Finding Your Authentic Voice

Discovering your authentic self is like meeting a perfect stranger you’ve known all of your life. Now, if one can get past their ego’s definition of who they are, it can be a truly enlightening experience. In last week’s blog: ‘Art in all of us,’ I argued that all (or at least) most of us have artistic tendencies that need to be addressed and/or explored. This blog is a continuation of that thought.

To find your artistic abilities you have to push beyond those influences that have up until now defined who you think you are. Past life experiences, relationships, loves, losses, and a wide assortment of pivotal life-altering events that have all conspired to shape a personal vision of yourself in your head.

There have been a number of books that have influenced me in one way or another over the years. I’m sure the influence was heavily fortified by the lifestyle, angst, mood, and my own psychic temperament at the time.

Most of us spend a lifetime painting our skin like a canvas of who we think we are. It’s a personal journey of ego, attitude, needs, desires, fears and wants. But in our quest for satisfaction in life we sometimes inadvertently let outside influences shape and define our true self.

Often times, there’s been collateral damage suffered and you didn’t even know it. It came from those youthful messages imparted on you by parents, teachers and friends. Everyone who thought they knew who you were, what you were and what you should become in life.

Writing for me has always been a journey to find my authentic voice and express it in my stories. Yet, I can’t unlock the shackles of past influences that color my many words. I’m not alone in this vernacular journey of detours, distractions and negative voices lurking in the back of my head. Recently, I’ve read two books that expanded the spectrum of that chasm in writing.

Larry McMurty (The Last Picture Show, Terms of Endearment, Lonesome Dove, Brokeback Mountain, etc.) and Micky Spillane (Kiss Me Deadly, I, the Jury, Vengeance is Mine) had two very different writing styles and yet each was true to their internal voice. They both had two distinctly different writing styles that, despite their stark differences, managed to connect very effectively with their respective audiences. Both authors found their voice and satisfaction in their own approach to story-telling. In short, they were honest to themselves and never wrote to a supposed audience or group of readers.

Finding our inner voice is different for each one of us. We all have it. We just need to find it. If one looks at creativity not just in terms of the arts, music, crafts, and all of its many manifest-ations but far beyond that, it is another world welcoming us to explore.

Creativity can be found in our ordinary, often times mundane acts of living. It means creating a life style that embraces all that is important to you, your soul and your inner cravings for your purpose in being alive. It means living by those principles that define who you are as a person, a spouse, a lover, a parent, a guardian, and a member of the human race. Living creatively can and should be your motivation for personal evolution, growth, learning and therefore, thriving in a complicated world.

For me, part of that organic process of writing is a new demand for more self-examination and thoughtful-processing of the past lives I’ve lived, my present environment and level of personal satisfaction.

It demands a closer examination of past relationships and my reaction to life events. It forces me out of old reflections, memories and explanations and gradually wipes away the dust and dirt of past assumptions to revealed a truer self. My research and writing have taken me on a journey I am only now beginning to better understand and appreciate. It’s all about answering the question of who I was back then and how it made me who I am today.

Helping me along the way is a daily detour I take to check-in inside my head. This practice is a monastic exercise but one with benefits. It’s finally coming face to face with the true me. Mind you I can’t say I know me that well even though it’s been over eight-one years of living in this skin.

As with any responsible enterprise it is our duty to find what it is that interests us the most. We must listen to our inner voice and answer its calling. To do this we must learn how to support our creativity. That means to take the time to daydream, doodle, imagine, and ponder those many ‘what if’s’ that seem to hang around the edges of our consciousness. Life-changing habits come from thoughts and energies beyond that which we normally access during our daily lives.

Then we must take those thoughts, ideas, concepts, and ‘what if’s’ and put them into concrete form or action. The tragedy here is not to try and fail but to do nothing at all. Each of us has an intuitive nature. We must harness the energy of and the power of that intuitive self in order to become limitless in our inner exploration.

You must first accept where you are in life and never regret the journey you took to get there. You should slow down and smell the flowers. That means eliminating toxic people and situations that do nothing but harm your self-worth. Practice the art of mindful living and appreciating your good fortune when intuition comes into your life.

It means breaking away from centuries-old assumptions, questioning old habits that hold us back and honestly looking deep within ourselves for the truth there. Creativity is a whole body and mind experience. It is a way of life not just an idea or an ambitious goal. It is preparing ourselves mentally and physically for the journey deep within ourselves that reveal truths about us we never knew. It is a mind-set that in turn is a road map that in turn is a guide to eternal truths…our truths about who we are and what we can become if we so desire.

Welcome to your inner journey. It’s going to be a wonderful, at times confusing, and ultimately satisfying trip. It’s better to jump on that train now than to wait at the station for another-life to arrive. It’s a journey I intend to follow for the rest of my life. A trek backwards that might help propel me forward with clarity and vision of who I really am.

Playing Cowboy Again

When I was growing up, we were very poor. Spending money was at a premium or non-existent. My single mother would give me the choice between a Saturday afternoon western movie or a comic book. Both cost ten cents. I would choose the movie almost every time.

While the comic book would have lasted longer, it could never fuel my imagination the way an old piece of celluloid, wrapped in frightening sound effects, dramatic music and eye-popping images could. It was an hour and a half of living out my fantasies in a dark and cavernous theater surrounded by rows of fellow overly imaginative youngsters. Nothing much has changed over the years.

Aside from some of the classic western movies by John Ford, Sam Peckinpah and a few other masters of the genre, most westerns back in the 50’s and 60’s didn’t really represent the true west. I think I could sense, even back then, the Hollywood magic behind the façade of plywood store fronts and war paint.

Later on in life, as my fascination with the old west grew, I began to read some of the true poet masters of that era like Henry Allen Wilson and Larry McMurtry. I tried to understand what the old west was really like back then. I treasured movies such as Red River, The Searchers, the Fort Apache trilogy, Jeremiah Johnson, and a few select classics. I often wondered if I could ever tell such a tale myself.

Finally, around 1973, in a spare bedroom in Reisterstown, Maryland, I began crafting a story of three individuals who find their lives inexplicitly tied and twisted together. It took a year of pounding on that old L.C. Smith typewriter, making corrections and retyping those same pages over and over again. That labor-intensive, painful process continued for almost a year until the story was completed.

Then for reasons long since forgotten, I promptly shelved it despite my wife’s urgings that I explore some kind of publication. A second western written shortly thereafter suffered the same fate. Gradually, I forgot about my venture out West and went back to my life on the East Coast. Then years later, thirty-nine to be exact, I began looking for something to do in lieu of retirement. That first novel came to mind and I pulled it out of a dusty desk drawer. I had my answer.

Without any real idea of what I’d do with that dusty relic, I transferred those tired old graying pages to a floppy disc and began my journey back in time to a place I had long since forgotten. It had taken me years to return out West but it was worth the wait.

Much to my surprise, I found my storyline held its own and the characters still resonated with me after all those years. I had an artist create a book cover for me. Then I rewrote the novel, keeping the main plot line but adding a lot more period details, refining the characters personalities and ended up with a story that still remained true to my original vision.

Each step of the way, I found myself riding alongside my hero and dodging Apache arrows just as he did. I was that drifter, lost and confused in a changing world after the Civil War. Like my hero, I still hadn’t shaken off the troubling memories of the war or the deep feelings that fiery red-head stirred up in my head and heart. A new title beckoned and the novel became ‘Apache Death Wind.’

What I experienced in writing, and then rewriting of that western tale, was a transformation from East Coast storyteller to Midwestern yarn-spinner to West Coast reporter. By the time I was safely ensconced in my office at home, I was finalizing a story that began in Reisterstown, Maryland, found refinement and clarity in Apple Valley, Minnesota and finally reached its conclusion under the San Jacinto Mountains in my back yard.

So, what happened next?

Even before “Apache Death Wind” was published, there was self-induced pressure building for a sequel. At first, I was left pondering what might have happened to my two main characters, Jeb and Charlotte, if they weren’t together at the end of the first novel. Then ever so slowly, a new story started to emerge from the shadowy confines of my imagination. This new tale gradually morphed into a story of love lost, a man bent on suicide and a new beginning gradually growing for the two main characters. Of course, circumstances bring them together again but not always in ways a reader might imagine.

The more I worked on a treatment for the sequel, the more excited I got about the characters and what happened to both of them after the end of “Apache Death Wind.” Thus, was created ‘Chaparral Fox.’

The sequel opens with Jeb sitting across from the cantina where two bandit brothers are holed up and waiting for the rest of their outlaw gang to return. Jeb, ever true to his word, is determined to eliminate the two brothers just as he had promised the villagers. At the end of the first chapter, Jeb arises and begins to walk toward the cantina, rifle in hand. It is a suicide mission but since he’s lost the love of his life, he doesn’t really care any longer.

Charlotte is established now in San Francisco. She has become very successful with her own tailoring business and has put her past life with Jeb behind her…or so she believes. Then she is approached by a lawyer with news that will change her life forever… The plot gets even more complex after that. That second novel ended with a reunion of sorts but a plethora of problems still facing our two main protagonists.

The storyline wasn’t ended yet. There was still one more tale to tell. It would be the third and final installment in the Apache Death Wind trilogy. Both main characters were once again in danger and deep trouble in Mexico. ‘City of the Dead’ finds them in an abandoned village, surrounded by Indians and outlaws with little chance of survival.

Thus, the ‘Apache Death Wind’ trilogy was born. But my western story-telling wasn’t finished yet. Now came the hard part. Advertising on Facebook; both domestic and foreign, didn’t bring in a lot of sales. Comments made on western Facebook group sites didn’t fare much better. The path to success, either direct or through a circuitous route, was eluding me.

Now I’m taking new steps to market this western trilogy through the help of artificial intelligence. AI has pointed out a number of new avenues I hadn’t considered. It might consist of another mini web site such as the two I have for ‘Debris’ and ‘Agnes.’ It might include a more targeted, enhanced e-mail list, etc. Since Westerns are evergreen and timeless, I’ve had the benefit of time and space behind me. I’m confident I’ll get there; it may just take a little more hard travelin’ before I do.

Finger Dancing with Spurs On

I’m not sure how she could say it so pointedly when her nose was that far up in the stratosphere.

                                                           

“I don’t read westerns” she announced with her usual flare for the dramatic. And she wasn’t the least bit apologetic about it. She informed me that, of course, she read the classics. She read popular new releases. She read what all of her gal-pals were reading. She read what she thought she should be reading…based on popular culture and what she might be asked about at the country club. But she certainly wouldn’t lower her standards to read westerns; despite the fact that it’s a genre that’s been around for at least two hundred years.

I could have been offended by her comment but I simply looked at the source and brushed it off as just another inane comment from an uninformed soul in search of a reason to feel good about herself. She wasn’t the only one to make a negative remark about westerns. With labels such as ‘horse operas’ and ‘formula fiction,’ the genre has been the favorite whipping cowboy of the literacy elite for years.

I’m not here to defend the genre of westerns. I don’t have to. While it may never reach the hallowed status of classical literature, it still fulfills a need for good storytelling to people who appreciate a good yarn. It’s really as simple as that.

If there is a western formula, it’s really quite simple: believable colorful characters, compelling plots and intriguing dialogue all wrapped up in a vivid setting. Its audience is world-wide; ranging from the United States to the U.K. to Europe, from Australia to Asia, from South American and Africa to the Middle East. Westerns answer a universal thirst for homegrown heroic myths.

I never started out to be a writer of westerns. Back in the 70’s I was deeply enmeshed in that genre and enjoyed reading many different authors from Louie L’Amour to Clay Fisher. I even wrote two westerns myself to see if I could do it and that turned out to be a Near Death Experience.

 

But over the years, I’ve come to enjoy and respect good writing no matter what the genre. Westerns are no different. There are the classic western writers such as Jack Schaefer (Shane) and Louis L’Amour (Hondo) and the current ones such as Larry McMurtry (Lonesome Dove) and Cormac McCathy (Blood Meridian). Good writing…just like good story-telling doesn’t hold claim on any specific genre.

This prejudice against westerns has always been a cyclical thing. It seems to come and go every dozen years or so. Back in the 1940s director John Ford paid homage to the western frontier with a series of black and white classics such as ‘My Darling Clementine’ and the Fort Apache trilogy. In the late 50s and early 60s, there was a plethora of western television series. Then in the mid-to-late 60’s, the Italians got into the act with Clint Eastwood and their spaghetti westerns like ‘The Good, the bad, the ugly.’

By the mid-70’s, western paperback novels were on the dying cusp as a popular genre.  Bantam Books and other publishers continued to publish them for several more years but gradually they disappeared entirely from the book shelves. Reading tastes change. Nowadays publishers seem to celebrate some woman who has figured out how to get laid in fifty different positions or how to fall in love with a werewolf or how to play games with people’s lives.

But what goes around comes around. I assume that in x number of year’s westerns or some new variation of that theme will come back into popular culture…for the uninitiated. For the rest of us, the western has never really left our consciousness.

Presently I’m working on a sequel to my first western (Apache Death Wind) while I’m editing another book (Debris) and creating a non-fiction ‘single’ for distribution on Amazon. Writing is writing and each story takes me into a world I relish and truly enjoy getting lost in.

I am less interested in the historical aspects of the old west as I am in using it as a background for telling an interesting story with intriguing characters caught up in real-world (circ. 1800s) situations. I couldn’t ask for a better setting for my stories.

In both fiction and reality, most of these men out west lived by an unwritten code of honor. They respected ‘respectable’ women, kids and animals. Their word meant everything and “I can’t” wasn’t a part of their vocabulary. There was an appreciation for the land, honor in hard work and little expectation that government or someone else was going to do the work for them.

I find it ironic that in an age when so much of the public worships the Sunday afternoon man-boys who act like children on the playing field, when pre-adolescent children make millions by wailing about lost love and young adults who can’t act pretend to be movie-stars, we somehow scoff at the iconic image of the men and women of the old west.

Who is more real here?

I’ll go with the cowboy anytime.