Author Juni Fisher blurts out the truth.

Motorhome Blues

Sun, 12 Sep 2021 20:28:13 GMT

My motorhome was a great partner, until I had to park it.

I’ve been driving a 2007 Coachmen motorhome since 2011, and it has been a workhorse. Always fired right up, always ran like a charm, got me there, kept me on the road, and was a dream to stay in because of the nice layout.

But motorhomes are meant to be driven, not parked. Spring of 2020 found me grounded in Tennessee, after I’d parked my motorhome for a month in Tucson at an airport parking property.

Two months after I’d left it there, I had to go get it. I masked up, flew back out to Arizona, got in it and drove it back to TN over the next 10 days, to isolate after flying and keep my sweet husband safe. I got out only to put in gas and pick up groceries.

An appeal to my homeowner’s association at my condo, to park it there in ONE car space (possible if you know how) was met with a “NO!” so I paid 60.00 a month for a parking spot 20 miles away. (If you fantasize about having an RV, this is one of many things you need know ahead of time.) It was parked there for two months. Two gigs, one in Colorado and one in Nevada decided they would go ahead with safety measures in place, and have the concerts. Off I went in July 2020 to play those, which gave me a way to get that rig back to California where I could keep it for free and keep it covered and dry.

It sat from July ‘til October, and then I took it on a short jaunt to two outdoor shows in Arizona, where the propane system started leaking. Shut that down, went without hot water for the rest of that tour (and with no stove, and could only run the fridge if it was plugged in, or the generator was running) Fed-Ex driver pitched my package with the part for the propane tank over a locked gate at the neighbor’s house, turned it a report that he’d delivered to the DOOR. I wonder if his pants ever caught fire. Neighbor found the dog-chewed package when they got home, and a mobile RV repairman put it on. Problem not solved. I drove on home to CA with no fridge, hot water, etc. Ordered another part. Took a while to get it, so it did not get installed til early spring 2021. Neighbor here installed that one. Nope, did not fix the problem.

So, I called my favorite RV repair place in Tulare County, California in early July. “We can get you in the end of October.” Mercy. I called every other possible place, and no one could work on propane. The mobile RV repair someone recommended was out of business. The other never called back. I call the RV place again, and give my best appeal, since I needed to take it on the road the end of October. Yes, they can get me in next week. Except I’m flying to Kansas for a festival next week. But I can drop it off a few days early. Great.

I go out, hose off the windshield, put the key in the ignition, and am smiling to myself, since I used my AAA battery service to get a new battery in it 2 months ago, and 3 weeks ago, started it up to move it over in the driveway, and it started like it always had. This was going to be GREAT.

Nothing. Not a click, not a shrug, nothing. Get out battery charger and hook it up, wondering what could be wrong since I’d disconnected the interior batteries which I always suspected were trickling my battery away when it was parked for 6 weeks or so. While I’m doing that, a clicking noise alerts me something else is going on. Ah the automatic parking lights switch. I switch it off, noise stops. Charge it over night to 12 volts. Yippee! Get in. Nothing. Not a click, not a shrug, nothing.

Dead in the water again. I start pulling fuses, and none of them are burned out. Could it be the starter? Maybe. After 200K miles of good service, sure, could be that. Guess I have to cancel dropping this thing off for propane repairs til I get back from Kansas and can get a mobile person out here to see if it is the starter. And if you’re smugly thinking “A starter is easy to replace” I invite you to come look, because it’s not in the same place in a van engine compartment as it is in your car or truck.

Do I still love my trusty motorhome? Yes. But this week, it's got me singin' the blues.

Catching Scammers is FUN

Sun, 27 Jun 2021 14:56:39 GMT

The bull stops here.

A few weeks ago, a voice mail pops up on my phone. This caller’s production company’s producers and directors, he says, are interested in “your book GIRLS FROM CENTRO, and we want to talk to you about making a movie based on our book.”

That’s the dream of many authors, right? While I do have that novel registered with several archival sites that cater to film directors seeking fresh stories, my red flag is popping in the wind by the time his message ends. Why? The language of the book to movie process used by the caller is wrong, and the means of communication is more than suspicious.

Yes, could be the guy was dumbing down the language to get a naïve person excited, since the words “option, screenplay, rights” and so forth may not be familiar to someone who has not done any homework about these things. And some people are “pick up the phone and call” people.

I let my red flag keep doing its job and dial the number. Rings once and shuts off. Dial again, same thing. Wait 10 minutes, dial again, and it rings 7 times, goes to “user busy.”

Google the name of the production company and there they are on a scam report, four times in recent weeks. A week later, another voice mail: they are still excited about my book, he’ll call back Monday. Monday goes by. Tuesday, another voice mail asks me to text him what time we can talk. I text the number, tell him “Right now,” because I’m prepared. By now, I know that when I don’t have a screen play ready to send, he is going to offer to “split the cost” of writing a screenplay, and he has a writer ready, of course. And it will only be $10,000 for my half. These people have balls, I give them that.

I know he expects me to be squealing with glee that they want to make a movie based on my book, but my sensibility won’t let me fake the glee he expects. I keep asking him what his proposal is, and he starts blabbering how much they might pay in film rights, so I ask him to email me his proposal, his website, etc. Now the story changes: it’s not producers and directors that love the book, it’s his SCOUTS and we need to prepare a proposal in the next 5 weeks, since “we have your book on our top fifteen list, and we want to pitch it to directors and producers to sell the rights.”

Every time I ask for clarification on this, he starts babbling. He’s used to people who DON’T have a clue. I ask him again to email me his information and proposal. He emails a link to a website for a production company in GB that IS legit and has offices in Europe. But guess where they DON’T. That’s right, in Hollywood where he claims to be. I look up the building, on google maps, and PING, here’s a list of who does business in leased offices in that building. Nobody by that company name or his name. But to be sure, I contact the building manager who tells me he gets a call a week about this company or this guy.

Why am I relaying this story? Because while I don’t want to step on a pile of bull poop, it’s good to know where it is. I’ve sent this clown an email telling him when he’s ready to negotiate, my lawyer and I will meet him at his office in Hollywood. And while I suspect he is not even in this country, if he is in the Los Angeles area, with enough paper trail, the right authorities may be able to shut down one more scammer.

A New BOOK?

Wed, 10 Mar 2021 18:33:52 GMT

I'll probably beat you to the next question.

I know the question is well meant. "Oh, you're writing a new BOOK? When's it coming out?" And I'm thrilled people ask. But the answer is not when a book in the first stages of writing will be out, but when that first draft will be done. (Oh, and the answer is "when it's done" and there's a lot of editing and revising and re-editing and re-revising between the first draft and a "pitchable" draft. )

The part about pitching comes next. We take that novel we've written and write a query letter, which conveys the essence of the story into about 300 words, and we see what literary agents or publisher might be interested. Most say no. It's just the way it is. But when some stars align, an agent or publisher who loves the idea of the story asks for a full manuscript, to see if the manuscript delivers what the query promises. "When's it coming out?" is still the question, and there's not a solid answer yet.

But some stars aligned in December 2020, and a cool publisher loved the query letter (one page) enough to read the synopsis (three pages) and upon reading those, asked for a full manuscript (300 pages) and read it, and loved it. Then they offered a contract, and we struck a deal. So, the NEW book, INDELIBLE LINK is signed to a publisher.

What's it about? A trapeze artist. That's about all I'm allowed to say right now.

"When's it coming out?" When they're done doing what publishers do. But you can send me an email here: author@junifisher.com and I'll make sure you get news when they're ready to release it.

While you're waiting, if you haven't read GIRLS FROM CENTRO, you can get it on Amazon : https://www.amazon.com/Girls-Centro-Juni-Fisher/dp/1683131754/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&am... = or from my website (and I can sign it!) https://www.junifisher.com/book

Meet Dixxy Diamond

Sun, 28 Feb 2021 14:34:26 GMT

The roaching shears haircut that inspired a venture.

I never was a fan of True West Magazine until 2010. I'll tell you that. It's because I'd only seen the old version of that magazine, with articles written by what appeared to be stuffed shirts writing about gun fights and western history they had not witnessed, with an air of displaced authority.

I didn't tell that to Bob Boze Bell, the editor of of True West Magazine the first time I met him in the spring of 2010. I remember the meeting though, in Palm Springs, California, where Bob's friend and comrade Ken Amorosano was keen for introductions. I already knew Ken from the Single Action Shooters Society events where I'd performed in the past. We three were invited to a fancy-schmanzy brunch event, and there may have been 6 or seven other people at that table, but once the three of us got to talking, I could not have told you who else was there. We were still deep in conversation an hour after everyone else was gone.

What struck me about Bob Boze Bell was his sense of humor, knack for the bizarre, and enthusiasm for stirring up the old guard when it came to Western history. I started reading True West Magazine that day. I still read every issue.

Bob and I have had a number of opportunities to meet over enchiladas and ice tea when I've passed through Cave Creek, Arizona since that day. And it was probably nine years ago that he told me about this character, Dixxy Diamond. Was I interested in doing something with him on the subject? Well, I was working on CDs and touring, he was working on a back log of illustrated books, and Dixxy kept coming up over the next handful and a half of years. Meanwhile, Bob did the cover illustration for my debut novel, and wrote a dandy blurb for it. I wrote a blurb for one of his illustrated history books.

So then came 2021, and the time was right. I had just signed my second novel with a publisher, and he'd just sent another landmark book of Western history out the gate.

Who is Dixxy Diamond? She's Bob's wild brain child. She's had a bunch of different looks, and I've probably written a dozen or more different outlines for a novel about her. Bob and I have become comfortable old friends these days, playing ping pong with this wild girl from the desert.

Bob's sketches and ideas send me running to my laptop to write, and Dixxy Diamond is finally getting her day in the sun. He did this illustration and I said "She cuts her own hair. With roaching shears," and we were off and running.

We'll both be posting more about this project as we go. In the meantime, you can find Bob's great graphic history books here: https://store.truewestmagazine.com/product-category/books/ Hey, subscribe to the magazine too, and find out what makes this maniacally good illustrator and author so dang likable.

The High School Jock

Tue, 09 Feb 2021 19:03:05 GMT

Can horses swagger? You bet.

Back in 92 or 93, I had a nice horse called "Zinger" that I'd brought along from green track reject to a quite nice event horse. Eventing, for those unfamiliar, is that equestrian sport you see on the Olympics, where they gallop and jump cross country, in addition to doing a dressage (like the figures in figure skating) test, and also a show jumping segment (over colored fences in an arena, and the fenced come down if your horse touches them)

Event riders live for the cross country. Those who have not evented, but have only jumped colored poles in the safety of an arena, and have never actually galloped (loping and cantering are not galloping) will naively say "Oh, that is so dangerous." Ha. Actually, if the horse is well prepared, and the rider is smart and can think on his or her feet, the team is far safer than the person who climbs on old Dobbin twice a year a staggers off for a "trail ride" with others who ride a couple times a year. It's all about the daily work, the training, the preparedness. Event horses are introduced gradually to every situation they might encounter at the level at which they'll be competing. Smart riders instill confidence in them by never getting them in a bad situation. When we go to show them, the rider walks the course on foot beforehand. I always walked cross country courses at least three times, sometimes five, on foot, with my "stick" (my favorite cross country whip) in my hand, so I'd be switching it to the hand it needed to be in, as I approached each fence. This way, the switch was ingrained in my motions for the actual ride.

But back to the horses. My event horse I called "Zinger" was a sweet soul, reject flat track horse, but he had a lot of scope. and if you got him to a fence and he understood, even if he was almost at a walk, when you said "We are jumping that NOW" Zinger would get it done. He overjumped most fences, which was fine. If I shooshed at him or even rattled my stick close to his ribs, guaranteed he was thinking about it for the rest of the course. He could gallop at the speeds for Novice and Training levels easily, but at the Preliminary level, the speed felt "fast." Zinger was a nice Jeep Cherokee, fine in 4 wheel drive, up to 40 mph. And I adored Zinger, but he was not going to hold up to the speed work. What I needed to move up the levels was a 4-wheel drive Ferrari.

Enter "Mach Two" aka "Flipper." Flipper was a steeplechase horse, impeccably bred, and a stakes race winner. He was one of the string I galloped for a steeplechase trainer. Flipper stayed on his feet, and the quip was "He takes care of himself, but your job is to stay on him." Flipper had also gotten in the habit of dumping steeplechase jockeys who pulled on his mouth. Clever bugger, was Flipper. I loved his effortless gallop. I spent about a year developing trust: him trusting I would not pull on him, me trusting he'd let me say on his back. I probably schooled him over show jumps a total of 6 times before I took him to his first horse trial, and I'd been cantering him over simple cross country questions. Though the busy warmup arena was very concerning to him (steeplechase horses have never seen such a thing) he was really good and even pulled a nice ribbon at his first horse trial: something that rarely happens.

I hauled him down to my old and beloved coach Jim Graham to school with him, and Jim said "Ah, you have a high school jock. He knows he can get away with murder." Now, Jim said this tongue in cheek, but it was true. Flipper was a beautiful mover, and naturally balanced. He could gallop at high speed and remain balanced and felt safe because of it. Flipper truly WAS a high school jock. Most young event horses suck back a bit entering the dressage arena, and trotting down the center toward a judge and scribe sitting in the judges stand. Not Flipper. He'd trot in, nail a perfect stop, and pose as if to say "Ta-DAH!" Total ham, total high school jock.

Along with that, came this other think where we'd be galloping down to a fence on the cross country, and I'd walked it 3 or 5 times, so I knew we needed to canter over that ditch, and then organize into four strides before the big brush fence, jump it sitting back, land, and organize two strides to the fence that took us out or the combination. All this I said to Flipper, with my seat, my leg, my hand, and mentally. "Four strides here, you can jump from where it looks good, but we are doing two strides to get out. I mean that." The high school jock would assess this at a gallop, and answer "Yeah, yeah yeah" and do ONE stride to get out of the combination. I think he liked to hear me suck air through my teeth. He was one of a kind. But I adored that little high school jock of a horse.

Finding Your Way

Sun, 17 Jan 2021 22:09:49 GMT

Some thoughts about what it means to write that book.

I get messages from people who are excited about having completed their first "novel" which I assume means they have now written a first draft. And they want to know now how to get it "published." I smile. I remember having written three of five or ten chapters of this great American novel I was going to write and wanting to know how to get it to a publisher, even though I had not even finished a first draft. Naive, well intended person that I was. Thank God, none of those rough beginnings saw the light of day. I get messages from people who say they are going to write a book as soon as they (fill in the life-event that has to pass before they begin) Some think they don't need to edit because the used spell check. I know, because I used to say that too, before I actually did the whole "finish that draft, kill it, start again, rewrite, revise, and edit the shit out of it. Not just figuratively. Really. Because I promise you there is plenty of poop in anyone's first draft.

It's a little confusing for a newbie to sort through these things, but I'll expound a bit of advice for those who are in the category of "Just finished my first draft" if I may. If you post that on any FB page, especially those aimed at fledgling authors, and get a flood of "I'll PM you, we can get your book published." Those offers are on the level with the of "Widowed" nice looking doctors and others with new profiles who send friend requests and if you click on them they immediately PM you with "hello, pretty lady, I'd like to get to know your heart" (stop right here to throw up in your mouth, then keep reading) Authors who have actually gotten books published by legitimate publishers did not do so by responding to the people who PM them to offer their "publishing" services.

What I want those of you who are excited about your "novel" to understand is that you are not going to send your first draft to any legitimate publisher and have them fall in love with it and want to offer you a "publishing deal". If someone DOES that, it is a scam. No one, and I mean no one writes a first draft that would make a great novel, as is. Hemingway didn't. Fitzgerald didn't, Harper Lee didn't. And importantly, there are no longer editors like the legendary Max Perkins who edited Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Wolfe. unless your are a celebrity and they see value in making you LOOK like you can write Nowadays, those manuscripts going to the better publishing houses have to be pretty darn polished to get a nod and an offer. There is a reason the first draft of any novel is affectionately called a "shitty first draft" in the industry. Believe me, I got my feathers ruffled when I first heard that term, because I was SURE my first draft of my first novel could not possibly deserve such a title.

What every person who wishes to add "author" to their resume has to learn to do is to recognize the first draft as clay. Author Amy Hale relates this beautifully in her essay about the woman who goes to the cut bank on the river to gather clay in her basket. She then washes, and refines the clay, over and over until it is usable, and then she starts forming the clay into something that is not beautiful until it has gone through a lot of refinement. Then she has to fire the pot, and it may shatter in the firing. Or it may have a crack that renders it not useful. She begins again, and she works until the pot does what it is supposed to do.

I love Hale's essay because I also work with clay. I still have the thick walled, squat, homely mug that was my first clay project. I screwed up the shape and the thickness and the finish work because I was in a hurry. A kind woman in the clay group told me it was beautiful because it was my first and to make the next one better. Nowadays, I can make lovely thin walled bowls, formed by hand, that "sing" when "plinked" but it took a lot of failed bowls to get there. It's a process of learning from those who have gone before us, and they learned from someone else, and the refinements and lovely touches are shared from generation to generation None of that happens the first day, or the hundredth day.

What does it all mean, if we are not learning as we go? I probably ran 17 rounds of edits on my first novel before I pitched it to any publishers. The editor who took a chance on that first manuscript spent several months going through and making edit and revision notes, and then he and I did at least three rounds of edits. I never said "no" to going another round, because another wise author had told me I could trust that editor's eye. I have been pitching my second full length manuscript, and have a contract offer from a nice small publishing company with longevity and dedication in their favor. Was my second novel easier? Hell no. I wrote at least 6 different "first five chapters"to find the entry to the story that worked. I have probably done 20 or 25 rounds of edits and revisions and at one time chopped out 30,000 words, saved them away, and revised as a shorter manuscript, only to go back for those 30,000 words and put them back, and carve out 20,000 somewhere else. Ackkk.

So when you approach a published author and say you are going to write a book, and he or she smiles and nods sympathetically, well, it's because they know what you will face if you actually put the work into doing it. But who ever knows if that lump of clay will be refined into a useful cup, unless they spend the time washing, refining, forming, re-forming, firing, glazing, and firing again?

Gotta get your hands dirty to find out.

Zippy, Best Little Car Ever

Mon, 28 Dec 2020 21:17:00 GMT

Car snobs need not apply.

Marne was the queen bee of the clay group: a long standing gathering of women who loved to work with their hands in clay, rolling, molding, pinching, smoothing, and finishing items made from a variety of clays from around the country. Marne was part of the original group that moved from Visalia, California, to Three Rivers, California when the founder of the group passed away and bequeathed her supplies and kiln to the group, and my sister happened to have a place for a kiln and supplies.

I happened into the group when I joined them one day, and that circle of long time friends welcomed their friend's sister as one of their own. "How thick should I roll this type of clay out to form the body of a coffee mug, Marne?" She had the answer. She'd watch me fiddling with the handle, trying to get it to adhere, and then ask 'Did you score the clay on the cup and handle first?" And "Stick a ball the size of a pea under the edges of the handle to make it stronger." And "Before you put the cover on that for the day, you might want to smooth that top edge, because it won't smooth out later." We loved her.

Marne drove a light blue Toyota Matrix. It had rear view mirrors on both sides, and in the center of the dash, of course, but in her later years, Marne drove by feel instead of using those mirrors a lot of the time. While the fiberglass, or plastic, or whatever they use on those cars for bumpers was still in place, the valences that give the bottom profile of those dandy little economy cars a smooth appearance were all gone but one. I say gone: they were no longer on the car. Let's say that. Some were in her car port, like pale blue trophies from competitions with curbs and rock ledges in driveways and probably another car or two.

Marne passed away suddenly last summer, and the items in her estate were distributed among her closest friends. The larger, more significant items, like her blue Matrix were bequeathed to a non-profit she loved, to be sold for their fundraising efforts. I asked one of the ladies of the group who was helping disperse items about Marne's Matrix. "If you're interested in it, I'll get you in touch with the person handling her estate." I heard from the attorney in a few days, and arranged to test drive the car after doing some research on reliability and safety, and what the Bluebook might be on the 17 year old car. Low mileage, considering the year, solid mechanically, straight frame, good tires, everything but the A/C worked. I was prepared to make a fair offer based on Bluebook and what the repairs would cost. I asked the lawyer what she thought was a fair price, and she asked if 1000.00 sounded fair. I paid cash.

I fixed the A/C myself, changed the wiper blades, evened out the tire pressure, and I had a car to drive to the barn daily (a 100 mile round trip, which was a killer in my 12 mpg truck, and a breeze in a 35 mpg car.) When someone needed something dropped off somewhere, I'd volunteer to do so in my car, which I named Zippy. Great mileage was a heaven sent gift.

Car snobs can look down their noses. I laugh at car snobs. If I drop the back seat, I have a six foot long cargo space that holds almost as much as the bed of my Ford F250, but enclosed. Zippy fits into parking spaces I used to look at longingly. No car thief is going to target Zippy. She won't end up in a chop shop getting her vin number filed off to sell to a drug lord.

Will I ever replace the decorative valences? Naw. I love Zippy the way she is, and think lovingly of Marne every time I drive: Using my rear view mirrors, of course. Thank you Marne, for Zippy. I'll take excellent care of her.

Things That Work

Tue, 19 Nov 2019 16:22:10 GMT

It's not rocket science to figure out what works.

If you know anything at all about me, you know horses have been part of my life for the past 50 years. I was looking at this photo of my 5 year old mare, Reydio Airplay, aka DeeJay this morning, and it occurred to me how many things represented here are things that just plain work. None of it is by accident: and all of it is a result of trial and error and retrial.

Let's start at the top left. Rope halters. Now, I do use flat nylon halters most of the time, but there are flat and rope halters hanging on a bar at the barn, ready to grab. Why do we use them? Some young horses need a reminder not to lean on a halter while being led, or while tied. My mare is NOT a puller, but I was experimenting that day with a quick release on tying the crown piece, and it worked well. Something to remember for the future. You may notice that there is a snap, then a piece of PVC, and then what you can't see in the photo is that the end of the rope goes to a high spot on that upright. The barn manager (also the farrier) at the barn rigged those on these tie poles for saddling, shoeing, vet work, etc. Horses don't learn to chew on lead ropes this way. It works.

Under her front feet, which happen to be bare for now, there's an inch thick rubber mat. This not only feels better for horses that might be left tied here for a while, it also reduces wear and tear should they happen to be impatient and paw while they wait to be worked.

That saddle sitting close to her back (except for the slight rise in the seat at the front) is no happenstance. I have a cutting saddle that fits this mare perfectly, and hoped to find a cowhorse, or ranch cutter that had a similar seat. I worked my way through a couple of saddles that were close, but when I ran across this one, it was finally that same kind of fit. What happened to the other saddles? Well because I keep only one riding horse, I sold them. This saddle (a Tom Block) and my RooHide cutting saddle are the two I ride. I use a half inch thick felt 5 Star saddle pad. This whole set up works for me.

The way my latigo is looped is another thing that works. I used to struggle with the billet end working loose while riding, and sometimes, it would come clear out of the keeper and be hanging from the cinch buckle. I started running it though the slot a second time, and that works, but takes longer to pull out when I need to pull my cinch up a little from the saddle (which I can do, because of the design of the cinch I use) So the latigo is looped and the end pushed down, and one only has to pull at the top of that loop to release the pressure enough to pull a cinch tighter. And it never comes out while riding. Works.

You see that tuft of yellow twine at her back legs? We make tail bags (to protect the tail hairs from breaking on these show horses that are kept in stalls and pens) from tube socks (you can just see the tab of the black cotton blend sock here) and we add a "swisher" at the end made from three strands of baling twine doubled and doubled again, looped and tied so the sock end can go in through the loop. The tail is braided, and folded and well protected, and on this horse, I typically trim 3 or 4 inches a month from the length to keep it at or above the fetlock joint. (This is not a ranch horse. She is not turned out in the woods, or in a field with other horses, or in a place the strands will snag) This works, too.

How many times in our every day lives do we find ourselves using something we've found by trial and error to be the best thing for the job? Are you struggling with something in your life that doesn't work, and you're stuck on it because it's "always been that way?" Maybe it will be a good thing to make a change, and find what really works!

The Toolbox Rule

Sat, 19 Oct 2019 17:43:09 GMT

Daddy's toolbox was my toy box, but there were rules.

The Toolbox Rule

My father’s hair-triggered and barely legible retractable tape measure lies in a drawer of where I squirrel precious things.

Daddy’s battered, green steel toolbox was always on the floorboard of his oxidized blue ’53 Chevy pickup. It was my toy box the summer days I rode along, hoping someday he’d choose me as his hired man. After all, my own long handled camp shovel and red rubber rain boots were already in the bed of the pickup beside his shovel and irrigation boots.

I was the curious child. The child never admonished for opening the lid of his toolbox, for examining the settings of slip joint pliers. Never scolded for testing the retracting mechanism of his tape measure, or for trying the rattly-loose span of an adjustable crescent wrench most people would have discarded, but “If it still works,” he’d say, “you keep it.”

The yellow resin handled screwdriver with a chunk of grip missing, an assortment of flat and locking washers, various found nuts, screws, bolts and the tape measure were to stay in the shallow top tray. “Put the tray on the floor, not on the seat,” he’d instruct, “so it doesn’t spill.” And you never, ever took the toolbox out of the pickup. “That,” he told me, “is how people lose toolboxes.” Daddy fixed things by working out of the open passenger side door, leaning in to get what he needed from his box.

If I took the ball peen hammer out to get at the claw hammer, I was to put the ball peen back before I went off to practice pounding and pulling nails. That was the rule.

When my mother built me my own little toolbox from baby shoe box with a rope carry handle threaded through the top, Daddy gave me a short-bladed flathead screwdriver, a kid-sized hammer actually made for clock repair, and a plastic six-inch ruler. I could borrow his pocket-sized tape measure, “but put it back when you’re done. Then when you need it, you know where it is.” At six, I broke the toolbox rule with my own tools and lost my hammer. I never broke the Toolbox Rule again.

I’ve had a half dozen toolboxes in my lifetime, each set up and governed by lessons learned from my father. His yellow resin handled screwdriver rests alongside newer screwdrivers in my top tray with saved nuts, bolts, screws, and washers.

And his beaten-up tape measure, which I was only allowed to borrow, and not carry in my own little toolbox is mine now, but only to borrow. I choose not to believe “You can’t take it with you,” when it comes to tools. When I leave this life, I’m taking that tape measure with me to return to my father. Because that’s the Toolbox rule.

Stardust

Wed, 14 Aug 2019 05:18:18 GMT

When the end is a beginning

The earth lost an angel about a month ago. Her name was Audrey Griffin. When I went to a friend who'd delivered a touching eulogy at Audrey's memorial service, though, I saw that Audrey had not left us after all. The shining torch had been passed. That torch was passed to Kristen, who spoke with tenderness and honestly about what Audrey had meant to her, and gave us all a vision of what we were to do with that torch of shining light Audrey had left us.

Audrey gained her first taste of the spotlight as a roman rider. On a team, then a trio, then a quintet, and a sextet of white horses, she rode galloping patterns in rodeo arenas in the 1950s. She raised a beautiful family of daughters. She was a sailor (something I didn't know until her memorial service) and she was a horseman to the very last light. Folks would see her truck and trailer all over the Santa Ynez Valley, and say "There goes Audrey," and smile. She'd be hooking up her trailer and loading a good horse at the drop of a hat if there were cattle to gather or move, or sort or brand. She was first to raise her hand when it came time to lend a hand, because she just plain loved horses, and riding, and being a dang good hand, and that she was: a hand.

I first met Audrey about 10 years ago when I met an old friend, Art Green who's managing the Alisal Ranch cattle operation outside Solvang, CA, for lunch in Santa Ynez one day. He brought along my friend and hero Sheila Varian, and this beautiful, shining woman with the most magnificent blue eyes you ever saw. Sheila wanted to know if I could go move some cattle with them the next day. "If you can mount me, I've got my saddle in the camper," I said. True to Sheila fashion, she said "Audrey can!"

Now, I am very very sensitive to people's horses, and I turned to this woman I'd just met, laughing and said, "I'm so sorry, Audrey. You don't know me from Adam, but it was sure nice of Sheila to offer your horse." Audrey Griffin, member of the Cowgirl Hall of Fame, never missed a beat.

"You can ride my bridle horse, I'll ride my filly tomorrow." And the next day, I jogged out across the morning mist with Cowgirl Hall of Famers Sheila Varian and Audrey Griffin on either side of me. Slice of heaven right there. The thing was, if Sheila said I was okay, then I was okay by Audrey too. The other thing was this: Audrey Griffin just plain loved everybody. She'd hug you and look into your eyes and you knew that if there were angels on earth, they had silver hair, a cowboy hat, sparkling blue eyes and their lipstick was the perfect shade. That was Audrey.

When she passed, she was sitting on a good horse, dressed to the nines, moving cattle. That was how she always said she wanted to go: to be on a good horse and have her lights just go out. God was listening. And when Audrey rode off into her last sunset on earth, she left some stardust on all of us. Thank you, my beautiful friend. You left plenty of stardust for everyone you ever touched.

Sometimes A Nod Is All You Need.

Mon, 05 Aug 2019 22:51:34 GMT

or: Debut author scores a top three award and does a happy dance

Every person who's ever set out to write a novel has three jobs in front of them.

1. Sit down and actually write a novel. Not outline, not record notes, not go to endless classes, not talk about it, but actually sit down and write a full manuscript, start to finish.

2. Edit, edit, read, edit, edit, share with trusted mentor, edit, listen, edit, pitch, edit that manuscript until it is ready for the world.

(Hint: your family and friends are not your editors unless they truly ARE professional editors)

3. Find that manuscript a home.

Now, that home can be with a traditional publisher, and the big ones will take a look at a manuscript from an agent they trust. Or (this was the route I took with my first novel) that home may be with a smaller publisher that's open to reading the first 10 or 20 pages, and hopefully more of a manuscript from an as yet unpublished writer. Or if the author has a platform and only wants to hold a printed book with their name on the cover, they can go the self-publishing route. (works for authors who already have enough of a following to sell the book) Or if they would like to forego the work of editing and pitching, they can pay a vanity press to print their book, (not at all a recommendation, mind you)

It's a waiting game. You learn that really quickly. My author and agent friends were mostly astounded that my debut novel was published only a year after I signed the contract with the publisher who read the manuscript and offered a contract. A YEAR. I died a thousand deaths every time someone asked "So, when is your book coming out?" because it sounded more like "So, this supposed book, the one you say is being published, will it ever actually be a real book?"

Then we hope the editorial reviews will be favorable, and after that we hope the readers also add their reviews to Amazon and social media.

Then, if we are brave when the publishers asks "Want us to submit this for some awards" we say "YES" because after all the time and effort, frustration, waiting, and wondering, we hope our work stands up to inspection. Why? Because getting some recognition here and there is a nice thing. That nice thing just happened officially today. My debut novel, Girls From Centro is a finalist for the WWW Women Writing the West Willa Award for Contemporary Fiction. In straight talk, it was in the top THREE, and for this debut author, that's exciting and rewarding news.

Want to know the boost that got me to complete the three things listed above? I'll be sharing that on my social media pages very soon. Stay tuned! And thank you thank you thank you to all of you who've read and remarked about the novel! You ROCK.

For The Sake Of The Story

Sun, 21 Jul 2019 17:36:05 GMT

Or: Research is brutal

How does a writer write about something he or she hasn't done, or lived through? Research. That word alone has a million meanings. Want to write about cowboying for a living? Research doesn't happen at a rodeo, or a horse show. Or on a "trail ride." It happens talking to and watching people who cowboy for a living, unless one has lived the life themselves. Writing about race horses? Research doesn't happen reading Facebook posts about the outcome of races, nor does it happen meeting someone who has a horse that "used to be a racehorse." It happens spending time with the real deal, and making sure the details are correct. Details, terminology and the writer's confidence in the subject are everything.

Research matters. When I was doing editing research for my novel GIRLS FROM CENTRO, I went into the Sonoran Desert in the area where my characters would have been running from the bad guy, the trafficking coyote, and I RAN through dry washes, looking for Acacia trees big enough to hide behind. I dodged Cholla and Ocotillo cactus. I ran, holding my cell phone, videoing how that looked to look around, in a hurry. I knew the windmills, towers, and unpaved roads where I put my characters in those parts of the story. How did that work? Well, reviewers said "I was THERE with them, it was so real." Good. Writing "real" accomplished.

About a six weeks ago, I finished the first draft of a new novel. I had been to the city where much of it takes place, New Orleans, and had walked the streets where some of the story is happening. I'd been to the race track in New Orleans (with my former race trainer husband, who is a wealth of terms real people in the business use, and the order of the country's race meets) I needed to know where the trainers leaving New Orleans would be going next. The story is not about racing, but there was a casual element that needed to be right. I looked at photos of the track clubhouse in that era. Those details are not in the manuscript specifically, but I could see them as I wrote those race track scenes. I studied photos of teenagers from the era, and zoomed in to study photos of circus costumes from the era.

There was one thing left. There's a tattooist and a tattoo parlor in the story, and there's a young woman who gets her first tattoo, then a lot more. I'm a pretty conservative (okay, save for an occasional purple streak in my hair) person. But a treasured friend who I can always count on to call me to the mat for my writing said "Your tattoo scenes could be good, but they are not accurate." See, she has tattoos. She knew how that felt, and sounded, and how the artist might work. I was only going by what I found by Googling. I cringed when she said "You need some ink, so you do this right." Heck, I put off thinking about it for more than a year, while I finished the manuscript.

Then, about 10 days ago, I knew I needed to go see for myself. I'd passed outside tattoo parlors, and looked at their websites for long enough. Time to go. So I did. I met a man named Chris, whose profile and work I'd seen on the shop's website. I showed him the cover art for GIRLS FROM CENTRO and he took a photo. The next day, I put on my big writer panties and he did a tattoo on my forearm. Oh holy hell. I asked him questions before we started, and I got REALLY quiet once he turned the machine on, because I needed to feel the cutting, the vibration, the intense sensation of it. As I tried to breathe normally, and reminded myself not to tell the tattooist unkind things about his mother (it does get better as adrenaline kicks in) I knew my friend who'd challenged me to get that part of the story right, was RIGHT.

So, will I become a tattoo covered person? No. But I have a little art to commemorate getting my first novel published, AND I got in the research I so needed to make those parts my new novel believable. I'll be pitching that new novel to agents in the coming weeks. I'm researched and ready. www.junifisher.com

Finding Your Voice With Your Voice

Thu, 13 Jun 2019 14:52:31 GMT

When you hear it, you'll hear it.

"I've got this manuscript pretty well nailed down," I said with unsupported confidence when a friend who had already published five books with two traditional publishers told me to be sure I read the whole thing aloud.

"Out loud, or did you read at a whisper and eventually go back to reading silently?" she said.

"Ummmm," I said.

"That's what I thought," she said.

See, we all have the best intent when we start out doing what we THINK is editing. Friends say "I can help you with editing, I always find spelling mistakes." (so does spell-check if we pay attention to the red squiggly lines) We think to ourselves "I was editing as I finished chapters, so it's pretty well in order." (This was the dialog in my head when my friend told me to read my first manuscript aloud more than once)

When I'd reached round 12 of edits on my first manuscript, I printed it up, stacked it in a manuscript box, grabbed three colors of highlighters, because I innocently thought I'd be marking spelling with one color, what needed to move in another, and what needed to be mercifully killed with a third color, and did what my published friend told me to do. I read aloud.

I sat in a folding chair with my feet on a muck tub outside my horse's stall and read to her. She listened. I looked at her every few seconds for feedback from my somewhat captive audience. Not that she had anything to offer by the way of edits, but that held my feet to the fire because I was reading aloud. My color system of highlight pens went right out the window. I used one highlighter to mark lines, and a ball point pen to revise and make notations along the borders. I began to find the "voice" of my manuscript. Not the sound of my voice, but the language pattern and the rhythm of the manuscript.

Funny what our eye will skip over, but what jumps out at us when we truly HEAR our own words for the first time. Beyond the errors, and they are there, hiding in a cloak of familiarity, that line that was a "it's not perfect, but it kind of works" tosses itself off a cliff and we can find a better way to say what we meant to say.

I'm now a converted hard core believer in hearing one's own words. Read out loud. Tell me what you hear.

What's In YOUR Book Stack?

Sun, 02 Jun 2019 17:18:45 GMT

Reading between the seams of life.

My mother was a reader. She was also a mother of three girls, and a photographer who did portraits and provided dark room services for a local newspaper and the high school year book, and drove three kids to music lessons and performances, and she was my dad's right hand woman on the spot to haul cotton trailers to the gin, to pick up parts in town, to deliver supplies to him when he couldn't take time out of the fields to go get them. And between the seams of a tightly sewn life, she read.

I remember Hemingway and Capote on her bookshelves. She had a rocker that sat catty-corner in front of a window framed with book shelves my grandfather had helped her build. Those shelves were full, and then some with Book of the Month offerings. She had a library card from our tiny little library in Strathmore, California.

She instilled in her three daughters a love of reading. We didn't have a lot of extras, but we had books. We were encouraged to read what we already had, and then we could get more.

In later years, when I lived on a remote cattle ranch at the bottom of a canyon, my sister-in-law dropped off grocery sacks full of paperbacks. Mostly romance tales, laughable in their descriptions of attributes, and a few crime novels. I read my way through those sacks of books in the evenings in a television-less home.

I have a hard time passing a bookstore, library sale, or books on a table at a yard sale. I buy books from friends who author them. I have all the best intentions to read every one of them. However, there are more stack of books I have not gotten around to than I care to tally. TV series happen. Movies that come right into our homes via cable happen. Busy lives happen. Then that stack on the bedside table, or tucked in your travel bag, or not yet shelved on your bookshelves, because we intend to get around to them just happens. No pressure, but there they are, right?

Authors are thrilled for you to own their books, trust me. And they are just as thrilled to hear you've read them. And even more thrilled when you let them know your thoughts (hey, we LIVE for good reviews.)

But however that stack looks, there's no need to feel guilty about it. When life is happening at a ninety miles an hour, sometimes reading a book is the best escape. And sometimes it's okay to look at those books, and mean to read them someday. I hope you never feel bad for not getting to a book. Sometimes, the intent is all we can manage. So, stack those books, and they'l be there for you when you're ready for them.

Sometimes You Have To Start the Ripple

Mon, 27 May 2019 20:28:56 GMT

When we break the tension of what seems to be still water, things happen

Over the weekend, at a horse show, I witnessed unsportsmanlike actions of a person who has been in the horse industry for years. But because there was no steward watching at that moment, and because the actions of the horse and rider being judged are all that are shown in the official video, there is no easy recourse.

For years, people have silently endured this form of bullying by a person who has created their own world of importance and entitlement. They shake their heads and say "somebody should do something." "Hey, this is not the place, don't do that," has not been enough.

Until at that show, when an exhibitor whose horse was almost t-boned in the warmup arena while preparing to show, by that unsportsmanlike bully said "ENOUGH." That exhibitor, tired of seeing this kind the bad behavior towards other riders was the person who decided to do something besides talk about it. It meant someone had to stand up and do the right thing instead of talking in whispers. The correct process to address the issue was taken.

Sometimes someone has to be brave and break the water, and make a ripple that could become a wave: perhaps a tsunami. But that fracture of still water is the only thing that will facilitate change.

There was a wonderful speech in a film: "You don't suppose this kind of thing is ever finished, do you? Tomorrow it'll be something else-and another fella will have to stand up. And you've helped give him the guts to do it!"

From Inherit The Wind (1960)

How many times do people see evidence of domestic violence, or someone bullying someone in the workplace, and look away, thankful it's not them on the receiving end? In the movies, we cheer for the person who steps up and stops the madness. Let's be that person who does not look the other way, just because someone is rich, or famous, or intimidating. Will you be that person who looks the other way, or will you be that person who does something to stop the insane actions of entitled bullies? The answers are not cut and dried. But doing the right thing is always right.

And so: "Tomorrow it'll be something else-and another fella will have to stand up. And you've helped give him the guts to do it!" Stand up. It matters.

Horses and Manuscripts

Sun, 19 May 2019 17:37:10 GMT

Training a horse and writing a book have a lot in common.

"I see, " I said, cringing inwardly as the novice horse owner told me she'd just gone to pick up her new 2 year old horse from "the trainer" who had ridden the horse for 30 days. She believes with all her sweet naivete' that her horse is now trained and ready for her to ride. Yet, her riding experience is that she rode as a kid on a borrowed horse, and she also went to a dude ranch last summer to "brush up" on her skills. For that person, any horse, no matter how sweet and kind, with 30 days training is probably a disaster looking for a short runway to crash upon.

For a person with years of experience with young or green horses, that 30 day horse is a lump of clay. It might be a great lump of clay, it might be a lump that needs a good deal of filtering, or it might be clay that will form into a shape, but explode when fired. And it might be mud. With shit stirred in for color. The horse in the photo is my own, in the round pen, and while this is not her first saddling or ride, it's an example of one of the thousands of steps she makes on her way to being what will be called a "finished" horse. It's certainly not a 30 day, or 90 day, or one year process. Experienced horsemen and horsewomen know that training horses to do specific jobs is a process that takes time, and knowledge, and they are always learning to fine-tune the process.

How does this relate to writing a book? To me, the IDEA for a book is like looking at some horse for sale ads. The first part of the writing of the book is comparable to when that person has obtained a horse and decides to train it for riding. Some can start a horse themselves, to varying degrees. It can be a crude, brutal start, it can be tentative, it can be an easy start (as the mare in the photo was!) or it can be a start that just never quite "takes" and leaves one with a horse that won't be suitable for the intended purpose.

But let's move on. Now, let's take the person who day dreams they will write a book. Great goal. Wonderful goal. Go for it. Where is the "start?" And then when the story has been started, does the writer, like the trainer who is wonderful at starting colts, have a plan to get the ideas from mind to page? At some point in that first 30 days of riding, the trainer opens the gate and rides out of the round pen, into the world. Now, this does not mean the horse is ready to be VIEWED by the world. But the horse is ready to start moving into the next stages. So it is for the writer who has this basis for a story. Just as the horse reacts and responds to different situations and pressure during the process, the writer begins to develop the personality of the story. One day, a tractor comes around the corner and the horse comes a little undone. Does the experienced trainer stop training? No. She figures out a way to assure the horse that it will be fine, makes the adjustment and moves on to the next step. Same with a writer who hits a snag, and realizes that the first chapter does not fit, now that the story is evolving.

There comes a day when the writer reaches the end of the story, and thinks "the end." In a comparison with the horse world, that manuscript is the colt with 30 days riding. The variables are huge. HUGE. Just like the difference between a group of colts that are similarly bred, and one is started by the novice who is watching training videos, but does not know yet how to "read" when the horse is ready for the next step. One is started by brute force. Another is started by an astute trainer's assistant who has now started 30 horses for the trainer she works for, and is paying close attention to the system. And another is started by the trainer who has started colts for many years, and not only knows when a particular colt has the movement and aptitude to go on into the intended job, and is also knowledgeable and honest enough to say "This one is not worth the time and money to keep going toward this job."

Which is not to say the colt can't have another purpose in life. Just like that beginning of a manuscript that may not work right now: it might be salvaged for another project.

Training a good reined cow horse, a cutting horse, a dressage horse, a show jumper, a three-day-event horse, etc takes years . And so it may be for writing. The trainer and the writer have to know that the start, the first 30 days, the first draft, are only the beginning of the process. A horse started by an experienced trainer MIGHT be ready for a lot of new experiences in ninety days, just as the first draft by an author who has experience in editing and revising might have a really workable third or fifth or seventh draft some 90 days after finishing the first draft.

The good news? You won't get yourself bucked off or fallen on or run away with working on that first manuscript. Now, go get that idea caught, teach it to lead, get it moving, and let's begin write!

"I've Got This Idea..."

Tue, 14 May 2019 17:06:45 GMT

Or: Get to chopping. It's not salad 'til it's salad.

"You're an author? Well I have this idea for a book, see, and it's about this woman who_____" (fill in the blanks with said "book idea" Most every published author has heard it. I smile and cock my head like the RCA dog listening to the record player. The next thing that person says is often "Maybe you could write it." "YOU write it," I say. And the answers vary: "Well if I had time," and "Oh I don't know how to do that, that's why I'm telling you," and "Well, I know all of it in my head, I just need a publisher."

What we see here are things from my mother's garden. Tomato, kale, Swiss Chard, garlic. Color and a bit of acid. A slightly bitter but delicious green, a texture green, and some flavor that can be infused in many ways.

But this is not a salad. Or a sauce, or a stew, or anything but fresh produce in the photo. Raw materials. With some knife action, the parts could end up in the bowl as the start of a salad.

Writing a story is like making a salad. Take what you have, and cut and trim and combine, and taste, and add more, maybe take out some, start putting it into a bowl, and whip up a dressing to make it great. Use the ingredients now. If the salad isn't what you hoped, make another with more raw ingredients. Mix up a different dressing. It's all food. We just have to actually make it for it to be something interesting to eat.

But make that salad. Write that beautiful, simple paragraph. Write that intricate, complex short story. Delicious happens when we play with our food.

Juni Fisher

www.junifisher.com

First Draft Dilemma: Celebrate or Get Working?

Wed, 01 May 2019 19:20:30 GMT

From Raw Material to Something Beautiful

The exquisitely woven rawhide bosal shown here was crafted by a true artisan. Most people who tackle the challenge of creating rawhide items get to the four or eight strand level, and call it good. And it is good for what it is, because it's an art that takes years of dedication to learn.

Kind of like writing. I'm in that half-empty or half full state this morning, having spent from 10 PM last night to 4:30 this morning finishing a first draft of my second novel. I remember well, the day I hit "save" on the first edition of my first novel. I can see the dining room table at the home of a treasured friend in Arizona, where I blocked out the world and finished that very first full length first draft. Notice I didn't say I finished the book. It was far from finished.

The rawhide artisan begins with a hide, usually a cowhide. It's stretched and dried, the hair is scraped off, and he or she begins to form the rawhide into something workable. Much like a writer thinking "I think this might make a good story." When the braider is learning, the strips are a quarter inch in width. And then, as the skill is carried forward, the strips become increasingly smaller, so the intricate patterns can be executed. The right amount of moisture in the leather makes those iron-like strips of dried hide flexible. Too much, the result looks puffy and soggy. Too little, the strands break.

I liken a first idea of a book to that stretched hide. The first attempts to get the story rolling might look more like half or quarter inch strips, and they may be inexpertly woven, or if the weaver (of story or rawhide) already has skills, the first run might look remarkably good. Which is not to say, that's where the artisan stops. Artisans whose souls are fed by creating are a hungry sort. They crave to create something better than they did the last time. There is no perfection: but what there is, is the skill to recognize that something can be more beautiful with more work.

And here I am, now with a new first draft to begin editing. I'd say that while my first draft of my first book looked more like a 4 strand weaving, this one resembles an 8 strand work, with a smoother look and feel. Parts of it might be twelve. Just the experience of learning to edit, and then working with a great editor was better than any class or workshop I could have attended.

And by the time it's been edited and revised a dozen times, I hope I'll have a 32 strand story. The artist who made this piece of rawhide art truly inspires me.

And What About Dinosaurs?

Wed, 17 Apr 2019 14:46:37 GMT

Author Juni Fisher explains, sort of.

Last summer, I was about to I head out on the road for Colorado. It's an annual tour, playing mostly familiar places. And one of my best friends was bugging me to do Instagram. "Instagram?" I said, "I am SO not going to put on lipstick and take selfies and put filters on them and say 'here's another picture of ME.' No. Not doing it."

My friend said "No, no, no, not pictures of YOU, pictures of things in your life and travels. Glimpses into life on the road. Or whatever. Just do it," she said. "And besides, you need something going on when you release your book."

Oh. Yeah. That. I was all in for that. So in the week or so before I headed out, I did photos at the barn. I did videos of how I wrap a horse's leg. How I "bang" a tail on a cowhorse so it is the right length for showing, and how I braid and bag the tail to keep it nice. Oh Good Lord. I get every armchair person who has never done this kind of horse care telling me "Oh you have SHOES on your horse, I never put shoes on my horse" (Yes, honey, we know, we see you ride your mincing horse three times every summer) "Oh I would never braid and put something over my horse's tail, that is their natural protection against flies" (Sweetheart, these are kept horses in clean stalls and pens, with fly control)

I reported to my friend that I'd try something different. Now, I have always traveled with a rubber alligator, or a rubber dinosaur on the dash of anything I drive. Have always had alligator and dinosaurs under my Christmas tree (teaches the little angel ornaments to not fall off, lest they be eaten) So I was driving east toward I-70, and stopped to fill a waterbottle, and checked my GPS, and BAM. There stood two of my dinosaurs beside the GPS. A little positioning, a view out the windshield, BAM. They got way more attention than anything with a pretty horse.

Fun loving people enjoyed the little scenes. Oh, there were some folks who wrote to me privately to express concern for my mental health, which spurred me to post even MORE dino adventures. They became a sort of 3-D Flat Stanley. With teeth. The other night, a lovely young lady who'd attended a concert gifted me with two tiny rubber dinos, each about an inch long. There's no end to the fun!

I had a bag of little plastic animals. Well, by golly, they became dino snacks. The dinos looked over valleys and rivers, and waded in puddles, and dove headfirst into prairie dog holes. BAM. And they are always with me anyway, so why not? That's why the dinosaurs. The point is, go have fun. Go play. Go live and laugh. You can't take life too seriously with a dinosaur in your pocket.

Stop worrying and write what's real.

Mon, 08 Apr 2019 04:11:22 GMT

Or: writing real, when real isn't socially "correct"

See that chicken? That's not just any chicken. It's a fighting chicken. The photo is a stock photo I purchased to go with a quote from my novel, Girls From Centro. Not because I participate or endorse cock fighting, but because cock fighting takes place in the story, because like it or not, and legal or not, it is a part of life in some parts of the world.

I knew from the first pages that in some way, the pitting of rooster against rooster was going to be a part of the story. One of the greatest story songs of all time, Gallo Del Cielo, was written by Tom Russell. In the song, Carlos Zaragosa steals a famous one-eyed rooster, and sneaks across the border to match the bird against the finest birds in California. His plan is to win enough money to buy his family's farm out of debt, and part of the story is told in letters to his sister Teresa.

It is no coincidence that I named my main character Teresa, and that she has learned a bit from her father (whom I named Carlos) and her best friend Paco about raising fighting roosters. There is no glory in those scenes, just the real. And when my best friend in the writing business read my first draft of Girls From Centro (originally called "Crossing Borders") I said "The only parts I worry about, when I start pitching this manuscript to publishers are the cock fights. What if somebody gets offended?"

To which my friend said, "I don't think that will happen. Leave them in there." And sure enough, the publisher who offered a publishing contract didn't ask for a single change in those parts. Believe me, there are plenty of other things in the story that may upset certain people (mostly those who recognize their own bad behavior) but so far, not one reader, and my readers have been from all walks of life, has commented negatively about the inclusion of some cock fighting practices and scenes. Because in the places where this story happens, it's a part of life.

So, write that story that toes the line. Get down in the mud of life and write the real stuff. I think we owe it to readers to show them some blood and dirt and something that's so real they can smell it.

Primal instinct and the reader

Tue, 26 Mar 2019 20:49:56 GMT

What makes you stop and look?

The photo here is of the cover of m debut novel Girls From Centro. It was painted by artist/illustrator/magazine editor Bob Boze Bell, after I told him that the book had elements of desert, and there was a recurring crow that acted as a messenger in the book. And he created this boiling roil of clouds and evening light and an absolutely kick-butt crow. Oh, and he also painted with perfect colors.

We all have elements of the primate mind, regardless of anyone's religious beliefs. Human survival, until some sectors of civilization created a way for those not willing or able to gather or hunt, has always depended on instinct (call it learned behavior that's passed along) to keep people from eating things they should not eat. Modern primates know to pick ripe and ready fruit. Modern humans who have ever picked fresh fruit also know this.

I worked in retail for many years, managing a high end saddle shop, and we sold clothing, jackets, caps...and guess what colors brought buyers over when we displayed them. Yep. Primary colors. Not pale pink, not pale blue, not washed out red, not brown, not black. Primary colors. Think ripe fruit and you can be a master of setting up store displays.

Do people judge books by their covers? I say yes, in this day and age, when we have so many from which to choose. Perhaps people read the reviews, and jacket notes and judge. At least that's what some people say the do to choose a book. But in a crowded store, on shelves full of books, which colors or designs pull your eye, then your hand to pick them up? Are you drawn by instinct to pick that lovely ripe fruit? Share in the comments, a photo of a book cover that really catches your eye time after time. Thanks for reading! www.junifisher.com

Writing those difficult stories

Mon, 18 Mar 2019 18:03:43 GMT

Sure, we write what we know, but if we do it well...

I've kept, cared for, trained, used, and shown horses since I was 13 years old. Long learning curve, lots of heartache and disappointments, and the financial return is usually nill. But if you ask any person who's had a life with horses, they will tell you there is more to it than the possibility of financial return. The horse here with my 92 year old mother, who is not a horse person, but likes to go visit my horses once in a while, was a horse that captured my heart and soul, because this horse needed a person. And I didn't know at the time I took her in, how I needed her, too. This courageous little horse taught me some big lessons in trust while I was working to get her to trust me. This mare survived a rare and difficult to treat cancer, and the treatments to save her life worked, but the end result was that her career as a cutting horse ended. All just stuff I share to get to where I'm going today.

Most of us who write stories, poetry, or songs write for our own hearts in the beginning. We may not be very skilled at first, but the motivation is often that we want to say something and have someone else understand us. Are you an introverted writer? I am. I just wanted to tell stories without having to talk. (Yes, I talk on stage: that just takes the right clothes and lipstick, and I can appear to be an extrovert)

So, when we write from the heart, and over time learn to hone the words to exactly the edges we want, we can convey heartfelt things even to someone who does not know the subject. I know nothing of the nature of the indigenous people who populate the African continent, but I fell in love with the ways of some of the communities, reading Isak Denisen's "Out Of Africa." She lovingly, and starkly showed us the people she grew to love, differences and all.

That's why you are seeing my non-horsey mother here with my now retired horse. My mother connected with the story of this horse's journey through some truly hard times, and with the kind, gentle nature of a horse that could have turned out not so kind after all the treatment this horse experienced. There is a connection here for which I can't take credit, except for the introduction between the two. My mother stood and loved on my old mare, talking to her softly. It was a beautiful connection between the two. Now, my job, and your job as a writer of stories is to show the heart of the story, so that even someone with no prior knowledge can connect. What book or story have you read that introduced you to something you learned to love? Thanks for reading, and stay tuned!

Writing From The Ground Up

juni@junifisher.net — Sat, 09 Mar 2019 18:22:09 GMT

Or, check the foundation before you build.

"What's your story about?" someone asks.

And we writers sometimes blink uncomfortably and say "Welllll...."

And so it is, because how many times do we start off with an idea for some situations or scenes, with no foundation? With no idea of a beginning, middle and end? We slave over some great lines and we paint all kinds of images with words, but where is the story?

And why, you might ask, is there a photo of a horse's hoof and a farrier's feet and hands? Ah, that's easy. That's my horse's left front hoof, and that's her farrier, who I trust with all my heart to do the right thing with my horse's foundation: her feet. But in addition to trusting him, I'm involved daily, when I'm not on the road, with her hoof health. It's not something I take for granted. We have been through a challenge, and recovered. Her foundation is now healthy.

Without foot health, the horse is useless, if not dead. If we start out training a horse with poor feet, we are wasting time and money. Same with a story. Like a horse, it can have some pretty elements, some muscle, some good structural elements. But without a foundation, there is no story. So I ask: "What is the purpose this story? What is the end result? Does it have a reason? A lesson to be presented? A point to ponder?" Believe me, I have started more than one manuscript, and spent considerable time writing scenes and setups, then realized I didn't have a way to move forward.

That was because my story's feet were not ready for the shoes I was trying to put on them. Oh, the things we learn as we go. What's your formula for foundation? I'd love to hear how other writers develop a story. Leave your comments, and share this with friends. Ask them about their stories too. Thank you for reading.

Goodbye isn't the end

Wed, 06 Mar 2019 02:49:32 GMT

His were the spurs of the west coast cow horse world. You’d see the shank of a Gordon Hayes spur from twenty feet away and know that spur was marked with his GH stamp. If you walked into the tack room of any cow horse barn it was almost guaranteed one of his Argentine snaffles, either the elegant style with the concho on the cheek, and silver beading on the gracefully curved short shank, or the simple, pragmatic working model, made with sweet iron and just the right amount of copper inlaid on the mouthpiece would be hanging among the bridles with a headstall and split reins. It was the go-to for one of my horses more days than not.

Gordon Hayes made practical things. And he made them beautiful. He was the curmudgeon’s template for curmudgeon. He didn’t love everybody he met. And for people who weren’t liable to do the right thing, that was the given. I always figured if someone didn’t love Gordon, it was because they owed him money, or because he’d told them the truth without backing off. But for some of us, that trait made us love him more.

His wife and daughter asked if I’d sing a song for Gordon’s memorial service last weekend. I couldn’t have said no if an elephant had been standing on my ribcage. And quietly, before the service began, his daughter presented me with two boxes, tied in a burgundy ribbon. One contained an elegantly crafted ostrich skin watch band, with an engraved sterling buckle set Gordon had made. The other: one of the rawhide scarf slides he made. He made lots of them, carried some around in a bag, sometimes a few in his pocket. I have a couple he’d presented to me over the years, as a token of a nice visit. The rawhide slide in the box was on a blue paisley scarf his daughter told me was one of his favorites. And then, as I put that scarf on to wear for the service, I remembered when I’d seen Gordon wearing it at a horse show. I’d re-tied it for him that day. Told him it was the prettiest thing I'd seen.

That scarf. A final gift from a person whose friendship I have treasured. And so, I sang a song, because his family asked, and because Gordon had told them he wanted me to sing if I could be there.

You betcha, Gordon. My pleasure. My honor to be among your many friends. And thank you for the perfect rawhide scarf slide you made with gnarled fingers, and the scarf you picked to wear one day, and for making sure someone who’d treasure it got to have it. I’ll never forget you. And when I get to ride over that last ridge, I know what bit my horse will be wearing. And I'll bring your scarf back. Hope you’re there to take note and grin.

Coffee and Chaos

Sun, 24 Feb 2019 14:30:14 GMT

Or: How to get over it and write a book.

I was looking for a photo I may have taken when I was in some oddball place, working on finishing my first novel. I know I have one I snapped at about 5:15 one morning, as I sat in a folding chair with my feet on a muck tub, a printed manuscript and some highlighters in hand, and I know the story by heart. It was late July or early August 2017, and I was living at the barn in my motorhome, where I'd taken up residence for about a month, to doctor a horse every 3 or 4 hours, around the clock. I'd printed up a draft of my manuscript and decided to read it out loud and chose my horse that was needing my care, as my audience. She was not much for advice, but a wonderful listener.

Funny thing about photos that have some minute details: they lock in the time and place for me. This I took in the tiny office of a car mechanic, where I commandeered the little table at 7:30 one morning while waiting for a repair and an oil change. The coffee was below average. My screen needed cleaning...hey, and here are the Lysol wipes. Perfect. And the thing that fixes calendar in late February 2018 is the "FORM FIT" tag on that right foot. Which I'd broken. Not in a horse accident, oh no, nothing as dramatic as that. I'd stepped off a ledge I hadn't seen while loading sound equipment after a concert, and something went "thunk" in my foot. Finally got it xrayed a month later. Dang.

I'd begun a new manuscript a couple months before that, whapping away at my keyboard while tucked into my motorhome, and sometimes in a motel room, sometimes in places like this. Because I don't follow the adage some writers follow, where they have to have their desk perfect, their pencils just so, their notebook decorated so that it inspires them, total silence, or their choice of mood music, the phone off, herbal tea in their exclusive "writing desk only" favorite cup in order to write. Balderdash, I say. What happens when life happens?

Give me some marginal coffee in a styrofoam cup, some autoshop clatter, a phone ringing, a fingerprint smudged keyboard protector that smears on the screen from use, and a broken foot. If you want to write: REALLY want to write, you'll do it anytime, anywhere. Well, if I'd had a choice, I could have skipped the broken foot.

My Precious, my Precious

Sun, 17 Feb 2019 23:23:00 GMT

Or: How to let go of crap.

Did I mention I’ve made my living for some years as a singer and songwriter? “Lucky you,” some people say, “You’re talented.”

I’ve got news: it has nothing to do with talent. I don’t believe in that notion. You might hear me describe another performer as “talented.” What I really mean is: that person has learned to do the work. Knows to edit out stuff that doesn't work, despite what their mother or boyfriend or girlfriend who is not the ideal sounding board has to say. This is coming from a songwriter who’s been at this seriously since 1982. I cringe when I think about songs I wrote in the 80s. Sure, I was the best songwriter in my home town, and the next three places I lived, too. But that was because there was nobody else around who'd done the work.

I remember in about 1993, writing with another writer in Nashville. I had a line I’d written, and wanted to keep, and the other writer looked me in the eye, and said, “Drown that puppy now.”

But. But. That line was my darling, my precious line, and and and…and we drowned it. The song came together. So, when I first had an opportunity to show my literary writing to someone who promised the truth, I was ready, willing and able to drown a word or line to learn the craft. I’m still learning.

Why do we hang on to our precious words until they doom us as writers? I don’t know. You might want to ask Gollum.

Juni Fisher www.junifisher.com

The Big A, The Little Writer, and Ignoring the Parrots

Sat, 09 Feb 2019 18:44:43 GMT

I was in my 40s when I dove off the cliff, in the middle of a comfortable job combined with a terrible personal life (oh, there could be a book about those years from 39 to 43, but not until I'm assured a certain bad boy is underground) and decided I could record an album of original songs. Because I had a job and a leased place to live, and I paid for all that myself, I was not exactly the description of the "starving songwriter." I knew plenty of them: my male co-writers who had writing deals with Nashville publishers, and who had wives with good jobs so that the writer in the family could afford to take 100.00 a week songwriting gigs. Me: ummarried, proud, unwilling to sell out, trying to get a bad boyfriend kicked to the curb without getting beaten up or having my place torched, and when finally single, unwilling to marry for money, just to have...money.

Makes the world go 'round, doesn't it? I watched friends marry into Nashville society, and watched them being miserable, watched them appear in the social magazines, looking elegant and empty on the arms of their benefactors . They lived in estates, drove the cars presented with a huge bow on Christmas morning as offerings, in trade for their souls, to my way of seeing.

So, in 1999, I made that first album. My mom, God bless her, stepped in with the production money to get the recordings done, because I had about 500.00 in the bank at that point, and a stack of bills, and two horses to feed. I got turned down by a producer, even with the money my mom provided for recordings, because it was not a standard amount. But without him, I recorded an album. THAT album, and had it turned down by a folk label, the only western label in town, and an Americana label. So I went and released it on my own label and the first week, I sold 3 copies. Three. To friends of a guy I was dating.

What was I thinking? No selling platform, I wasn't touring, had no idea, really HOW to tour. But four years later, there was a happy accident, and a festival promoter fell in love with the songs and hired me on a whim, and suddenly I was on a plane to California, all expenses paid, to play a festival for twice what I made in a week managing a saddle shop in Tennessee, and I sold 2000.00 worth of my formerly failed CD.

So. There is that story. And I treated the idea of a book the same way as I did the music business. Oh, I tippy-toed around, had no idea what I was doing. Ignored the people who said there was no way for a new writer to get a publishing contract. (Baloney) And I ignored the writers who wanted to fight the idea of selling on Amazon. Hello. HUGE selling platform. Of course they take a percentage, they have the platform! The big "A" sells BOOKS. "All writers except the top one percent are starving," the parrots said. "Good luck selling more than 100 books in the life of the book," the parrots yapped. "You'll have to self publish to get published," they squawked. I've ignored those pretty parrots.

Because I am poking newly found feathers into my wings as I flap. There's no choice but to flap and build wings while I learn to fly. I've already stepped off the cliff.

Stay tuned, Juni Fisher

A Book? Yes, A Book! I Wrote a Book!

Sat, 09 Feb 2019 00:00:00 GMT

I was that person who always thought “I wish I had time to write a book...” And you want to know the reality about writing a book? You just have to sit down and write and write and revise, and write, and edit, and read, and edit, and then throw the words you’ve held dear to either your friends who will say all the nice things you want to hear, or to someone who will tell you the absolute truth, and give you more work to do, fine tuning your story. I pulled up my big girl panties and chose the latter.

For me, the process of writing and fine tuning a novel was very much like writing songs, and then going out and seeing if those songs worked when performed. It’s a process not for the faint of heart, or those with skin that’s fragile. Music has been very good to me. It’s given me a purpose, a career, a tribe of the coolest people on earth, and it has taught me the power of choosing words and phrases and language patterns that either work, or don’t.

Writing a manuscript, editing that first draft into a second draft, then a third, and hitting send so a trusted author friend could chime in on my work was a really big step for me. Having that author’s honest appraisal and advice was kind of life changing, because that was preparing me for working with a professional editor in the future. While the process not so different from learning to write and fine tune songs, it’s got a language, and timeline all it’s own. I will always remember that afternoon, six months of editing later, when I took a deep breath and hit “send” and heard the little email icon go “whoosh” as my three years of work went across the country to a publisher who expressed interest.

“Girls from Centro” is available from your favorite booksellers by request, as well as Amazon and Kindle, or through my publisher, Pen-L Publishing, and through my website if you’d like me to sign a copy for you.