One Thing After Another

08. September 2014 · Comments Off on One Thing After Another · Categories: Book Event, Domestic

The Garden - Labor Day 2014

The Garden – Labor Day 2014

It seems that Autumn  is determined to taunt us, by delaying  her arrival in South Texas until the last possible moment. She might rightly collide with Winter in the very same weekend, but … well, this is the place that I have chosen to live, and anyway as long as it isn’t cold enough to kill the vegetables in pots, I am satisfied. I’d love to be able to shepherd the peppers, the eggplants, the okra into another season. But as always – I still desire to turn off the AC and open the windows to casual breezes and night-time temperatures in the 60s. Even if it does put nothing aurally between me and the basset hound next door, who can hear a mouse fart in a high breeze three houses away, on those nights when he is outdoors. And yes – his owner does know that Chester can be barky … but he is a good neighbor to us, and Chester ensures that no perv will ever be able to climb over the fence into the backyards on our street without about half the neighborhood knowing … and considering that you could likely fit out the army of a small European country with the arms-related contents of this neighborhood alone… well, we are inclined to be indulgent about Chester. He is either an early-warning system or a discourager-of-pervs.

I’ve been sorting out the remains of heat-killed plants, and moving those things which have survived and thrived in pots to cluster around the steps of the shed, or the newly-reclaimed back porch. No, I will not have to get new pepper, okra or eggplant starts next spring. I swear that one of the things that the garden shops deliberately keep from backyard gardeners is the fact that pepper plants are multi-seasonal. If the darned things don’t get frozen, they will go on bearing, bearing and bearing, summer after summer. The garden presents a rather pleasing aspect, given that the pepper plants are doing very well with their second wind, and I will get a nice crop from them; banana peppers, hot red cherry peppers, cayenne and jalapenos … that is, if I can beat back that wretched rat who also has a taste for peppers and their leaves…

But enough about my garden and weather woes; I have about four projects for Watercress coming up, but not until late this month or into October, so I have taken the opportunity to finish off the book for this year – the YA collection of adventures which were inspired when I tried to figure out a way for the Lone Ranger franchise to recover itself. The more that I thought about it, the more fun that it seemed, especially as it seemed to me that what was key to a ripping good yarn depended on bagging the whole mask, silver bullets, noble white steed tropes, and the generic cardboard setting of the post-Civil War west. Just about everything to do with those is heavily copyright protected, of course. But wrenching the whole concept out of the standard and threadbare conventions, starting all over with the two characters – a young volunteer Texas Ranger and a Delaware Indian scout, setting it in the Republic of Texas years – which were stocked plenty with fresh and unused concepts and characters … I scribbled out the set-up adventure and five more episodes, leaving scope for a good few more, and that’s my book for this year, just in time for the Christmas marketing season. It’s a totally YA and male-friendly adventure, by the way; Blondie has pointed out that the middle-school-age male of our species has been left sadly underserved since the conclusion of the Harry Potter cycle. All that is left to them in popular literature are sparkly vampires in the forest and dystopian fantasies … why not go for something positive, affirming the cowboy way?

Why not, indeed? Even though I don’t have the final cover yet, I’ve opened a page to take orders, and since the book is all but finished, I’ve taken down all the first drafts of the six adventures, leaving only a sample chapter. I’ll autograph and make a personal message, and mail them out October 8th.

Blondie and I have been working at sorting out the calendar of our fall and Christmas marketing events – and yes, there’s a page for my schedule now. I also have a new cellphone and … it’s complicated. This is why she is my personal assistant.

Book Adventures on the Banks of Sister Creek

09. June 2014 · Comments Off on Book Adventures on the Banks of Sister Creek · Categories: Book Event, Old West · Tags: , ,
Special frosted shortbread cookies from the Bear Moon Bakery in Boerne

Special frosted shortbread cookies from the Bear Moon Bakery in Boerne

We spent all day Sunday at the Sisterdale Dance Hall and Opera House, where the Kendall County Historical Commission had set up an event to observe the 170th anniversary of Jack Hays’ big fight near where the old trail between San Antonio and the deserted San Saba presidio and mission crosses the Guadalupe. This was an event gone down in song and story, for Jack Hays and his fourteen Rangers were matched against sixty to eighty Comanche warriors looking for glory, scalps and the odd bit of good horseflesh. The Rangers were armed with Colt’s patent revolving pistols, so what would have been a very one-sided fight turned into a vicious slugging match to the Ranger’s clear advantage. With a few years of that fight, Sisterdale was settled by Germans brought over by the Mainzer Adelsverein, and within a few years after that, the line of the frontier had moved north and west … and within a few more years after that, the remnant of the fighting Comanche had moved to a reservation in Oklahoma, and the Hill Country eventually became the charming, and bucolically Texan cross between Napa-Sonoma-Mendicino and the English Lake Country that it is now.

Tipi displayed on the banks of the creek

Tipi displayed on the banks of the creek

Although, as we were driving up on Sunday morning, and it began to pour simply buckets between Boerne and Sisterdale, I did have my doubts that it would actually happen. It would be a bust and a misery, and we would sit in a wet tent, looking at the rain falling down, hoping that some intrepid visitor with water-wings or maybe a small kayak would come drifting by. Really, I was that worried. But we set up the pink and zebra-striped pavilion and made ourselves at home … and the rain went to a drizzle, the clouds thinned, and more and more people appeared, and oh, my – was there a crowd, by noon. I think there must have been cars parked by the roadside halfway to Luckenbach.

Reenactor Rangers - Ranger on the left is dressed as Ad Gillespie would have been

Reenactor Rangers – Ranger on the left is dressed as Ad Gillespie would have been

 

 

 

And the Dance Hall and Opera House and the little row of rooms that are part of a B&B are quite charming a venue, all shaded with oak trees, and nicely landscaped. It seems to be a pretty popular venue for weddings, which would explain why the ladies restroom is palatial beyond all belief. There were Ranger reenactors, veteran for-realsies Rangers, historians and collectors, and displays of books and weapons and relics … and people keen for books. I actually sold the last copy I had of The Gathering in German to a stray German visitor and Karl May fan, who was so tickled that he insisted on taking a picture of me autographing his copy.

Replica of a 1903 Oldsmobile Ranger paddy-wagon

Replica of a 1903 Oldsmobile Ranger paddy-wagon

 

 

 

We talked to some of the other writers, discovered some mutual author and historian acquaintances, sold a LOT of books – definitely well-worth the drive—and made some interesting contacts. I am supposed to check in with the Genealogical Society in Boerne, for the president of that charming organization is interested in them selling my books. I forgot to bring my copy of Empire of the Summer Moon, so never got a chance to ask S.C. Gwynne to autograph it for me. He was doing his talk at 3:00, just about when the crowd cleared out of the author area, and we looked around and discovered that well … many of the other exhibitors and authors were folding their tents or pop-up canopies and slipping away.

Weapons of the time - Colt Paterson and Walker model revolvers

Weapons of the time – Colt Paterson and Walker model revolvers

An excellent and hopefully profitable day in the long-term as well as in the short term; with luck I’ll have a chance to do other events in Kendall County. So that was my weekend – yours?

 

 

 

Sisterdale, June 8th

29. May 2014 · Comments Off on Sisterdale, June 8th · Categories: Book Event, Old West

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All righty, then – this is where I will be, with my books. It’s only fair, since Jack Hays is a reoccurring character. This was really a last-minute thing, since I didn’t see that they had local authors involved until this week. Well, that’s what the bright pink pavilion is for, isn’t it? And I am very fond of Sisterdale and would like to have a house in the countryside near there someday.

Behold – Our Pavilion at Bulverde Spring Market Days

11. May 2014 · Comments Off on Behold – Our Pavilion at Bulverde Spring Market Days · Categories: Book Event

Origami Earrings and Watercress Press Mobile HQ

Yes … striking, isn’t it? About a dozen other vendors came up during the course of the day to admire it, ask where we had gotten it, compliment us on how eye-catching it was, or to ask our opinion on it’s durability and functionality.

The rack for the origami earrings is a show rack for energy drinks, which we bought for $3 at a yard sale and repainted and modified for use. It very much reduced the containers and displays needed to transport them.

Book Festival!

06. April 2014 · 2 comments · Categories: Book Event

In the shade of the Big Enchilada - the Central Library building.

In the shade of the Big Enchilada – the Central Library building.

This is only the second year running for the San Antonio Book Festival, sponsored by the San Antonio Public Library Foundation, which seems to have modeled itself on the Texas Book Festival – at least, the principles and requirements for books to be considered for it are identical. This means that independently-published books, like my own, and subsidy-published books like … well, Watercress Press authors are not eligible for consideration as part of the festival, only as exhibitors. In the eyes of strict book trade professionals, indy and subsidy-press books have literary cooties or something. (Insert Bette Davis-sized eye-roll here and a heavily sarcastic sigh of “What-ever!) This is ironic in the extreme, as Watercress publishes John Igo’s poetry collections, and he has a public library branch named for him.

So, off to the festival, where the exhibitor booths were set up in three or four rows of pop-up pavilions in the parking lot of the South West School for Art and Craft. The School, by the way – used to house the convent and boarding school run by the Ursuline sisters. This was the first girl’s school in San Antonio, and was considered to be a very fine one in the 19th century. (In the Trilogy, this is the school that Hannah and Lottie attend.)
It was chilly and overcast all day Saturday, which may have discouraged some participation – as well as some of the exhibitors – but on the other hand, better that then too hot, or too cold, as it was in December at Christmas on the Square at Goliad last December. Yes, it would have been more pleasant if the sun had come out … but outdoor events in Texas are a challenging thing, most times of the year, whatever that time is.

So – I sold some books, made some connections, plan to join the Texas Association of Authors, so as to be able to have my books appear at more book events, and maybe gained a few more clients for Watercress. All in all, a good day – but at the end of the day, a couple of classes of Chablis, a frozen pizza warming in the oven, and a couple of episodes of the old Upstairs, Downstairs show on TV were a well-earned reward.

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