Last night, at a ridiculously late hour, I read through my work-in-progress, which began as a largely seat-of-the-pants narrative. After about 6,000 words and some research on Nevada, Smith & Wesson revolvers (.44 caliber Russians…thanks for the idea, Elmore Leonard), and the Aleut people and Alaska) , I wrote a new opening scene that sets the entire story of fire!
So far the Characters for Cathy’s Town: Piano Players, Gunslingers, and Widows include:
– a woman and a Russian Orthodox Priest priest fleeing from the Northwest to the East Coast with a major problem in Nevada, during 1880 plus or minus a few years,
– her son that must find her, protect her, and admit that his father died in a gun battle with a rival family,
– a piano player with a mysterious Civil War and Reconstruction history,
– a young woman running a frontier empire with only her intelligence, courage, and desire to be the richest widow west of the Mississippi,
– and some bad-ass Cossacks bent on revenge in the American West
I am enjoying the creative process on this project so much that it takes everything I have not to publish the book in blog posts as it is written. Fortunately, I learned the pitfalls of that method once before and will not publish until the story is a great as it can be and I have contracted a professional editor.
Merry Christmas!
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