American Classic Pedigrees - Horse Tales

Dealing with Disappointment

7/3/2025

The list of semifinalists for the Dr. Tony Ryan Book Award for horse-related books published in 2024 is now out. The Kentucky Oaks: 150 Years of Running for the Lilies didn't make the cut.

I can't say that I'm not disappointed. The inevitable question of Why? comes up, along with the insidious self-doubt: maybe I'm just not that good a writer. It doesn't matter how many books and articles you've had published; rejection is a bitter pill to swallow, no matter when in one's career it occurs.

In truth, both the quality and quantity of horse-related books that have come out in the last few years have been high, and I'm sure that the selection panel for the Dr. Tony Ryan Award had to make some very hard decisions. Certainly, it's nothing personal. My challenge now is not to take it personally, and to continue trying to make each new book the best it can be. God willing, I will keep improving until the day comes when I set my last word to paper.

Buried Treasures

6/19/2025

There's nothing like a trip to Lexington to have me appreciating anew what a rare gem the Keeneland Library is. There's far more to this wonderful place than the books and magazines on the main floor. Their basement is a storehouse of treasures that otherwise would mostly likely have been lost forever. Thanks to the Keeneland Association, generous donors, and the hard work of Library staff, they are preserved.

The importance of the Library's holdings cannot be understated, for while the collections are primarily dedicated to the history of Thoroughbred racing and breeding, the history of the horse is deeply tied in with the sweep of human history. One cannot delve into the accounts of great horses of the past without learning something of the world that they and their human associates lived in. Cultural shifts and attitudinal changes on everything from animal welfare to the role of women in society to the evolution of an agrarian society through the Industrial Revolution, the two World Wars, and the Information Era can be discerned in the stories of those who have gone before us, both two-legged and four-legged. thus, the Library is not only a repository of equine history; it is a storehouse of our own.

I had only limited time to stop and research on this trip and added only a few fragments on the story of Chief Johnson to the material I already had, but the Library staff outdid themselves on something else: they found an unpublished master's thesis on Colonel E. R. Bradley in their holdings, and (thanks to the efforts of Library Project Curator Sarah Cantor), I now have a digital copy of same in my possession. The unlikely friendship between Chief Johnson and Bradley is a topic I'd like to explore further, and this thesis at the very least may be able to point me in some new directions for research. And that leads me to a final point: the greatest treasure the Library possesses is its people, who are preserving the past, making it available in the present, and holding it in trust for the future. If you ever have the chance to stop by and say hello to Library Director Roda Ferraro and her team, do so. They are some amazing folks!

The Challenge of the Ordinary

5/29/2025

Having gotten a bit stuck on the Firebird story, I've turned to a back-burner project that's been simmering for a little while---a history based on the life of Sam "Chief" Johnson. Readers of my Dream Derby: The Myth and Legend of Black Gold will probably recognize the name as that of a friend of Hanley Webb's who helped break Black Gold to the saddle and served as the colt's exercise rider for much of his career. There's a lot more to Johnson, though. Half white and half Cherokee (hence his nickname, "Chief"), Johnson was one of the most colorful characters ever seen in American racing. Active as a jockey from around 1880 up until about 1930, he rode mostly on the fair circuit and at minor Western tracks. Cat-quick, tough, and fearless, he crossed paths with any number of mavericks, rogues, and rascals, both equine and human, and was as known for his ready wit as for his riding skills. Given his long career and the wide geographical scope of his involvement with racing---he appears in records of meetings from Emeryville, California, to the Maritime Provinces of Canada and from Juarez, Mexico, to St, Paul, Minnesota---he looks like an excellent focal point for a narrative presenting the great sweep of Thoroughbred history in what moderns would call "flyover country" in the era between Reconstruction and World War II.

The problem with centering a major work around someone like Johnson is that, as history goes, he was a small fish in a huge pond. Histories and major newspapers tend to concern themselves with the big names and great events; the doings of what are considered "ordinary people" are usually passed over with little notice. Likewise, the small tracks at which Johnson plied his trade for most of his life left little trace in the record books and periodicals of the day, With luck and patience, some information can be gleaned from local newspapers that have found their way into online archives and perhaps from historical societies. Much else regarding these modest venues and their activities will have been lost to time as the last living memories of them passed away.

Recreating a world that is long gone will not be easy. Reconstructing Johnson's life may be at some points impossible. I expect that if I ever make it happen, it will take years, especially given that I will probably be interspersing work on his story in between the demands of other projects---not least the Firebird, which is a tale I certainly don't want to abandon. There are undoubtedly other horse biographies in my future as well, and I've put out some ideas before my editors; any of those could become a major focus of my attention without much notice. Still, I think Johnson's story deserves to be told, perhaps as much for all the "little people" whose lives shape an era as for the man himself. The stories of the already famous are told and retold ad nauseum; in taking up the challenge of tracing the life and times of an "ordinary" man, at least I will be taking a different path, and who knows what may lie at the end?

Scene Selection

5/8/2025

One of the challenges facing any writer is this: You have developed a scene, and it is really good. It is riveting, solid, and well written. Interesting characters move through it in believable fashion; you can practically see it playing out on screen. There's just one hitch: somehow, it doesn't quite do what you need it to do in the context of the entire manuscript, and you're not sure what to do about it.

Sometimes, painful though it may be, you may need to delete it from the manuscript; a scene that does not advance the story in a satisfying manner cannot be allowed to remain, no matter how excellently it is written. But very often, such drastic surgery isn't necessary. Answering a few basic questions and revising the scene accordingly can heighten its impact and make it a more dynamic part of your completed work.

First, does the scene's beginning pull readers of the previous scene further into the story? At its end, does it push them to move into the next scene? If the answer is "no," or "I don't know," you may want to consider how the events of the previous and subsequent scenes tie into your problem scene. Sometimes you may need to move material between scenes for greater effectiveness; for example, perhaps a bit of exposition regarding the resolution of some conflict or tension in the previous scene needs to be moved back into that scene, letting you jump into the new scene with a growing problem or a piece of action that is a logical development from the previous scene's resolution. Sometimes the ending to your scene needs to leave the reader realizing that while the scene's main conflict has been resolved, another conflict or problem is now rearing its head---not quite a cliffhanger (although that can be a useful device when not overused), but enough to keep the reader moving into finding out how the new area of tension is going to play out. There are exceptions to every rule, but generally, don't begin a scene with a lot of exposition if you can move quickly into action of some sort, and don't end a scene with the feeling that everything has been wrapped up neatly with a bow on it.

Second, does anything grow or change during the scene? Is there development of a character arc? Does the scene drive toward a protagonist's choice that has real stakes attached? Does the world around the character grow in some way, pushing the character to change in response? If nothing happens during the scene that really matters to the overall story, then the scene isn't carrying its weight.

Third, does the scene carry out multiple purposes in the narrative? Ideally, the scene will develop or advance several things at once, whether it's the overall plot, a subplot, a character arc, world development, character relationships, or a theme. If the scene only serves one purpose, that may explain why it isn't meshing well with other scenes weighted more heavily toward other aspects of the story. A scene that works on several areas is less likely to end up seeming flat when considered in the context of the rest of the story.

Fourth, does the scene grow organically from what the story has already revealed? Plot twists and unexpected developments are fine, but they still need to have some logical or emotional continuity with what's already been going on. Throwing in a scene that mostly supplies shock value often leaves readers feeling cheated---as in a detective story, it's not fair to your readers to leave them without any hints of what might be coming down the line. A development that in hindsight gets the reaction, "Now why didn't I see that coming before?" is fine; a narrative sucker punch is not.

Five, is the scene providing value in developing something significant to the overall story, or is it heading off down a rabbit trail, chasing some minor event or character that will have very little influence on your narrative when all is said and done? Minor stuff can add a lot of richness to your story, but don't give it more space than it deserves based on its overall importance. Scenes that are chasing rabbits probably need to be cut, no matter how fine the writing within the scene is.

Now, if your review indicates that drastic surgery is necessary and a scene needs to go, that doesn't mean you should discard it entirely; as many an author has found, such scenes sometimes carry the germ of a whole new work in them, so there's no harm in stashing them in a file somewhere and letting them percolate in the back of your mind. Just make sure that the scenes you do keep are pulling their full weight in moving your story along, and you'll probably be much happier with both your end results and their reception by others.

Happy writing!

On the Move Again!

4/24/2025

Having reviewed some YouTube videos and articles on the art of writing, I think I have found a solution (at least one that works for me) to the problem of writer's block with the Firebird. I now have a partial framework laid out in scene-by-scene fashion, along with a summary of what each scene is meant to accomplish. When I get stalled on that, I work on one of the scenes. When inspiration for a scene plays out, I go back to the framework.

I am finding that this has two benefits beyond that of my writing something---anything---to keep moving forward. Having a framework at least partially done prompts me to consider how whatever scene I am currently writing will fit into the overall movement of the story and how it will move plot and characterization forward. In switching over to work on the framework, the developing scenes cause me to consider whether the framework needs revision---a character's arc and growth as explored in a scene may cause me to realize that events need to move in a different order than originally planned to best develop the overall idea and the emerging subplots.

With a half-finished framework and a bunch of undeveloped scenes, I'm still a long way from having a finished manuscript. But at least I'm enjoying myself and making progress again. Don't know if this will help the writers among you, but I hope it's at least worth considering. Happy writing!

Creating a Framework

4/3/2025

I have always felt that fiction writing was intrinsically more difficult than writing nonfiction, and my current work on the Firebird idea is definitely reinforcing that concept. At the moment, the greatest area of difficulty is creating a coherent framework that will serve as a skeleton for the fleshed-out tale. In writing history, much of that is done for you; you already have key characters identified and a sequence of actions laid out by events as they actually occurred. One has no such luxury in fantasy, though both historical accounts and traditional tales may suggest possible directions.

I will confess that part of my difficulty is a certain level of laziness and lack of discipline, which might come as a surprise to those who have admired my level of output over the last few years. My problem is that I want to jump right into the business of writing interesting scenes, actions, and dialogue, which is much more fun than painstakingly figuring out how the story should be built. The trouble with a patchwork approach is that often the pieces don't end up fitting together nearly as well as hoped, and one is left with either a narrative that jerks along like a train over crooked rails or with a tedious task of rewriting until some level of harmony is achieved. Sometimes the kindest thing one can do for oneself is to put the entire mess out of its (and your) misery and to begin writing a chapter or even the whole blamed book again from scratch with at least the hope that the ideas you've already had will keep percolating in the back of your mind until you find a point at which they may actually do some good.

I'm not nearly at the point of needing to take such a drastic remedy yet. The problem is more psyching myself to exercise the discipline to build the needed framework. As with many other life projects, attending to the basics isn't much fun. But it is necessary if one is to get to the fun parts.

Moving Again ... at a Crawl

3/13/2025

Good news and bad news this week. The good news is that my editor is really enthused about the Holy Bull book and wants me to go ahead with updating the manuscript based on the readers' suggestions. She also wants me to go ahead and get the abstracts and keywords done, a task that involves developing a brief summary of the book as a whole followed by a similar summary for each chapter, along with selecting 5-10 keywords for the book and for each chapter. The work is tedious, but it's part of progress, so I suppose it still falls under the heading of good news.

The bad news is that review of the manuscript by the editorial board has been put off until April, since they weren't able to have an in-person meeting until February. At this point, there's very little reason to fear that the book will be rejected, but the board will be hammering out some of the details of launching the series so that there will be uniformity in cover design, layout, and so on. Back to the business of learning patience, I suppose.

As for the Firebird concept, I continue to hammer away on it a little bit at a time in between other things. I intend to keep pressing on with it as I have had a lifelong ambition of publishing a fantasy novel that has yet to be fulfilled, but I am certainly far, far away from having a finished product.

The Dead Zone

3/6/2025

In every author's life, there are times when nothing seems to be moving on multiple fronts. Your editor isn't answering calls or emails, your ideas for something new are progressing at a crawl (if that), and you either have no real idea how your previous works are doing or you're pretty sure that they're a long way from living up to your hopes. Welcome to the Dead Zone.

Editors, of course, get busy, and unless you're a superstar, the chances that they're going to drop everything to get back to you are pretty low. Unless the matter is of critical importance, they'll get to you when they get to you. Fallow times for ideas and writing progress come with being human, and building a reputation and a writing career is seldom accomplished with just one or two books.

As with so many things, patience, perseverance, and a healthy belief in oneself are the keys to getting past these frustrating times and continuing to write. The first two, I'll admit, are not qualities I particularly enjoy exercising. Nonetheless, they are necessary and part of my journey. And should you also be stuck in the Dead Zone, don't give up---you, too, have a journey to make and a story to tell.

Themes

2/27/2025

In writing---or attempting to write---fiction, sooner or later the author must wrestle with the themes to be presented. These are the unifying ideas or questions that underlie a story. They may be consciously chosen beforehand; they may develop organically as the writer proceeds, flowing out from the writer's experiences, thinking, and personal wrestlings; or they may follow a middle course in their development.

Themes also emerge in nonfictional writing, particularly history and biography, in which the themes the author chooses to pursue will powerfully influence both which facts and events are more heavily weighted and the author's interpretation of those facts in portions of the narrative in which it is appropriate to present the author's educated guess as to why or how something happened or someone acted as they did. (Whew! That's a mouthful.) The same facts that lead one author to craft a narrative showcasing the theme of perseverance against the odds might lead another author to explore the question of "what is social justice?", resulting in two quite distinct accounts of the same event or person.

Authors, by the way, are under no obligation to answer the questions presented in their themes and are often better when they do not, allowing the reader's mind to grapple with the question and continue exploration of possible answers even after the journey of the book's protagonist has reached a conclusion. A question that leads to a pat answer is more a moral than a theme, and while morals have their place (a la Aesop's Fables), they seldom make for the kind of books that provoke deep thought or become old friends, kept for re-reading and re-exploring.

Because my early concepts of the tale of the Firebird revolve around a tension between two worlds and two modes of existence that the main characters are caught between, the primary theme that seems to be emerging is this: What does it mean to be human? That is a question with so many ramifications and sub-themes that I think I'm in little danger of becoming trite, at least. It's also a question that to some extent makes me glad that I'm not trained as a philosopher, as I'd rather not fall off the other side of the horse into being ponderous or abstruse and so risk losing the story.

More themes may start developing as I proceed, for a book seldom has only a primary theme and nothing else; secondary themes will almost always come out to play as well. But at least I have some idea of which way the river of my thoughts is running.

Pacing

2/13/2025

As I continue playing with the Firebird concept, defining the overall pace of the story becomes important. Pacing---the speed at which a story unfolds and progresses---is at once dependent on the type of story being told and yet an element that helps define the story. It is an important factor in setting moods, developing characters, and determining the complexity of the tale. Pacing can be one way in which a book satisfies reader expectations; it can also signal surprises or twists as the pace speeds up or slows down.

While many people think of pacing as primarily important to fiction writing, nonfiction works that recount a narrative of some sort also rely on pacing to convey information and to set tone. For example, I am currently reading a biography of Queen Elizabeth II that is seeking to convey both the personality of the late Queen and the complexity of her role as she navigated the historical and political events of seven decades as a constitutional monarch with great influence but no direct power. By its nature, the intimacy of this written portrait demands a relatively slow, thoughtful overall pace. By way of contrast, T. R., a biography of Teddy Roosevelt written in the mid-20th century, moved at a faster pace reflecting the energy and activity of its subject and his power to influence events directly; while it touched on his personal development as a man and how the development of his character affected his decisions, it was more driven by his direct interaction with the events of his time.

Pacing can shift within a book, often in concert with the development of the primary character. For instance, in my upcoming biography of Holy Bull, the pace is relatively moderate while discussing his early life and the emergence of his distinctive personality, then picks up as he moves into his racing career, slowing once more as he transitions to the life of a stallion. Pacing can also ebb and flow to allow sections with more intensive setting and character development to alternate with passages depicting action and the consequences of crucial decisions; this allows the reader to "take a breath" and not be either overwhelmed by one hard-driving piece of action after another or bored by an overdose of introspection or unneeded detail.

I haven't made all the decisions yet as to how the Firebird story will set up, but as a fantasy centering around the viewpoint of one particular character, a moderate pace with a pattern alternating external and internal activity seems likely to be most workable. I'll probably have to do some outlining and shuffling to see what progression works best.