Writers in the Storm

By Charlotte Carter

The first day we’re up at 5:00 a.m., on the road by six. An hour later we pull off the road in Lamar Valley for coffee and a pick up breakfast. Behind us the nearly full moon is still visible. To the east the sun turns the sky pink beyond a ridge.

That’s when we hear the Blacktail wolf pack’s howl floating across the landscape - ooooOOOOoooo - a low, throaty sound, primitive and seductive, sending a chill of excitement down my spine. A minute later more wolves join in the chorus to welcome the new day.

In late September the grass in Yellowstone has gone golden dry, the aspen and cottonwoods are a bright yellow against a morning sky streaked with orange.

This is the mating season for elk. A substantial herd remains in permanent residence around Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel and park headquarters, where they graze on well-kept lawns. The bull elks with their huge antler racks are the (potentially dangerous) clowns of the herd as they trumpet a challenge to other males and try to keep track of their harem of cows. The mating of bull and cow is brief and apparently not thrilling for the cow as she darts off quickly after the deed is done.

Park rangers frantically try to keep the elks and tourists at a safe distance, but tourists can be an unruly breed.

Our vehicle slows for a bull buffalo strolling alongside the road, his shoulders and head massive. We have far more interest in him than he does in us.

Another day a mother herd of buffalo and their calves rest in a grassy clearing. Junior tires of the taste of grass and butts his mother’s udder. Startled, she jumps then remains steady as he drinks his fill.

A coyote tiptoes through the dry grass, his ears cocked. He pounces and comes up with a small rodent in his mouth. Lunch time!

On a hillside, a black grizzly bear is spotted napping between meals. His huge paws with their sharp claws rest on top of the elk carcass he has covered in dry grass. His body language selfishly shouts this cache is MINE, warning off other bears, wolves and circling ravens who must wait for scraps.

There’s a wolf sighting. Dozens, perhaps a hundred, wolf afficionados line the roadway peering through binoculars, powerful scopes and cameras with huge lenses. Is that black spot on the hillside a wolf? Or a rock? No one is quite sure. If only the black spot would move. So they wait. For hours.

Another day a mother grizzly bear, her fur silver in the sunlight, teaches her two cubs to dig for roots in Hayden Valley. The cub stands on his back feet to see over the top of the sage brush, checks his mother’s whereabouts, then trots after her.

The mob of tourists create a traffic jam along the road, drawing a park ranger to the scene to sort things out. Dozens of tourists have moved too close to the bears for safety; the ranger struggles to get them to move back.

Finally, on the last afternoon, word spreads through the tightly knit community of professional wolf watchers that three wolves have taken down a male elk in the Gibbons River near Steamboat Geyser. We hurry to the spot.

Hordes of people - the wolf paparazzi - line the road and creek. Motorized cameras whir, shutters click. Park rangers have set red cones out to keep the onlookers at a safe distance. Some tourists don’t recognize the warning until a ranger physically drags them back to where they belong.

Two of the three wolves have already run off, too shy to remain near the growing crowd. The beta male remains in the creek, however, ripping off chunks of elk meat for his meal. He’s larger than I’d expected. And determined.

All I could think was that one beautiful animal - the young male elk with seven point antlers - had given his life so that other beautiful animals - the small Canyon wolf pack - would have a better chance to survive the coming winter.

In Yellowstone all the animals live by the rules of Nature, creating balance in their environment.

Special thanks to our guides, Nathan Varley and Linda Thurston of www.wolftracker.com for allowing me to check off a big one on my ‘life list.’

Charlotte Carter

Books that leave you smiling from Love Inspired

Montana Heart, 12/2010

Big Sky Reunion, 5/2011

By Sharla Rae

Okay, be honest, at times, you’ve thought of hanging up your writer’s shoes. It’s not just the sledge hammers that everyday life keeps throwing at you, it’s the stress of the ever-changing industry and that little voice in your head that keeps telling you to get a life away from the computer, away from the imaginary stories in your head, away from the hopelessness of ever seeing your work in print.

Agents, editors and fellow authors all preach the same sermon, “Learn the craft, write a book from your heart, and you’ll get published.” It’s easy to get fed up with these speeches and they begin to feel like a puppy-dog pat on the head – atta girl; you can do it; you know you can! Is your backside wiggling with excitement, yet? Is your tongue hanging out with eagerness?

Okay, we all need a few pats on the head once in a while. In fact, writers do all kinds of things to keep themselves jazzed, like attending conferences and chapter meetings. And what’s the good message we hear? Atta girl; you can do it; you know you can! But beneath it all, we also hear whispers of the bad and the ugly. Over the years, I have attended numerous conferences both national and local and at every single one, predictions for the industry are bleak.

Who are we supposed to believe, the nay-sayers or the ones who pass out the puppy-dog pats? Well, so far, publishers still exist so I choose optimism  . . . with a very savvy and jaundiced eye. And there’s the rub. I’m a storyteller. I don’t want to deal with the rapid-fire industry shifts. It puts this happy puppy off her feed.

Let me share a bit of my publishing history. After publishing three historical romances and about the time I offered my fourth proposal to my editor, distributors started gobbling up each other. Publishers jumped on the bandwagon and both found themselves with large inventories while inheriting whole stables of authors. Midlisters and new authors (that would be me) were suddenly redundant, and many fell through the cracks of the unwanted.   

Talk about depressing! My rejections read something like, “Love the book, love your style, but we have too many of these stories right now.”

I didn’t give up. I’m a steadfast Capricorn of Scotch Irish decent. I’d done it three time already so I could d*@# well do it again. Atta girl!

Then another shift occurred and it felt very personal. This time, my rejections read, “Love your style, love your humor and characters, but we’re not buying American-set historicals. Write a Regency.” Anybody who writes Regencies knows that those English blokes have a special lingo and a history of their own. Being a perfectionist, I knew I’d study for at least a year before I wrote another word if I went that route.

Stubborn to the core, I believed those preachy articles that repeatedly told me to write what I know, and write from my heart. I refused to change because a few strangers in New York told me I must. Was I wrong?

Yes and no. I was writing what I loved, but there was little to no market for it. Had my name been better known, perhaps I’d have continued selling. But I was still a mostly-unknown author and soon found myself editing my husband’s scientific reports for work. I wrote and improved my fiction writing, but it was in the background. When I happened to attend a PAN meeting or two at local chapters, the other published authors looked at me as if they wondered how I managed to crash their meeting. Talk about humiliating and discouraging!

So, what woke me up? Resentment? Yes. Self-pity? Yes. And those two ugly emotions fired up my Capricorn nature. I like to be boss, and I never quite a job until it’s done and done well. And this Cappy was far from done!  

I finished my current historical – I never quit a job mid project -- that’s just me – and I started researching and plotting a paranormal/futuristic romance, another genre I love. I also dug my CEO hat out of the closet. It itches a little but it fits just as well as it did back in the day. I now spend non-writing time on the business of writing.

And then . . . 

In walks e-books, another game changer. For the less tech savvy, the how-tos are daunting, but nobody can ignore the wowing possibilities. I’ve decided I can do nothing but embrace it. My characters need a home, be it on a printed page or a virtual one.

Dump the good, the bad, the ugly into a blender and what do you get?  

Tough love. There is no good time to write and there is no bad time either. That’s life. If you toss your computer out the window, who cares? Thousands of writers are aching to replace you. Conversely, nobody cares if you hop 0nto the roller coaster of a writing career and hang on for the thrill of the ride. The question is, Do You Care? For me the answer is YES!

Will you be still tempted to quit? Yes, every single day.

Will I ever give up? Absolutely.

I will give up . . . when it stops being fun; when I run out of words, when the stories dry up, when my skeletal fingers crumble at the keyboard and my skull falls off. Whether or not I ever publish again, I’m a storyteller. It’s what I do.

By Sharla Rae

This week our critique group met at our favorite Greek restaurant. Besides the good food, we had major business to take care, namely, deciding the top five finalists in our Piece of the Sky Contest.

We all brought our top picks with us, and it was immediately apparent, there’d be no blood-letting. Surprisingly, our choices were pretty much the same. Funny how that works sometimes, but hey, we’re readers too. We know what appeals to us just like everyone else.  

At first, I was a bit leery about running a contest, but I have to admit, that it was fun. In fact, we enjoyed it so much that we decided to hold another one. The idea we came up with is out of the norm and will be hugely fun for all the participants. The prize is cool too! And no, I’m not going to tell you about it. You’ll have to check our blog for the official posting.

After choosing the five finalists, we shared a few personal tales. My favs were a real-life shark encounter and a story about a navy admiral putting the moves on one of my critique partners.

Next we shared some industry talk, and then we got down to the nitty-gritty part, critiquing our work. Each week we e-mail a chapter to each other so it can be read and critiqued before critique meetings. We critique using Track Changes in Word so that we can hand over or e-mail the critiques to each other. Sometimes we all contribute, sometimes only one or two us turns in work. This week we had one synopsis and one chapter. As usual, everyone took a turn suggesting changes, and asking questions.

Meeting in person allows us to brainstorm more effectively. We can be very vehement with ideas and opinions flying like machine gun bullets. We get mad, we get glad, and we laugh a lot. It’s never dull!   

No matter how heated the discussion or how touchy we might become over opinions of our stuff, we all know, deep down, that our partners really care about each other’s writing. Having them withhold their honest opinions and consequently having a novel be repeatedly rejected would be far worse than singed feelings. Not that we’re mean. We aren’t. We “all” give respectful, constructive criticism only and we’re mindful of the fact that when all is said and done, it’s the author’s story and only she gets to choose the final words.

Good news or bad, I leave the meeting with a new sense of purpose and the urge to go straight to my computer and start editing and writing. I love my storm-writer sisters. They are my best buds, great critics, and the best support group any writer could ever have. With us, one partner’s success is considered a win for the entire group.

Okay, I’ll step away from the podium now.

I’m revved for next week, when we’ll choose and announce the final winner to our Piece of the Sky Contest. And um, I have to rewrite the 1^st chapter of my new WIP and let them have at it . . . again.

Can’t wait!