‘Hair Cut…Two Bits’…. Nostalgia – (part 6)

Just because……….the few people that have purchased or read my first book of poetry seemed to love this story the most, I thought I would share it with my readers.

cathedral, New Orleans, history, music This story originated from old papers, receipts and journals owned by Marcel Guerman that I found in a trunk in the attic of a building on Camp Street in New Orleans.  The building was being renovated into apartments and I was to be the first tenant.  My third floor walk-up looked out on St. Patrick’s cathedral. (seen here)  One day we crept up to the attic to take a look. Among the many things in the attic was a single, cherrywood door of an armoire that I have to this day. Off in a corner was a leather and metal ribbed trunk forgotten for decades. As I read pawn tickets, journals, papers of this stranger’s life, from decades earlier,  I could envision this European man as clearly as if he stood next me.    I wrote the first draft in 1979. Continue reading “‘Hair Cut…Two Bits’…. Nostalgia – (part 6)”

Ever Think That You Could Write Haiku Poetry?

Haiku, poetry, writing, blogging, Japanese, writer, writingWant to try your hand at writing Haiku?  It’s fun, creative and easy once you commit to the fact that ‘less is more’.

When I begin a new haiku I keep it short and don’t worry about the number of syllables in each line; you can trim it later.  Stay as true to the form as possible but still get the essence of your poetry down.

Five Syllables, then Seven  ©  by Trisha Sugarek

pocket full of poems
little stories at a glance
makes me cry, laugh, sigh

pocket full of poems
glimpses into a deep heart
bares all, bares nothing

syllables counted
the soul giggles, delighted
with the ancient prose

The Seasons of the Sun ©

angle of fall’s sun
so different from spring’s rays
dapples the sun porch

end of hot summer
the crisp, sharp tang of fall’s breath
smokes the air about

a waiting for sleep
under the blanket of snow
until spring sun beams

‘A is for..Alibi’ ‘B is for…’C is for’… An Interview with Sue Grafton (part 2)

      Part II ** Interview with Sue Grafton     In Loving Memory

          Q. Do you ‘get lost’ in your writing and for how long?

SG. On occasion, but not nearly often enough.  I love that feeling but most of the time it’s just struggle, hair-tearing, whining, and complaints.  I’m easily distracted.  If the work is going well…call it twice a week…then I’m happy.  Most of the time I’m sitting here because that’s what it takes.  Comfortable or uncomfortable doesn’t make any difference.  I suffer because I feel stupid and clumsy and blocked most of the time, but so what?  That is all part of the process.  If you’re not willing to sweat it out, you’re in the wrong business.  No short cuts.

Q. When did you begin to write seriously?

SG.  When I was eighteen.  I wrote seven full-length novels from the ages of twenty-two to thirty-eight.  Novels four and five were published.  The others have never seen the light of day.  The eighth novel I wrote was ‘A’ IS FOR ALIBI and that was after a long stint in Hollywood where I wrote pilots, movies for television, and the occasional film script.

Q. How long after that were you published?

SG. My first novel was published five years after I began teaching myself how to write long form.  ‘A’ IS FOR ALIBI took me five years to write.  I’d say ‘five’ is the magic number.  It takes fifteen years of being published before you can support yourself with the writing.  This is not a career for sissies or cowards.  You better get used to hard work.  And rejection and frustration.  That’s what teaches you.  You can’t side-step the anguish.

Q. and the all important: What does the process of going from “no book” to “finished book” look like?

SG. As I’ve often described, I keep a series of journals or notebooks on my computer for every novel I write.  The journal is where I keep plot possibilities, ideas, research notes, character sketches, dialogue when it occurs to me.  The collective journals for ‘V’ IS FOR VENGEANCE came to 967 single-spaced pages.  The journals for ‘W’ came to 1298 single-spaced pages on the day I finished the book, which was February 21, 2013.  It took me a year to settle on the storyline .  I work by trial and error which is why it takes me so long.  After a mere thirty years at this, I know what doesn’t work but I don’t always know it in advance.  I write and then I think, no.  I write some more and think, don’t think so. I write some more and think, are you kidding me?  I write some more and I think, well that stinks.  And on it goes.

Q. Where/when do you first discover Kinsey and your other characters ?

SG. I am Kinsey Millhone so that was easy enough.  Other characters I discover as I go along.  Character and plot can never be separated.  Both have to be developed at the same time, in tandem, or a story won’t come to life.

Q. What inspired your story/stories ?

SG. Sometimes a germ of an idea will come to me.  In fact many times I have the germ of an idea.  That’s the easy part.  What’s difficult is figuring out what you can do with an idea, figuring out how you can develop it to the point where it will carry 660 manuscript pages.  You need heft and complexity and major muscle.  Not every idea will yield a novel.  One of my big lessons, always, is learning when to let it go.  I’m ruthless when it comes to that.  I might work on an idea for six months.  Once I realize it isn’t working and that I don’t know how to make it work, I dump it. 

Q. Have you or do you want to write in another genre?

2017

SG.  I’ve written in other forms and formats; movie scripts, television scripts, short stories and novels.  I’ve never written science fiction or erotica or romance or horror or westerns.  I don’t know those forms and I wouldn’t do a good job of it.  I love the hard-boiled private eye novel and I love crime fiction, which is…as it turns out…where I belong.

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Biography:  I was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky where I graduated from the University of Louisville in 1961 with a degree in English.  I worked in a variety of jobs in the medical field, writing after the family was down for the night. Sold a ‘mainstream’ novel, KEZIAH DANE, that was published when I was 27 and then a second novel, THE LOLLY-MADONNA WAR, that was published when I was 29.  Altogether, before the alphabet novels, I wrote 7 books .  The eighth novel I wrote was ‘A’ IS FOR ALIBI. Guess what I’ve been doing every since?’   

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MY BLOG features INTERVIEWS with  best-selling AUTHORS!   Did you miss the past few months?    December: British writer, J.G. Dow.  January: In Memory, Sue Grafton.
                                                                                   
                                         Check out more Motivational Moments…for Writers!

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PI, Kinsey Millhone is Hot on the Trail, Again! an Interview with Sue Grafton

                                                    An Interview with Mystery Writer, Sue Grafton  (Part 1)

best selling author, Sue Grafton, fiction for women                      Author,  John D. McDonald died suddenly back in 1986 and took Travis McGee with him.  I owned and had read every book of McDonald’s…..Now what was I suppose to do??  I didn’t read many mysteries (back then) but I was especially fond of Travis and his bear-of-a-man friend, Meyer.   So back in the eighties, (when you shopped at a real book store), I looked through the aisles for someone worthy of replacing John McDonald.   There I found “A is for Alibi” with the formidable and quirky, Kinsey writers, best selling authors, best sellers, fiction for womenMillhone.  I’ve been reading Sue Grafton ever since.  TS
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this entry from Sue’s journals;

Dear Shadow . . . Self . . . and Right Brain, Doing everything I can here to make life possible. I’ve abandoned the old story . . . cleaned out my computer . . . sorted and tossed and filed away old notes and articles. Now I need help in launching myself again. Please speak to me. Please let me know where the new book is coming from. I really need your assistance and I’m hoping you’ll spark something so I can get to work.

Look forward to hearing from you.

Love & kisses,

Sue

Response from Shadow Self:   How about an old-fashioned unsolved murder case?  Parents are angry because nothing’s been done.    Case is old & cold, with no new leads coming in.
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Q. Where do you write? Do you have a special room, shed, barn, special space for your writing?

best sellers, Sue Grafton,
Sue Grafton’s work space

A. I have an office in both my homes; Montecito, California and Louisville Kentucky.  The two are different in terms of size and style but I can’t tell you that I’m more productive in one than in the other.  I like lots of light.  I like tidiness.  I like space.  I like quiet.  When I’m working my desk is usually a mess, but I do make an effort from time to time to restore order. The creative process is messy enough. I don’t need to look at chaos as well.

Q. Do you have any special rituals when you sit down to write? (sharpened #2 pencils, legal pad, cup of tea, glass of brandy, favorite pajamas, etc.)

A.  Often I do a short stint of self-hypnosis which helps quiet the chatter in my head and helps me focus and concentrate.  I learned the technique from a book on the subject that I got at a book store and it’s been a wonderful way to keep ‘centered’ if you’ll forgive the term.

Q. What is your mode of writing? (long hand? Pencil? Computer? Etc.)

A. A computer, of course. Which I claim has greatly improved my skills.  In the ‘olden’ days of white out and cutting and pasting, I got hung up on whether the page ‘looked right’. I hated adding anything that forced me to repaginate because I didn’t like all the extra work.  If I deleted 11 lines, I got so I could exactly replace the missing lines with something that would work as well so that I didn’t have to retype everything.  To my way of thinking, this is not the key to writing well. On a computer I can and do write every line over and over until it suits me.  The tinkering is infinite.  I when a line is right and when it’s not, I revise and refine and cut and amend until it sounds right to my inner ear.

Q. Do you have a set time each day to write or do you write only when you are feeling creative?

A. I’m usually at my desk at 8:00.  I check emails and make a brief visit to my Face Book page where I chat with readers.  I never feel truly creative.  I work until lunch time when I take a short break.  go back until mid-afternoon when I usually take a walk with one of a number of friends.  I work seven days a week because it’s easier to stay connected to the writing.  In completing “W” writing, best sellers, fiction for women, Sue GraftonI worked double-sessions, returning to my desk after dinner.  I cut out our social life.  I nixed all the walks which I found interrupted the work too often.  I didn’t run errands.  I didn’t stop to get my hair cut.

 

 

 

 

Part 2 of this Interview will be posted August 6th

And to read more in the fascinating Journals that Sue keeps for each book, go to:  www.suegrafton.com
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DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS. INTERVIEWS with other best-selling AUTHORS!      A SERIES, “The Writer’s Corner”

I have had a wonderful response from other authors and will feature an interview once a month . These authors have already responded and you can read their interviews by clicking on their name: Ann Purser, Susan Elia MacNeal,  Karen Robards, Mark Childress, Rhys Bowen, Dean Koontz, Sheryl Woods, Jo-Ann Mapson, Jeffrey Deaver, Elizabeth Gilbert, Raymond Benson, Amber Winckler, Heidi Jon Schmidt, Robert McCammon, Sue Grafton, Walter Mosley, Nora Roberts, and many others.

So come along with me; we shall sneak into these writers’ special places, be a fly on the wall and watch them create!  July features Rhys Bowen.  Sue Grafton is August’s author with a bonus chat with Cathy Lamb later in the month.  September will feature Tasha Alexander. Jeffrey Deaver is November’s author and  slick mystery writer, Andrew Grant will join us this winter. Loretta Chase will be featured later this year. Raymond Benson is my January author. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To receive my posts sign up for my blog, blogs, blogger, writer, author, playwright, books, plays,fiction  Go to the home page; On the right side you’ll see a box where you can enter your email address. Click on “join my blog”. You need to confirm in an email from ‘Writer at Play’ . Thanks!

World Renowned Mystery Writer, Sue Grafton visits my Blog!

sue-grafton-3.2012a           DON’T MISS IT!  Starting tomorrow, my interview with Sue Grafton, most famous for her best selling alphabet series!

August 1st and 6th, Sue shares with me and her readers her process as she writes her best sellers.  Beginning back in the eighties she wrote “A IS FOR ALIBI”  and the rest is history. What happens when we get to “Z”??  Will that be the end to Kinsey Milhone, PI?  Oh, no!!!

best selling author, Sue Grafton, fiction for womenwriting, best sellers, fiction for women, Sue Grafton

How Did I get Started Writing children’s books?

children's books, audio books, the fabled forest, elves, fairies       I stumbled upon these wonderful images and said to myself, “that’s Cheets if he were a girl.” Things like this inspire me to keep writing.

For me there’s a story here in this little faerie’s pensive look.

Is she looking back to see if Rainey, the lost unicorn (Emma and the Lost Unicorn)  is still following her?  Or has she heard a noise and isn’t quite certain what it is?  Or did she stop and turn to better listen to Donald, another faerie.  (The Exciting Exploits of an Effervescent Elf)

…or has she just left the reading circle that Bertie, the bookworm holds every week in the forest clearing.  Anything is possible.

 

 

This could be my character, Donald, the faerie.

donald

(Stanley, the Stalwart Dragon)

 

 

 

 

 

 

fairies, elves, fabled forest, children's books, audio books

….or this could be Cheet’s brother.

(Bertie, the bookworm and the Bully Boys)

 

 

 

 

How did I get started writing children’s books?  Back in 2004, I was sound asleep at 3AM, when Cheets, my elf, had his very big feet in the middle of my back and was yelling in my ear.  “You must write about meyou must do it NOW!”  By the time I got up, got a cup of tea made and stumbled to my computer most of the characters already had names and Cheets was directing the show!  Prince Rainier had been bewitched into a unicorn and dropped into the Fabled Forest.  Emma discovered him and, befriending the shy creature, vowed to lift the curse and return him to his home.

My children’s books are fables and all carry a lesson about loyalty, good works, greed, friendship, ecology, running away and literacy. I’m not on a soapbox; it just happened to work out that way.

Leave yourself open! (opps! Am I repeating myself again?) You never know where your writing will take you.  I was the most unlikely writer to end up writing children’s books as part of my repartee. For the most part, my ‘black’ Irish heart writes drama, serious gut wrenching stuff and it never crossed my mind to write for children.  LUCKY ME!   Cheets was insistent and would not be turned away.

These images, courtesy of Chopoli.blogspot.com © are whimsical, enchanting, and inspiring.
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DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS. INTERVIEWS with other best-selling AUTHORS!      A SERIES, “The Writer’s Corner”

I have had a wonderful response from other authors and will feature an interview once a month . These authors have already responded and you can read their interviews by clicking on their name: Ann Purser, Susan Elia MacNeal,  Karen Robards, Mark Childress, Rhys Bowen, Dean Koontz, Sheryl Woods, Jo-Ann Mapson, Jeffrey Deaver, Elizabeth Gilbert, Raymond Benson, Amber Winckler, Heidi Jon Schmidt, Robert McCammon, Sue Grafton, Walter Mosley, Nora Roberts, Raymond Benson and many others.

So come along with me; we shall sneak into these writers’ special places, be a fly on the wall and watch them create!  July features Rhys Bowen.  Sue Grafton is August’s author with a bonus talk with Cathy Lamb later in the month. and September will feature Tasha Alexander. Jeffrey Deaver is November’s author and  slick mystery writer, Andrew Grant will join us this winter. Loretta Chase will be featured later this year. Raymond Benson is my January author. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To receive my posts sign up for my blog, blogs, blogger, writer, author, playwright, books, plays,fiction  On the home page, the right side you’ll see a box where you can enter your email address. Click on “join my blog”. You need to confirm in an email from ‘Writer at Play’ . Thanks!

Got Secrets in your Family? Write about Them!

family stories, family secrets, story telling, writers
(left to right) Brother, Jack, Mom, me, Sister, Doris

Secret:  I was the baby in the family, born 11 and 8 years, respectively, after my siblings. Not until just a few years ago did I hear that my mother “farmed out” my sister and brother to strangers. The term usually referred to children who were sent to a relative back in the day, but in my siblings’ case it was an indenture. My brother and sister had to work for their keep, ages six and 11.

They told me these stories as part of my research while writing, ‘Wild Violets’,  a romanticized version of my Mother as a flapper and entrepreneur in the 1920’s in San Francisco. As I was writing and the family secrets unfolded, the romanticism flew right out the window. And that’s okay; remember what I told you before  about your story taking hold and telling itself?

history, family stories, Wild Violets, writing
Violet’s Fulton Bar & Grill in San Francisco, 1929

But the enormity of my mother’s actions still didn’t really sink in….grab my heart. ‘It happened so long ago, it happened in a different time, it didn’t happen to me’, I told myself.
Until.…I began to actually write that part of the story. Here were these two little kids dumped at the front door of a farm house by their mother and her current boyfriend. The kids had no warning, no time frame, didn’t even know if they would ever see their mother again. And for no good reason. The family wasn’t destitute….she owned a bar and grill in San Francisco. There were no addiction problems unless you counted our mother’s addition to men.

As I wrote those pages, I finally became invested in what had happened to my brother and sister over seventy years ago. And my heart broke. To finally see why, in part, they became the people they are today. Why, at times, my sister bitterly resented me. Why my brother was an overachiever and obsessed with family.

In my own way, I too was abandoned by our mother. No, she never farmed me out. Nothing so overt as that. But she chose her men over me, time and time again. Her desires always trumped my childhood needs.

family histories, family secrets, story telling, writers
My Mother, Violet and me (age 5)

I was a left-over.  A possession that she could put down or pick up again on a whim. Show off to her current beau or friends and then set in a corner, like an old broom.

And if you, my readers, hear bitterness leaking through my words….it’s not for me and how I was raised. Because I have overpowered my past and empowered myself to be the fierce, tough and resilient woman that I am today. Seeking and honing my talent and achieving my goals. (Yes, I still have abandonment issues).

The bitterness and heartache you hear,  in my voice, are for those two little kids dumped at a stranger’s door!

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Is It just a Fluke when Something Like This Happens??

alaska, northern lights, fiction, best sellers, alaska, Yukon,       I don’t know if this is a fluke or simply how I, as a writer, process things.
But I noticed that when I have written a section of my story, I will take a break by reading a really good book by one of my favorite authors. Curled up with a cup of tea, I give my brain a time-out. My brain seems to work on two levels during that ‘resting’ time.  I will be deeply engrossed in the story I am reading and my brain will be forming new threads to the story I am writing.
And the two story lines are completely different. For example this morning I was reading JD Robb’s ‘Delusion in Death’ (an excellent series by the way) about a detective in NYC, year 2060.JD Robb, best sellers, Nora Roberts

 My current project is about LaVerne living in Alaska in the 1920’s.  Somehow, another section of my novel bubbles to the surface as I am reading some other writer’s words.   Even though the subjects for the two fictions are literally decades apart and wildly different.   Weird, huh??

I guess it’s nothing more than the ‘brain rest’ I am taking and reading an author who is a wordmaster.  While Dallas (the NYPD detective) puts her vehicle in vertical drive and scares the ‘be-jusus’ out of her partner, Peabody,  on a different level I am wondering how many cords of wood LaVerne will need to see her through the long Alaskan winter.

When beginning this novel I just had a few bits and pieces of my mother’s sister’s life in Alaska.  Family stories, yes, but certainly not enough to even write a short story.

And so I tried to place myself in LaVerne’s shoes (head).  What would it have been like to run away from the safe environment of the family home and get to Alaska in the 1920’s?   To build a home and a life.. from dirt.  To brave the harsh elements and literally live off the land?  Surviving meant learning a myriad of skills in a big hurry!

Back to work…….Alaska awaits!
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DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS. INTERVIEWS with other best-selling AUTHORS!      A SERIES, “The Writer’s Corner”
I have had a wonderful response from other authors and plan on featuring an interview once a month . These authors have already responded and you can read their interviews by clicking on their name:: Ann Purser, Susan Elia MacNealMark Childress, Rhys Bowen, Dean Koontz, Sheryl Woods, Jo-Ann Mapson, Jeffrey Deaver, Elizabeth Gilbert, Heidi Jon Schmidt,  Amber Winckler, Robert McCammon, Caroline Leavitt, Sue Grafton, Karen Robards, Walter Mosley, Nora Roberts,Raymond Benson and many others.

So come along with me; we shall sneak into these writers’ special places, be a fly on the wall and watch them create!  July features Rhys Bowen.  Sue Grafton is August’s author and September will feature Tasha Alexander. Jeffrey Deaver is November’s author and  slick mystery writer, Andrew Grant will join us this winter. Loretta Chase will be featured later this year. Raymond Benson is January’s author.
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To receive my posts sign up for my blog, blogs, blogger, writer, author, playwright, books, plays,fiction  on the home page.   You need to confirm in an email from ‘Writer at Play’ . Thanks!

Come Ride with Me in my Time Machine * Review

   REVIEW:  “For the Love of Mike” by Rhys Bowen
(5 out of 5 quills)  QuillQuillQuillQuillQuill

I’m totally engaged reading Rhys Bowen‘s Molly Murphy’s mysteries.  Set in the early 1900’s, these books are more than just entertaining mysteries. For example:  The sub-story is of New York City in by-gone days.  Where Ellis Island disgorged immigrants by the thousands,   dumping them on the streets of Manhattan, willy-nilly, to fend for themselves however they could.  Few requirements were imposed;  they had to have five dollars,  be fairly healthy and free of consumption (tuberculosis).  The immigrants could be wanted criminals back in their home country and still be admitted.

At the turn of the century,  Greenwich Village was filled with “students, rowdies, Negroes, miscreants and anarchists(“For the Love of Rhys Bowen, author, Interview, Review, writerMike”)  Ha!  The Village hasn’t changed much!   Hell’s Kitchen and  lower Manhattan were the “Irish Section” and filled with tenements and poverty.  The discrimination of those times was not white against all the others but rather nationality against nationality.  In the Jewish and Italian sections of town there were signs in the windows of shops stating “NO Irish need apply”.  Only Italian and Jewish girls worked in the sweatshops of the garment district; and in Hell’s Kitchen and Five Points other ethnic groups (not Irish) who ventured into those neighborhoods did so at their own peril.

If you are at all familiar with the ‘neighborhoods’ of today’s Manhattan you will quickly see that the face of the city has not changed all that much.  It is still an island of ethnic neighborhoods.  Much to my satisfaction!   That’s how I learned the city from 1991 to 2006….wandering (by design) the streets of each neighborhood  so that we could taste the air there, eat the food and often chat with the inhabitants.  I’ll never forget the time, in Chinatown, when I attempted to photograph the face of an ancient Chinese woman.  She ran me off with her umbrella held high!

Now because of Rhys Bowen brilliant writing I get to revisit those neighborhoods (that I love) in a different era.  My very own TIME MACHINE!

I  so enjoyed  Interviewing Ms. Bowen just recently.
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Coming in August!  A review of Ms. Bowen’s latest release,  “Heirs and Graces”   The Royal Spyness series
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Start your month off right!! DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS. A NEW SERIES, “The Writer’s Corner” INTERVIEWS with other best-selling AUTHORS!

I have had a wonderful response from other authors and plan on featuring an interview once a month .These authors have already responded and you can read their interviews by clicking on their name: : Ann Purser, Susan Elia MacNeal, Robert McCammon, Heidi Jon Schmidt, Mark Childress, Rhys Bowen, Dean Koontz, Amber Winckler, Caroline Leavitt, Sheryl Woods, Jo-Ann Mapson, Jeffrey Deaver, Elizabeth Gilbert, Karen Robards, Walter Mosley, Nora Roberts, Raymond Benson and many others.

So come along with me; we shall sneak into these writers’ special places, be a fly on the wall and watch them create!  July features Rhys Bowen.  Sue Grafton is August’s author and September will feature Tasha Alexander. Jeffrey Deaver is November’s author and  slick mystery writer, Andrew Grant will join us this winter. Loretta Chase will be featured later this year. Raymond Benson is January’s author.
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To receive my posts sign up for my blog, blogs, blogger, writer, author, playwright, books, plays,fiction  Go to the home page; On the right side you’ll see a box where you can enter your email address. Click on “join my blog”. You need to confirm in an email from ‘Writer at Play’ . Thanks!

“A Masked man and an Indian Rode the plains, Searching for Truth and Justice”. Nostalgia (part 5)

nostalgia, history, the lone ranger, radio             ‘Hi, Ho! Silver’         Nostalgia   

When I was a very little girl my mother and I would pull our chairs up close to our Zenith radio and wait for the iconic shout, “Hi-Ho Silver! Away!”  and the weekly  radio show of ‘The Lone Ranger’. The first of 2,956 radio episodes of The Lone Ranger premiered on  WXYZ. He first appeared in 1933 in a radio show conceived either (it remains unclear)  by WXYZ radio station owner, George W. Trendle, or by Fran Striker, the show’s writer. It’s been suggested that Bass Reeves, a legendary Federal peace officer in the Indian Territory (1875 – 1907), was the inspiration for this character.

Each episode was introduced by the announcer as follows:  ‘In the early days of the western United States, a masked man and an Indian rode the plains, searching for truth and justice. Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear, when from out of the past come the thundering hoof beats of the great horse Silver! The Lone Ranger rides again!’

Then not too many years later I went to the Saturday matinees at the movie house and to watch the serialized adventures of the Lone Ranger. radio, movies, the lone ranger, tonto,  I believe that was my first crush on a guy. And Tonto was so exotic….what a duo!  Actors (above) Clayton Moore played the Ranger and Jay Silverheels was Tonto.

Tonto usually referred to the Lone Ranger as “Ke-mo sah-bee”, meaning “trusty scout” or “trusted friend.” These catchphrases, his the lone ranger, tonto, nostalgia, silver, scouttrademark silver bullets, and the theme music from the William Tell overture have become tropes of popular culture.

The show and the characters were so influential that both actors took their positions as role models to children very seriously, in their daily lives,  and tried their best to live their lives by the creed that was created for them. It read:

I believe…

that to have a friend, a man must be one.
that all men are created equal and that everyone has within himself the power to make this a better world.
that God put the firewood there, but that every man must gather and light it himself.
in being prepared physically, mentally, and morally to fight when necessary for that which is right.
that a man should make the most of what equipment he has.
that ‘this government of the people, by the people, and for the people’ shall live always.
that men should live by the rule of what is best for the greatest number.
that sooner or later…somewhere…somehow…we must settle with the world and make payment for what we have taken.
that all things change but truth, and that truth alone, lives on forever.
in my Creator, my country, my fellow man.

Just the other night I saw the first trailer, on TV, about the new movie, “The Lone Ranger”.  What a kick!  And under all that paint tonto, the lone ranger, radio, nostalgiaon Tonto’s face is Johnny Depp.  No surprise there; Depp has always gone his own way and chosen roles that intrigued him.  He has historically thumbed his nose at agents, managers, studio CEO’s, and accepted diverse and (others may believe) crazy roles.  Good on you! Johnny!loneranger.new

 

 

 

 

the lone ranger, silver, scout, Tonto, radio, nostalgia           The Horses:  I was horse-crazy as a girl and loved Silver and Scout as much as the heroes. According to the episode “The Legend of Silver”: before acquiring Silver, the Lone Ranger rode a chestnut mare called Dusty. The Lone Ranger saves Silver’s life from an enraged buffalo and, in gratitude, Silver chooses to give up his wild life to carry him. The origin of Tonto’s horse, Scout, is less clear. For a long time, Tonto rode a white horse called White Feller. Then Tonto is given a paint horse by his friend Chief Thundercloud, who then takes White Feller. Tonto rides this horse and refers to him simply as “Paint Horse” for several episodes. The horse is finally named Scout.  In another episode,  the Lone Ranger, in a surge of conscience, releases Silver back to the wild.

I remember that episode like it was yesterday.  I couldn’t believe that the Lone Ranger, MY lone ranger and MY Silver were to be parted. Not until the next Saturday, at the local movie theatre, did Silver return to his beloved master.

Yes, I am a writer of fiction, plays and poetry but the thing I really like about this ‘blog’ business is I get to write about writing and storytelling.  I can write about stories that intrigue and endure.  The story behind The Lone Ranger intrigues and certainly is enduring!
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DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS featuring INTERVIEWS with other best-selling AUTHORS!  A SERIES, “The Writer’s Corner”

I have had a wonderful response from other authors and will feature an interview once a month . These authors have already responded and you can read their interviews by clicking on their name:: Ann Purser, Susan Elia MacNealMark Childress, Rhys Bowen, Dean Koontz, Sheryl Woods, Jo-Ann Mapson, Jeffrey Deaver, Elizabeth Gilbert, Amber Winckler, Karen Robards, Robert McCammon, Sue Grafton, Caroline Leavitt, Heidi Jon Schmidt, Walter Mosley, Loretta Chase, Nora Roberts, Raymond Benson, and many others.

So come along with me; we shall sneak into these writers’ special places, be a fly on the wall and watch them create!  July features Rhys Bowen.  Sue Grafton is August’s author and September will feature Tasha Alexander. Jeffrey Deaver is November’s author and  slick mystery writer, Andrew Grant will join us this winter. Loretta Chase will be featured later this year. Raymond Benson is January’s author.

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