About Mexican Red

It's my first effort in western novels. Begun at least two years ago. I generally know what I want to say, but it's a major operation to put all the elements together. Most of my first drafts are comparable to an artist who begins a canvas by drawing stick figures on it and then alters a line here and there until realistic portrayals of people emerge from those simple lines. It depends on the artist how well it turns out.

Years of writing verse almost exclusively has turned my prose into a bare bones operation, making the stories fill fewer pages while telling just as much story as works thousands of words longer. Some prefer long winded writing. It's okay to like whatever you want to like.

Many instances of my language can be nit-picked for not being authentic old west. It's the same with history. Not a history lesson. It's more Hopalong Cassidy than Parkman's The Oregon Trail.

Others may find discomfort in the fluidity of moving the narrative from character to character. I couldn't tell the same story if I did it another way.

So as I prepare to write the final several pages, it would seem it is almost ready to be read. But not so fast. Then it will sit unread by me for a time and then almost certainly undergo some revisions when I revisit a final time or three. Or four or five. And then most readers may hate it. By then I may hate it too.