Wednesday guest on Thursday, sort of

Wednesday is usually my evening to post a guest blog in an effort to introduce blog readers to some authors they might otherwise not find. The author I had on my schedule for Wed., February 12, never sent anything, so I decided on some BSP (blatant self promotion) to highlight one of my books you may not have found yet. But then I went out for dinner with a friend last night, had a lovely, relaxed evening and an extra glass of wine, and lost my ambition for writing a blog post. So here I am on Thursday morning with Wednesdays blog. Maybe there should be a drum roll--please welcome, uh, Judy Alter!
Short stories are hard for me to write. Mostly I've written them when someone said they were putting together an anthology and would I please write a short story with such-and-such theme. Then I went into panic mode, unless inspiration hit me. Once a friend said she was putting together stories about either women or love in WWII (can't remember which) and I demurred, couldn't do it. Then one afternoon I hard this woman's voice:
"War is unforgiving, they tell you.  Old women who had lived through the first big war shook their heads and told me it'd take my boys and I could only pray to God they'd come back.  But war took my daughter too, and that's a bitter pill to swallow, even now all these years later." That voice opens "An Old Woman's Lament about War."
On the contrary, when I was asked to write a piece for an anthology about guns, I was stymied. Fortunately a friend is an expert on handguns and introduced me to derringers, those "ladylike" guns. The result was "Pegeen's Revenge."
Two of my favorites came to  me spontaneously. I wrote "Sue Ellen Learns to Dance" after I saw Dorothea Lange's 1936 photo of a woman and her children on the dust-blown plains. "Fool Girl" was inspired by a memoir in which a young boy was sent out on the Texas prairie to look for the work horse that had escaped. Terrified of Indians, he rode farther than a work horse could have gone. I made the boy a girl--remember, I wrote about Women of the West--and made the incident life-changing for her.
My short stories are collected in Sue Ellen Learns to Dance and Other Stories, available for Kindle and other e-platforms for only 99 cents. I think it's a bargain, but then I'm prejudiced.
The collection was first published by Panther Creek Press, and I'm eternally grateful but a friend who has a retail business said the cover was too scholarly to attract her customers. It features the photo behind the Sue Ellen story. When I put the collection on the web, I had a new cover designed, but I can't tell it's made much difference in sales. What do you think?

 

New Life for Old Books

In the early 1990s, I wanted to break my fiction out into a "big" book, rather than the short fiction I'd been doing for Doubleday's western fiction series. I told then-edtor Greg Tobin I wanted to write a fictional biography of Libbie Custer's years with General George Armstrong Custer. After all, theirs was the "Great Romance of the Western Frontier." Greg coughed, hemmed, hawed and said he'd have to see a hundred pages before he offered a contract. Long story short, it was published and did better than any other book I've published. Not the big breakout book, but nice respectable sales. Of course it went out of print, and in those days who knew to save digital files? Even if I had done so they'd be on a diskette and difficult to access today. So I have paid a company to scan all 300+ pages. Just finished proofing the galleys, and it should be available for e-readers soon.
I suspect I'm as proud of this book as any I've done. I wrote it with Libbie's journals spread out before me, and yet I tried to give her a voice that was real to me, not the public voice she assumed in her zeal to make sure Autie went down in history as a hero. Read an except here http://www.judyalter.com/e-books.
In proofing this book, I was surprised at how much of me there is in Libbie and how much of my attitude toward my marriage, then some ten years in the past. And I was also surprised at the change in my writing style. Libbie is not clumsy, don't get me wrong, and when I began to read it, I thought, "Darn, this is better than I thought." But I also noticed some slight changes in style--I've learned not to repeat similar words too close together; I've learned to avoid what I now think is that awkward construction, "It was then that ...." I've learned to omit unnecessary words to a greater extent.
Don't let me discourage you from reading this. I got some nice comments on Facebook about it, and I still think it's the most human approach to what I see as Libbie's dilemma--marriage to Custer was not al happy romps across the prairie, and I tried to capture that realistically. This is BSP--blatant self-promotion: I think you'll like Libbie if you haven't read it before. I'll post on Facebook when it's live and available to order.
Watch next for Sundance, Butch and Me, my take on Etta Place's life with the Hole In The Wall Gang and her romance with The Sundance Kid. It's no accident that in the title, Butch Cassidy comes between Sundance and Etta. Fiction after all can suppose, imagine, and take liberties. Want a preview of my approach? Read the short story, "Reunion," in Sue Ellen Learns to Dance and Other Stories, available as an e-book for 99 cents. http://www.amazon.com/Ellen-Learns-Dance-Other-Stories/dp/0977179737/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1331599197&sr=1-2
Enough bragging, but I'm excited to see these older works available to readers once again. Hmmm, twenty years is older? My, how time flies.

The world is in its place

Okay, maybe there are a few problems to worry about like wars and extreme politics, drought and an unbelievable heat wave. But my little corner of the world is back in order. It wasn't easy.
I picked up my car yesterday at noon (hot and sunny). Got half a mile from the dealership, and the car died--in the right turn lane of a busy street. Made a lot of other drivers really angry, but I have to say one woman pulled up next to me to ask if I needed help and a gentleman got out of his truck to make sure I was okay. I assured them I had just called for rescue, and the man said, "Okay, as long as you're alright." There are good people in this world. Rescue, from the dealership, came pretty quickly--it just seemed like forever as I stood in the heat, with my anxiety level rising. They pushed the car into a nearby parking lot, and the courtesy driver, a nice young man named Blake who was by now my friend since this was our second visit, drove me home. I resigned to not having the car for at least another twenty-four hours, but they called about 4:00 and said it had been "an honest mistake"--I've heard more technical language than I can possibly understand this week but it had something to do with timing and tension and a belt and a bolt. Third time was the charm--Jacob and I made it all the way home.
The computer was much easier. I thought it would be two o'clock before it came, and I would have to rush Jacob right out there after school, but just as my stomach was rumbling and I was thinking of lunch at 11:30, the TV dealer called and the part came in. I rushed out and got it. Installing it and starting the computer took two minutes--and I was back in business. I've been working like mad most of the afternoon to catch up--and doing well at it.
This has also been my first week of keeping Jacob after school, and it's gone well. Because open spaces sometimes bother me, I worried about crossing the street but it's been a piece of cake. I cross right in front of my house but we have to trudge down the block to cross where the guard is when we come home. Hottest time of the day, and I'm wiped out by the time we get home. Jacob ran all the way up the block today, taunting me. He has also refused to hold my hand--my, how we grow up. But he stops to give me a hug in the mornings and waves happily to me as he comes out of school in the afternoons. We talk, and snack, and he draws. Not much TV which is good.
So tonight I'm back into my routine. Sophie is sleeping at my feet, and I'm at my computer. Car in the garage. All is well at my house. Hope I'm not speaking too soon.
One thing I did this evening was to proof a story of mine, "Prisoners," which will be in Tales from the Backlist, an anthology being produced by BacklisteBooks.com. This sounds like BSP (Blatant Self Promotion) but years after I wrote it, I am surprised and pleased by how much I like it. It's in Sue Ellen Learns to Dance and Other Stories, available in print or from Kindle or Smashwords. How's that for subtle BSP?