March 28, 2026
We were at the Flagstaff Book Festival in a crammed bar just off old Route 66. It was April, 2005 at a meet and greet affair, so we authors weren't signing books, but we were drinking beers as I recall. At one point Diana Gabaldon leaned over and told me a little secret. She confessed to me that she got her start by writing scenarios on her blog and when enough people said, "What happens next?" she sent her subsequent book proposal to a publisher. It was called "Outlander."
Many moons before that—early nineties—I drove down to Tucson so I could go to the University of Arizona Special Collections to see if I could find some historical tidbit on the Lincoln County War that seemed terribly important at the time, but I can't even remember what it is now. What I do remember is parking near Speedway and Park on a side street where I lived for a semester back in 1968. Finding a parking space at the U of A was, and probably still is, very hard, so this little trick saved me a longer walk and an expensive parking ticket. As I made my way across campus I saw a sign near the Student Union that said, "Ray Bradbury Talk—Second Floor." Intrigued, I made a detour and went up the flight of stairs and saw a registration table in front of a conference room, hung a right, ducked around a corner and found myself right outside of the door where Ray was in the middle of his talk, with his back to me facing the audience. I could clearly hear him and even though I only stood there for maybe three minutes he said two things that stayed with me to this day: "Writing is easy. Throw up in the morning and clean up in the afternoon," and, "Every day is Christmas Day to a dog."
Which brings me to the late, great Larry McMurtry.
The Lasting Power of Lonesome Dove
I have read Lonesome Dove at least three times. Someone told me McMurtry wrote it to dismantle the "Cowboy Mythology" but even though it does have some oddly contradictory messages ("We killed all the interesting people," Gus says owning up to the Texas Rangers' lethal law enforcement tendencies). So why does the book resonate so strongly? Here's an author who has also read the book multiple times. She admits, “I am an old woman and my life has been some strange balance of miraculous and mundane.” And, regarding the ending of Lonesome Dove and the bitter disappointment of the characters: “What I had seen those years ago as a lack of mercy became to me a presence of courage — to hurt them! To leave them in dismay! It was courageous because it was unbearable but it was true.”
—Sybil van Antwerp's letter to Larry McMurtry from the novel The Correspondent by Virginia Evans.
Yes, the reality of the Old West can be unbearable but if it is true it is courageous to tell it. Finally, one message is pretty clear to me.
“The most lasting moments are made of paper.”
—Old Vaquero Saying
Oh, and one more. . .
"So, what happens next?"
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