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By bucko, on April 23rd, 2013%
The wilderness of writer’s block is vast, dangerous, and difficult–if not impossible–to cross.
Or is it just the packaging that makes everything look so vast?*
(*Image used with permission from the delightful Toy Soldiers Collecting blog, where adventure awaits after a click on the link…)
A writer never expects to get seriously lost in this wilderness; like . . . → Read More: Rescue Me, Flint!; or, Of Wagon Train and Writer’s Block
By bucko, on September 9th, 2012%
I type these very words on land I recently purchased. “Land” is the glint in the eyes of Glenn Ford in Cimarron. The glow on the faces of pioneers racing their wagons to stake their claim. It was both a glow and a glint in my heart for a year and a half–and I couldn’t stand . . . → Read More: Home on the Range; or, Prologue–Getting Western in a Homestead Cabin
By bucko, on February 7th, 2011%
Writing a novel is not for the common mortal. And I have been all too mortal these days. Too whiney. Too morose. Too passive. Just like the hero of my novel (or so I’ve heard from my ever-patient agent). The End. Ho hum.
Or have I been pressed to set the novel-in-progress . . . → Read More: The Way of the Novel; or, Cowboy Up and Write Already
By bucko, on December 18th, 2010%
There is a strong possibility that during 2 a.m. sleepless dreads or after one too many shots of rye alone, your Silver-Screen Hero can turn into a shaking mass of insecurities.
As for my 2 a.m. dreads, they too easily take the scenario of
I am spending forever writing a novel;
A fatal flaw in me will always keeps . . . → Read More: The Buckaroo’s Guide to Writing Novel Happiness; or What Better to Give the Silver-Screen Western Hero of Your Life
By bucko, on December 4th, 2010%
Ah, the beauty of pulpish western cover art, filled to the brim with all the perfect 1950s western cover clichés, combined and intertwined in a perfect union of cinematic, pulp western majesty.
Can life get any better?
You might recognize the title, perhaps? Anthony Mann’s films with James Stewart, such as The Man from Laramie (1955) are . . . → Read More: The Man from Laramie; or, The One-Two Punch of 1950s America
By bucko, on November 28th, 2010%
Control your arsenal at all times.
Just as real-life sharpshooters should be aware of the number of bullets (think of Dirty Harry’s classic line that foiled the Scorpio Killer: “I know what you’re thinking. ‘Did he fire six shots or only five?’”), a Silver-Screen Western Hero wannabe knows the quantity and quality of his or her . . . → Read More: One’s All You Need; or, Shane’s Successful Showdown Advice
By bucko, on November 23rd, 2010%
A Silver-Screen Western hero never goes off half-cocked, meaning, in a metaphorical way, that one’s hammer, or firing pin, which you had thought you’d set at half-cock to keep your metaphorical gun from firing, fails just when don’t want it to, and your misplaced or uncontrolled rage shoots you in the foot, leg, your prize-winning cow . . . → Read More: Don’t Just Be Cool, Stay Cool; or, Jimmy Ringo’s Showdown Tips
By bucko, on November 20th, 2010%
Rule #1 for a successful showdown:
You have to be cool, as in gimlet-eyed, emotions-in-check, stone-cold control. Do not speak wildly, spittle flying into everyone’s faces, and do not drag children, animals, or siblings into your altercation (as Brockie does his sister, Jessica Drummond, in Forty Guns).
Little Brockie Drummond is only throwing a tantrum here.
Note . . . → Read More: Rules for a Successful Showdown; or, Staying Cool and Looking Hot
By bucko, on November 14th, 2010%
Cowboys have it good. Women swoon in close proximity to them. Gay men do, too. Boot fetishists want to lick their boot soles. Everything about them is beloved, from the ching of their spurs to their slang.
But the real-life historical cowboy wasn’t so lovable. He could be a roughneck, a gangbanger, a kind of ride-into-town-get-drunk . . . → Read More: Shoot Up the Town; or, The Establishing Six-Gun Shot
By bucko, on November 10th, 2010%
Cowboy accidentally fires gun in hotel.
Is this what the Wild Western World has come to? “Accidentally”?
Aren’t cowboys–the rough-riding kind that gallop through streets shooting guns in the air, whooping and hollering and making schoolmarms dive for cover behind Randolph Scott–supPOSED to fire guns in town streets, saloons, and hotels?
Oh, movies. Right. Where . . . → Read More: What to Do When You Shoot Up the Town; or, The Cowboy Code in Action
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Recent Posts
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Rescue Me, Flint!; or, Of Wagon Train and Writer’s Block
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Enter My House Justified; or, Skirmish at the Old Homestead Cabin
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Galloping To Hell or the Pecos; or, One Bucko’s Review of a Novel of Pursuit, Redemption, and River Crossings
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A Fistful of Westerns; or, History Channel Rounds Up Bucko’s Greatest Westerns
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Unforgiven; or, I’ll Never Forgive the Blood-Soaked Retribution Blah, Blah, Blah Bits
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