The Life of Stories

My upcoming Western short story collection, Wanderlust Creek and Other Stories, now has a Goodreads page (in case you’d like to mark it to-read), with a book description (in case you want to know what it’s about), and a semi-official release goal: I’m aiming for March. There’ll be pre-orders at some point, of course; I’ll let you know when that happens.

There’ll be six stories in this collection:

• “Single-Handed”
• “The Rush at Mattie Arnold’s”
• “A Search For Truth”
• “The Mustanger’s Bride”
• “Room Service”
• “Wanderlust Creek”

Like Left-Hand Kelly, this book has been a long time brewing. The origins of half these stories go all the way back to before I published my very first book in the autumn of 2011. Yet it’s funny, looking back over my notes and first drafts, how different the life of the project was for each one. “Single-Handed” and “Room Service,” for instance, were both begun in 2011, and worked on periodically with gaps of months and even years in between, until I finally finished both in a feverish week-long burst of writing last July.

“The Rush at Mattie Arnold’s,” on the other hand, was an idea that came to me unexpectedly and got dashed off in just two or three days. It was some of the most fun I’ve had writing and one of the easiest stories to write. “The Mustanger’s Bride” was also great fun and was written in a spurt of a few days…except there was a gap of five months in the middle of the spurt.

I don’t have many outstanding memories of the composition process for “A Search For Truth,” but I do remember editing: it’s the story where I just kept on cutting out words. No plot changes, just heaps  and heaps of excess words that puzzled me with how in the world they got there in the first place. I have a feeling a few more will end up getting the boot in the final edit-and-proofread stage, too.

“Wanderlust Creek,” which is one of my favorites among my own stories, was a long time in development before it actually made it to the page. For several years I slowly accumulated pages of notes in one of my favorite note-taking notebooks, gradually putting scenes in order and straightening out a tangle of ideas for the climax. I think I had the subconscious feeling all along that I was waiting until I felt ready to do the idea justice—and I am glad I waited. I finally sat down to write it last summer and finished it over the course of a couple months.

But by hook or crook, by the long route or the short one, all six eventually made their way to the triumphant finish line of THE END, and by the end of this month, should have undergone their final edits and been fitted between the covers of a proof copy. And you know, I’m getting a bit excited.