We're for Smoke: Outlaws and Outliers of Panther City

I am a native of Fort Worth, Texas. I was born in a clinic sitting on the corner of Charbonneau road and Jacksboro highway, so I’ve always said I have a little ‘Thunder Road’ in my blood. If you are not familiar with the legendary, infamous history of Jacksboro Highway, I strongly recommend reading Ann Arnold’s excellent, Gamblers and Gangsters: Fort Worth’s Jacksboro Highway in the 1940s & 1950s.

I have always been fascinated with history. As a kid I read every book I could get my hands on about the Civil War and World War II. I was a military brat and grew up traveling all over the country. It was important to my mom that I grew up Texan so she encouraged me to learn the legends, myths and history of Fort Worth and Texas. It became a life long obsession.

Four or five years ago, while researching stories for a film project on the history of the Fort Worth police department, I ran across the life of Bessie Williams. I was instantly smitten. I became enamored with this woman’s life. I will discuss more of Bessie’s story in another post but I fell in love with what I learned of her and thought her story deserved to be told. I pondered writing a book or story about her life and adventures. To be honest, I felt I was not up to the task. As I thought about it more and more I realized I had a hand full of characters that, taken as a whole, told an interesting story of Fort Worth in an important period of the growth and transition of the city.

The vast majority of the information I had on these people came from newspaper accounts. These newspaper stories were compelling and vibrant. Over a period of time a structure and story arc developed. I focused my research and the structure of We’re for Smoke began to come together.

The eureka moment came one day when I was at the library walking through an exhibit focusing on items from their local history collection. Part of the exhibit was the first official flag of Fort Worth. It is breathtaking.

Everything came together. The book would be a historical fiction account of a period when Fort Worth was struggling to transform from a lawless, frontier town to a modern, industrialized city. I would tell that transformational story through the lives of people from different social and economical castes and frame it with the actual newspaper stories of their lives.

It has been and continues to be an informative, entertaining and fascinating journey.

Synopsis:

In 1910 Fort Worth struggles to progress from a Wild West cattle town into a modern, industrialized city. Through actual newspaper accounts We’re for Smoke tells the stories of six ordinary citizens of diverse backgrounds, race and class and how the industrialization of Fort Worth impacted their lives.   

We're for Smoke: Outlaws and Outliers of Panther City is a historical novel set in Fort Worth between the years 1910 and 1919. To date, 75% of the novel is completed. The length will be approximately 85,000 to 90,000 words. Told through newspaper accounts and other archival documents, Smoke weaves each character's story in chronological order. 

The Year of the Word

I hit a wall in late 2016. I finally reached a point as a freelancer where I had to many balls in the air and they were all about to start dropping. Worst of all, most of them were underpaying or not generating revenue at all.

I could feel it. I was about to break down. So, before I went completely insane, I decided I needed to stop. I focused on wrapping up or flat out abandoning projects. I started saying no to new projects, no matter how exciting they sounded.

It was time to clear the decks.

I decided 2017 would be the year of the word. I would focus solely on writing. No film projects, minimal nonprofit work. I would keep only the freelance jobs that paid their own way. I started saying no to anything and everything else that came along.

I had been sporadically working on a historical novel for over two years. I set a goal of finishing the novel by September 2017. I had not written a short story in decades, so I set a goal of one new short story every month.

I set a strict writing regimen. I would spend seven to nine days each month on a short story and the rest of the month would be dedicated to researching and writing the novel. I set a minimum word count of three hundred words a day, seven days a week. Three hundred words a day isn’t much. I intentionally set the bar low. Success breeds success.

I picked a handful of top and mid tier literary magazines that paid for short stories and began to submit, one new story a month. Breaking into these publications is a tough nut to crack. I did not expect to be accepted and so far, five months and five stories in, I have not been disappointed.

To date I have garnered four rejections. When a rejection comes in I immediately send the story to another publication. I decided I would submit each story to at least three magazines before turning to self publication. I want to be clear; I do not consider self publication to be a last resort. Sure, there is a healthy portion of self published writing that is amateur but there are also plenty of respected, successful writers who self publish. Three submissions may not give the story a fair chance to find publication, however, the submission process is a long and drawn out process. It sometimes takes four to six months only to hear you have been rejected.  I didn’t want to take over a year for these stories to reach an audience. I am a determined cuss and a slogger, but I can also impatient.

The goals for 2017 are to finish the novel, write a minimum of 12 short stories, procure a literary agent for the novel, begin self publishing the short stories, eventually break into having the short stories published in respected magazines that pay, and begin to build a following for all my writing.

And that is where this blog comes into play. In Metaphor in a Hat I will discuss the novel, short stories and my personal writing process. I will invite other writers to share their process.
Hopefully you will find this effort entertaining. Hopefully you will find this site informative. Hopefully you will support my work through sharing it and purchasing the stories as they come available.

Let’s tell some stories.

In the next post I will introduce the novel:  We’re for Smoke: Outlaws and Outliers of Panther City.