April 1, 2010

Today is a Red Letter Day!  My Medicare started and I went to the doctor for the first time in 18 months.  Since family health issues have been causing anxiety in our house lately, I was glad to go for a physical that was good. 

Now, to today's subject: why do I write Historical Fiction?  I started writing westerns because I lived in the state of Texas where the landscape pulls you into the past any time you leave the city.  If you are a very imaginative person who fills in the empty spaces with cowboys and cattle, wagon trains and sod houses or frame wood houses, then the western landscape is the place for you.  Add to that whole western towns and military outposts found scattered over Texas, New Mexico and Arizona and the ryrs can lead the mind into a myriad of western adventures.  My husband and I have spent several days at a Bed & Breakfast in an old jail in Washington, Arkansas, and drove from Flagstaff Arizona through the Kaibab Forest and plateau, through Sedona and over the mountains to Phoenix and Tucson to Yuma just to authenticate my first Western, Hunter's Heart.  In contrast, Heart of Gold, my second western and first one TWRP will publish, was set in an area of Arizona that stsyed in my mind when I saw it but had none of the people and buildings that I used to provide a setting for my characters to meet and fall in love.
As for the rest, I suppose I write historical fiction for the same reason I read historical fiction: because I am a fish out of water in those different time periods and therefore I find my interest engaged as I absorb the mores and traditions of each time period and culture. 
Well, that's all for today.  I hope you will read and comment on my thoughts so we can all learn more.  Laurel Natale