Building Fences

Yesterday I played cowboy. 

I collected fence posts. Held the rails in place while they were secured to the posts. Waited to see if my rather feeble attempts at fence building passed the inspection of the rancher waiting anxiously to see if the fence would be sturdy enough to hold his bull in the pen.

I must admit to two things.

First the rancher was a five year old with a plastic bull. And second...the fences were three inches tall. Held together first with yarn and then with staples.

But I played cowboy.

Sitting there on the back porch steps holding fence rails while my husband used a staple gun to put them together I could well imagine a full sized fence, in the middle of a pasture, in the hot sun or a blowing blizzard. And a rather demanding boss breathing down my neck wanting me to work faster because his 'bull' needed that fence up NOW.

It was all in my imagination but...

Isn't that what we writers do?

What's in a hero?

Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

James 4:10 esv

 

What’s in a hero?

As an author my mind is always running in the direction of my manuscripts, even when I’m not thinking about them. An artist can pick out scenes or interesting faces in a crowd with an eye toward the thought of drawing it later, taking in the details to sketch onto paper at the first opportunity. I know this because I have seen my sister and two of my children do it often. Without thought they absorb the details of what they are seeing and later transfer them to paper. That is a talent I do not have. Give me a ruler and a paper and I’ll draw you a slanted line.

But I can do with words what they can do with a pencil. That gift has opened my mind to seeing the world in a way I didn’t know. No matter where I am, who I’m talking to, or what I’m doing without thought my mind is tuned to the little details of life. What does this place and time feel like? How do I describe the smell of coffee? That statement would be great in my work in progress… Basically if I encounter it in life it’s fair game to show up in one of my manuscripts.

If you’ve been following my blog for any length of time you know my heroes are cowboys. If I handed you my computer and you could open up my saved manuscripts you would discover that all but about three of them feature cowboys.

Why?

Because cowboy’s are the epitome of the American West. Think of life in the 1800’s and most people tend to think cowboys. Men in dusters wearing Stetson’s carrying a gun and riding a horse. Or maybe it’s just the people I encounter that think that way. It seems that cowboys are the lingering breed of the men that settled our land, or so says a book I recently looked at in the bookstore.

Because of that they are seen as hero material by a good number of authors. Don’t believe me? Take a look at the shelf of your local bookstore. How many books feature cowboys? Westerns, romance, history… those are all genres that lean heavy on the cowboys. And you need look no further than the calendar section to find plenty of pictures to feed your mind.

I can blame my thoughts of cowboys being heroes on my grandpa. In some ways making my heroes be cowboys is a tribute to the man that I recently lost. I never saw him ride a horse but I never knew him to look like anything but a cowboy, complete with boots and hat.

I have heard others say bad things about him, know of things he did in his life that were anything but honorable, and yet, to me, my grandpa was a great man. His faults did not detract from what he was for me and to me.

What, you might ask, does that have to do with what is in a hero?

 Nothing.

And Everything.

This man that was the first cowboy that ever influenced my life was a cowboy in dress and to an extent in the way he saw life. As an author my characters come out of my imagination, out of the gift that the Lord has given me, but every so often they also come from real people.

I have recently been on the receiving end of some good natured ribbing about my cowboys. The person doing this is just teasing me and I know it but at the same time it has made me stop and look at my fictional heroes. Are they heroes because of the way they dress? Because they’re wearing guns and Stetsons? Or are they heroes because of who they are inside?

I have a manuscript that starts out: A man’s worth was measured by the size of his guns… That one line sets the entire scene. It and the couple of sentences after it place the hero in time and place, they clearly state the kind of man he is. He is a man, strong and willing to face the toughest situation. Because he is a hero and all heroes must live up to their reputation.

But the true worth of a man, the measure of whether or not he has what it takes to be a hero, lies not in the clothes he wears or the tools of his trade. They lie in his walk with the Lord. In his willingness to not only be a hero when needed but in his ability to be humble before God.

Can a man be a hero if he can’t lower himself before God in prayer? Can he be a hero if he doesn’t understand love? Can he be a hero if he lives his life according to his own ideas and not Scripture?

 

Character Qualities #3

What can you tell about a person by the hat they’re wearing? Is it possible to base an opinion on someone’s character or personality because they’re wearing a hat or not? My manuscripts take place in the mid to late 1800s, a time when hats were seen on almost every head. Women wore bonnets and fancy hats, some with elaborate decorations. Men wore Stetsons, top hats, bowlers.

Today hats aren’t as popular. Some people never leave home without one, others don’t own one. A few wouldn’t be caught dead wearing one.

As a writer, I may see someone in town and decide that I need a character like that person. In those cases, I know nothing about them but what I saw. Maybe a man with a bushy mustache that bows on the sides until it touches his chin or a little girl with white ringlets and sparkling eyes.

It’s easy to do because those details stand out. But what about a group of men standing around talking among themselves? Let’s say there are ten of them, teenaged to seventy. Two are bare headed, one has a bandanna wrapped around his head, three are wearing baseball caps, one has on a stocking cap and the other three are wearing Stetsons.

I know what I’m going to think when I see them, based solely on their headgear. If you’ve been reading my blog posts, you have a good idea of which ones I’m going to look at and think hero material. Those Stetsons are going to get it every time.

But that’s because my heroes have always been cowboys. You can expect every one of my manuscripts to have a main character in a Stetson. And he isn’t wearing it because it’s part of his clothing, or because he wants to keep the sun off his face. He sure isn’t going to put it on to look cool. He wears it because it’s part of who he is. It’s as much a part of him as his hair.

Now that’s making assumptions about someone’s personality based solely on his hat or lack of one. I can’t know if one of those men got his Stetson from a machine in the store, right before he walked outside (but I can guess if he’s wearing flip flops with it), or if he’s wearing it because his son gave it to him and cried because he wouldn’t wear it.

So yes, I’m guilty of making assumptions based on hats. There are some I don’t notice, others I dislike, and a select few that will catch my attention every time. Blame it on my grandpa. I can’t remember him leaving home without a Stetson. And he never wore anything but cowboy boots. He was my first hero.

Which hat draws your attention?

A Flood Of Disappointment

Disappointment rained on my family with the force of the thunderstorm battering our house. Sounds like an intriguing first line for a manuscript, doesn’t it? Unfortunately this time it’s all too true.

It’s been a while since we’ve had a church home, been nearly as long since we’ve found one that we truly liked, but last week, we tried a new one. I very much enjoyed the sermon, liked what I saw of the leaders and the music team. We left last week planning to give the church a chance. With the passing of the last seven days our anticipation grew and I found myself looking forward to returning.

I also found myself fighting my own feelings. You see, this church is a cowboy church. Nothing wrong there. It’s one of the reasons we tried it. Okay, it’s the main reason we tried it. But temptation was staring me in the face with every hour that brought me closer to today. The church is having a bull bash this afternoon. They’re going to ride bulls and well…rodeo.

Cute Little Cowboy

I like rodeos. I really do. I want to go. Only I don’t want my children getting involved with rodeo. For sure, I don’t want them riding bulls. And if I take them to such a thing…I’m encouraging it.

So for a week I’ve sat on a teeter totter, leaning one way, then another. Go. Don’t go. For me, I want to go. For them I want to stay far away. I finally settled on going to church and making the decision there, fully expecting to stay.

Then this morning arrived. Overcast and dreary. The question of the day: will they cancel the bull bash? But no worries, we’re still going to church. Never mind that there’s a river pouring over my house or that thunder is crashing loud enough to rattle the windows. That’s what windshield wipers are for. Who cares about wet feet?

Actually, I do. But that’s a whole different plot line.

 Then illness struck. A hypoglycemia attack that landed me with a sick child and washed all our plans away.

Is this how my heroine’s feel when I wipe away what they’ve been looking forward to? Is it how my hero feels when I kill off his herd of cattle with some catastrophe? At least we all know that all of their troubles will work out in the end. After all, who ever heard of a happily ever after that didn’t?

And just as all that works out in my manuscripts, I am sure, this too will end on a happy note. It just may not be the one I wanted.

Hero On The Chip Isle

There he was. Tall, dark, and handsome. Wearing wranglers and cowboy boots. A real live hero standing right before my eyes. In a flash my mind started spinning tales. I imagined him wearing a tin star, riding a black stallion, stopping a stampede, fording a raging river.

Anything.

It didn’t matter what he was doing, because he was a hero. And when a hero comes to life it makes no difference if he’s saving women and children or taming the west.

Larger than life, this man stood before my eyes waiting for me to figure out what his story was and place him a world where he is…man. And I must move him from where I found him to where he needs to be because you don’t find heroes standing at the end of the chip aisle in your local health food store.

“Howdy, Ma’am. Let me rescue this bag of chips.” Just doesn’t get it. Neither does, “Can I carry that gallon of organic milk for you?”

I spoke not a word to my hero as I mentally transported him to the wild west. I added a black Stetson to his dark hair, a pair of spurs to his boots, placed him on a dusty street surrounded by outlaws and women in long flowing dresses. And then I left him.

To his chips.

The last I saw of my hero, he was standing there debating flavors. And I never once saw him tip his hat to a passing lady.