Wild West Photo Friday: Real Outlaws in Western Movies

This dusty gunman is Al Jennings, a lawyer from Oklahoma who became a bandit in the 1890s. He had a brief career of robbing banks and stores before getting injured in a shootout with the law and sent to prison. When he got out, he went back to being a lawyer and even ran for governor of Oklahoma!

When his political career didn't pan out, he decided to make movies where he played himself. Westerns had become a popular genre in the early silent films and he wasn't the only real-life bandit to sully the silver screen. You can read more in my post for Black Gate about Wild West Outlaws in Silent Film.

This image is a still from the film The Lady of the Dugout (1918) and is in the public domain.

Second Edition Selfie!

I just got my author's copies of the second edition of Outlaw Tales of Missouri in the post. It's actually been out since October but I've been moving around so much the publisher hasn't had a chance to send them to me! This edition includes two new chapters and brand new cover art. It's available in print and ebook.

I gave a copy to fellow Madrid writer Andrew Leon Hudson, who writes some pretty cool weird west stuff you should check out if you're a fan of the genre. Hopefully it will inspire him!

Dinosaurs and weird cures at the Oxfordshire Museum

"Physicians agree" this steam bath cabinet is absolutely safe and good for the health!

I may be back in Spain, but I still have plenty of photos from England to share with you! In our last week in England we went to Woodstock, Oxfordshire, to visit the newly opened Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum. I'm pitching that story to a magazine, so I'll keep those photos for a while Instead here are some shots of the Oxfordshire Museum, a local history museum next door.
Jump the cut for more photos!

Starting on book number 11

Last week I finished the page proofs for my tenth book, a title for Osprey Publishing's new Raid series. Ride Around Missouri: Shelby's Great Raid 1863 continues my research on the Civil War in the Trans-Mississippi Theater. There'll be more to come! It's available for preorder if you want to be nice to me.

This week I'm starting research on book number 11, another title in Osprey's Raid series. Osprey is good to me so I keep writing for them. The Last Ride of the James-Younger Gang--Jesse James and the Northfield Raid 1876 is taking Osprey in a new direction with Wild West books. Mine is the first and I'm sure it won't be the last.

This is what it's like to be a midlist writer. You finish one project and start the next one. Year in, year out. Eleven books is small potatoes compared with some midlisters. In an article I wrote about midlisters, I interviewed half a dozen midlisters about their careers. Three stood out. Jane Toombs has published more than 80 novels, the majority of them romance, with big names such as Silhouette and Avon. Lawrence Schimel has published more than 90 books and almost 200 short stories. Sally Odgers beats them all with about 300 titles in virtually all genres.

I'm only 41, so I figure I have at least thirty years of active writing life ahead of me. When I think of the number of books, articles, and blog posts I'll do in that time, sometimes I get really excited, and sometimes I feel exhausted!

Ah well, back to writing!

Photo Friday: Willie's grave

Call me weird, but I love graveyards. So much history, so many memories. This gravestone is in Mt. Olivet Cemetery in Kearney, Missouri. I took this shot while on a Jesse James road trip last month. This isn't one of the James family; they're buried on the other side of the cemetery. In fact it's hard to tell exactly who this person was. It's probably a child's grave considering he doesn't have a last name. Unfortunately the graves nearby that might have given a clue to his family have disappeared, so now he's only Willie. That's the most important thing graveyards can tell us--that our time is short.

So stop reading this blog and get busy chasing your dreams!

On the trail of Jesse James: a new travel series

Hi all! As you can see from the margin on this blog, I've written a lot of series for the travel blog Gadling. Now I've started a new one on Jesse James. Join me as I explore the real history of America's toughest outlaw, with lots of photos of where he lived, the places he robbed, and where he met his end.

Historical research in Missouri

As you might have guessed from my previous post, I'm back in Missouri researching my next book for Osprey Publishing. It's for the new Raid series and will be about Confederate General J.O. Shelby's 1863 raid into Missouri. This was one of the longest raids of the war and an important chapter in the history of the war west of the Mississippi.

Osprey is one publisher doing well in the recession thanks to its strong hold on the military history niche and its willingness to expand into new territory. Another new series, Weapons of War, includes my latest book.

I'm based in Columbia, a city in the center of the state that has the State Historical Society of Missouri and the Western Historical Manuscripts Collection, two great sources of information with very helpful staff. They're used to me and my endless questions by now! The two institutions are on the University of Missouri campus, where I took this shot of Thomas Jefferson thinking great thoughts. His leg warmers are courtesy of a local underground knitters group that likes decorating telephone poles, parking meters, and anything else they fancy. They haven't yet been named a terrorist group, but in this political climate that might be coming soon. I was surprised Jefferson's leg warmers actually lasted a whole two days before being removed!

Besides working on the book I'll also be going on a Jesse James roadtrip for Gadling. That should go online near the end of the month. My first stop will be this weekend when I visit the site of the Centralia Massacre, one of the bloodiest episodes of Frank and Jesse's war years.

My next book contract

Osprey Publishing has just sent me a signed contract for my next book.

It's another military history--that's what Osprey specializes in--and it's for a new series called Raid. This series focuses on important raids, examining how they were planned, what their goals were, and what could have been done better. The editor is a big fan of the Wild West and so I'm doing the Northfield Raid by the James-Younger gang. This ill-fated attempt to rob the First National Bank of Northfield, Minnesota, left all the robbers dead or in jail, except for Frank and Jesse James of course.

OK, so this isn't really military history. Osprey has been doing good business in the recession by playing to their strengths while not being afraid to break into new territory. The Wild West is one of them. Plus there are some military aspects. Most of the robbers were former Confederate bushwhackers and used their hit-and-run tactics to rob trains and banks and elude the law. I mention the James brothers in my previous Osprey title American Civil War Guerrilla Tactics.

Frank and Jesse James have cropped up in my fiction too. In an earlier post I talked about my Missouri Civil War horror novel and how because it was set in that time and place I couldn't avoid have the James brothers as characters. They've crept into the plot of the sequels too!

Here in Midlist land we're pretty busy, so we try to save time as much as possible. Writing novels set in periods you're already researching for paid work is an efficient expenditure of time. Now if I could only get those novels published!