{"id":32387,"date":"2018-07-02T09:45:06","date_gmt":"2018-07-02T13:45:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/?p=32387"},"modified":"2018-07-02T09:45:06","modified_gmt":"2018-07-02T13:45:06","slug":"laura-anne-gilman-on-writing-weird-alt-westerns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/2018\/07\/02\/laura-anne-gilman-on-writing-weird-alt-westerns\/","title":{"rendered":"Laura Anne Gilman: On Writing Weird Alt-Westerns…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week, Laura Anne Gilman finished up the enviable task of writing and then publishing a whole trilogy of books, which is always a success that should be met with fireworks and whiskey and a Herculean nap. That book is Red Waters Rising<\/strong><\/span><\/a>, and you can check it out now where books are sold. Here she is, with some final thoughts on ending the series…<\/em><\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Many thanks to Chuck for giving me a bit of a platform today.<\/p>\n

This month is the release of RED WATERS RISING, the third book in the Devil\u2019s West series, what I\u2019m calling (in my head, anyway) the \u201cDevil\u2019s Ride trilogy,\u2019 about the adventures of two very different people bound together by a devilish plan to keep the West That Wasn\u2019t safe against the Future to Come\u2026<\/p>\n

And I\u2019ve been blessed that the trilogy\u2019s gotten such a positive response from readers and reviewers, because it was, in technical publishing terms, a holy hell crapshoot.<\/p>\n

Honestly never had any desire to write \u201cweird west.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>Or any kind of western at all, honestly.\u00a0 <\/span>I was born and raised on the East Coast, and at heart am a city girl.\u00a0 <\/span>Urban fantasy?\u00a0 <\/span>I got you covered.\u00a0 <\/span>And as a history major\/geek, you wanna do historical fantasy?\u00a0 <\/span>Hey, let\u2019s go all the way back to the Etruscans and create a new mythology!\u00a0 <\/span>Contemporary dark fantasy?\u00a0 <\/span>I\u2019ve got your sociopathic elves right here!\u00a0 <\/span>(no, really, I do.\u00a0 <\/span>Careful, they definitely bite).<\/p>\n

But – despite knowing how to ride a horse and safely handle a shotgun, and, okay, I admit it, owning a pair of authentic, bought-in-a-feed-and-supply store-in-Oklahoma pair of cowboy boots,\u00a0 <\/span>the idea of writing a western of any sort had never meandered across my thought patterns.\u00a0 <\/span>Or rather, it didn\u2019t until the opening lines of a story – \u201cJohn came to the crossroads at just shy of noon, where a man dressed all in black was staring up at another man hanging from a gallowstree <\/i><\/span>\u201d – cracked open a world I didn\u2019t know I\u2019d been creating, and out spilled not just a handful of diverse short stories, but this trilogy,\u00a0 <\/span>SILVER ON THE ROAD, THE COLD EYE, and this month\u2019s RED WATERS RISING.<\/p>\n

And I went from \u201cno desire to write weird west\u201d to \u201choly shit I love writing American historical fiction with a heavy dose of Da Weird, give it all to me now please let me do this forever.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even if I did have to spend several years explaining why there are no gunslingers in this time period.<\/p>\n

And now, with the trilogy complete, and new adventures on the horizon, I\u2019m looking back over the words written, things learned, and hopes both realized and deflated, and trying to sum it all up for you, the joy and the frustration, the heartbreak all writers are heir to.\u00a0 <\/span>But that, I discovered, leads me not to words of wisdom, but, well, filk.<\/p>\n

Really, having met me, you should have expected nothing less.<\/p>\n

\n

…Mamas’ don’t let your babies grow up to write alt-westerns<\/i><\/p>\n

Don’t let ’em ride horses or learn about flintlocks<\/p>\n

Let ’em write spaceships, or Regency frocks<\/p>\n

Mamas’ don’t let your babies grow up to write alt-westerns<\/p>\n

‘Cause they won\u2019t fly off the shelves and they’re quick out of print<\/p>\n

Despite dedicated readers who say it\u2019s their thing<\/p>\n

Alt-westerns need obscure lib\u2019ry resources and costly road trip wand\u2019rings<\/p>\n

Little known factoids and magic and historical plights<\/p>\n

Them that don’t read \u2018em won’t like \u2019em<\/p>\n

And them that do sometimes won\u2019t ever find \u2018em<\/p>\n

They\u2019re not bad they\u2019re just a bitch to write<\/p>\n

and writers are so stubborn when a book\u2019s got their heart\u2026<\/p>\n

Mamas’ don’t let your babies grow up to write alt-westerns.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Laura Anne Gilman: Website<\/span><\/a> | Twitter<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Red Waters Rising: Indiebound<\/span><\/a> | Amazon<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week, Laura Anne Gilman finished up the enviable task of writing and then publishing a whole trilogy of books, which is always a success that should be met with fireworks and whiskey and a Herculean nap. That book is Red Waters Rising, and you can check it out now where books are sold. Here […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-32387","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-theramble","8":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pv7MR-8qn","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32387"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32390,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32387\/revisions\/32390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}