All tagged being a writer

Cowboys and Indians Today

Sara Stratton
book review

Tammie’s Destiny, the latest volume of my series, Once Upon a Time in the Texas Panhandle, is a love story. It follows the seemingly impossible romance between a Comanche Apache young lady and a West Texas cowboy in the 1950s. Tammie is a reservation Native struggling to support her family by trick riding in rodeos throughout New Mexico. Grant is the pampered son of one of the wealthiest cattlemen of the Texas Panhandle. Both her people and his family oppose their relationship. In Texas, it is illegal. In New Mexico, it goes against both Indigenous and Spanish cultures. But they have Destiny on their side.

[Click the title of the blog post to read more.]


Judging a Statue: What Do We Do About Confederate Statues?

Sara Stratton
being an author, historical fiction

My novel, Colleen and the Statue, is a love story. However, it also answers the question, “What do we do about this Confederate statue?” That is, for this particular statue standing in Central Park of Mackenzie, Texas, my story gives a unique solution. Read the novel to know what it is. Personally, I think that each statue has its own story and we should judge it accordingly, asking: “Who put it up? Where was it put? What did it symbolize when it was erected? What does it symbolize now? Should we distinguish between the historical person and what that person’s statue stands for today?” I think this last question is the most important one.

[Click the title of the blog post to read more.]

Better Days

Sara Stratton
love story

I grew up on fairy tales. They always begin, “Once upon a time …” and always end, “… they lived happily ever after.” My romance novels are like that. They’re set in the Texas Panhandle of the 1950s, but actually they could be set anywhere, anytime. The town and the county where they take place are fictional. The characters—usually two young people—face a series of impossible obstacles to their love, but in the end they overcome the odds, kiss, marry, and live happily ever after—à la Hallmark, Disney, and traditional Hollywood. So when my Chinese international student friend, Doris, sent me to see the current Chinese blockbuster movie, Better Days, of course I interpreted it in the same way I would an American movie.

[Click title of blog post to read more.]

What Would Happen If Your Culture Was Disappeared and Erased?

Sara Stratton
historical fiction, being an author

Once upon a time, the Comanche people ruled the Texas Panhandle. Then they were disappeared and erased—saw both genocide and “cultural genocide.” Tammie’s Destiny, Volume 6 of my historical romance series, tells the coming-of-age story and forbidden love between an adolescent Comanche girl from a reservation in New Mexico and a young man from a Texas millionaire ranching family. The tale’s background is the generational hatred between Texans and Native Americans, seemingly making such a relationship impossible.

[Click title of the blog to read the rest of the post.]

Valley of the Fallen

Sara Stratton
being an author, historical fiction

The background of my latest romance novel, Colleen and the Statue, is the on-going controversy over what to do with Confederate statues scattered ubiquitously across the states of the Old South, including Texas. For example, is the statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee in a park a symbol of States’ Rights and the Southern Way of Life, or rather is it a symbol of slavery and white supremacy? If the former, it should stay; if the latter, it has to go somewhere else—perhaps to a museum.

It is instructive to compare this American controversy with a similar, recent controversy in Spain over what to do with the to-be-exhumed body of Gen. Francisco Franco. Was he a hero, who saved Spain from Communism and restored the Catholic Church to its proper place or rather was he a brutal dictator, who fought only to acquire power and money? How you answer that question about Franco will determine what you do with his body.

[Click title of the blog to read the rest of the post.]

“NO MORE DAMN COMIC BOOKS!”

Sara Stratton
being an author

I thought of my dad yelling at me, “No more of these damn comic books!” when I read the opinion piece, “The death of serious reading among teens,” by high school and college social science teacher, Jeremy Adams (Los Angeles Times, August 23, 2019). Having published four novels and with a fifth soon to be published, I’ve yet to find a young person who has expressed interest in reading my stories, even though they’re “coming-of-age” romances, and are set in West Texas cowboy country—an exotic region, which I thought would excite young folks. It turns out that it’s the older crowd—well over thirty—who are reading my Once Upon a Time in the Texas Panhandle series.

[Click title of the blog to read rest of post.]

A good love story is timeless and “place-less”

Sara Stratton
historical fiction, being an author

I was surprised when the public librarian in a small town in Virginia rejected the idea of placing my novels in her library, saying, “They’re too regional—they’re all set in the Texas Panhandle. I don’t think my patrons here in Northern Virginia are interested in stories that take place out West. They want stories set in their part of the country.”

I can’t say that she was wrong about her patrons. Maybe they really are that limited in what they will read. But she certainly was wrong in saying that a story can be “too regional,” and for that reason would not be of interest to anyone who is not from wherever the story takes place.

Good stories are timeless and “place-less.”

[Click the title of the blog to read the rest.]

Silent Sam vs. Tommy Trojan

Sara Stratton
historical fiction

I have determined that one of my coming novels in the series, Once Upon a Time in the Texas Panhandle, will deal with the issue of whether to remove the Confederate statue from the central park of my fictitious city of Mackenzie, which is modeled after Amarillo. At present, there is an absolutely incredible number of such monuments, which are scattered throughout the former Confederate states. The central theme of my novel will be: Is it right to honor a soldier who served in the wrong army? That is, even if the soldiers of the Confederate States of America were heroes and valiant soldiers, were they mistaken in fighting for what became known as the “Lost Cause”?

[Click the title of the blog to read the full post.]

Memories

Sara Stratton
being an author

I’m different. I don’t want my memories to die with me. When someone I have known dies, part of my sorrow is that most of their memories have died with them. Most people don’t leave behind, when they leave this world, long diaries or extended memoirs or annotated albums of photographs or audio-videos or carefully-crafted CDs of their lives. And after a few years, even what memories they have left behind are stored in a box and stuck in a closet somewhere, and forgotten. Their memories died with them, in effect. I don’t want that to happen in my case.

So I write novels—historical novels, which are really my own history; romantic fantasies, which are the romances I lived or wish I had lived; tragedies, which entail the sad things that have happened to me or to my loved ones during my life.

[Click the title of the blog to read the full post.]


How I Write

Sara Stratton
being an author

The first thing that happens when I begin to write is that one of the characters wakes up in the morning with something in mind to do. I know what that character plans to do, but life is not like that. We all make plans, but we never know what is going to happen—whether we will get to carry out our plans. And my characters—they set out to go somewhere, do something, see somebody. But they don’t really know what is going to happen. They hope it happens the way they have planned, but that’s not life.

[Click the title of the blog to read the entire post.]


WHAT’S THE BEST THING ABOUT BEING A WRITER?

Sara Stratton
being an author

I’ve reached the age—my seventies—at which I hope I have something worth telling. I’ve seen a lot, done a lot, been a lot of places and met a lot of people. Hopefully, I have learned from all my experiences, and so I have something worth telling people. And my way of telling people is through my novels.

[Click the title of the blog to read the entire post.]