach the arid lands of the west. Hispanic westerners are the sons of
Spaniards who crossed the ocean, and then pressed north into hostile
territory beyond the protection of their motherland in their pursuit
of happiness. Asians crossed the broader sea to provide a better life
for their families. Restless people from all over the world have come
to the western United States seeking any number of things. Those of
us who call the west home have one thing in common: we are descended
from those who constantly sought the greener grass beyond the
horizon.
It's
kind of ironic that most of the grass they found was brown.
These
are the lands and people that I intend to learn about and write about
in this blog and my novels. If you are as fascinated by them as I am,
join me on my journey. We may not learn anything worth tweeting
about, but we may learn something worthwhile.
A.D.
2014
#plews
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