Jean Henry-Mead
began her writing career in 1968 as a news reporter and photographer in central California while serving as her college newspaper's editor-in-chief. She later worked as staff writer-editor-photographer in San Diego, and news reporter in Casper, Wyoming. She also served as editor of In Wyoming magazine.

Mead's freelance articles have appeared in national publications as well as magazines in Norway and West Germany, which have won more than twenty state, regional and national writing awards. Her six books include four volumes of interviews: Maverick Writers, Wyoming in Profile, Westerners; and Casper Country, a centennial history of central Wyoming; and two novels: Escape on the Wind (featuring the Wild Bunch), and Shirl Lock & Holmes (first in a mystery series). She's currently working on her third novel, a Wyoming historical. Founder of the Western Writers Hall of Fame, she's a 23-year member of Western Writers of America (WWA) and former secretary-treasurer; sustaining member of Women Writing the West (WWW), past president of Wyoming Writers, Inc.(WWI), and owner/moderator of the Western Writers Forum on Yahoogroups.com.

Maverick Writers' 271 pages are packed with humor, photos, writing advice and biographies. Authors profiled include: A. B. Guthrie, Jr., Louis L'Amour, Will Henry, Elmer Kelton, Dee Brown, Loren D. Estleman, Peggy Simson Curry, Don Coldsmith, Stephen and Wayne D. Overholser, Don Worcester, Janet Dailey, Matt Braun, Gordon Shirreffs, Lucia St. Clair Robson, Elmore Leonard, J.T. Edson, Benjamin Capps, Jeanne Williams, Douglas Capps and other legends of Western Literature.

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I was not a good cowboy, which bothered [my dad] more than a little.

The author of The Good Old Boys, The Day the Cowboys Quit, The Wolf and the Buffalo, and The Time It Never Rainedamong othersis a lifelong Texan. Elmer Kelton was born on the Five Wells Ranch in Andrews County, the son of a cowboy who spent the best part of his life in the saddle. The elder Kelton worked thirty-six years as wrangler, foreman, and general manager of the McElroy Ranch near Crane, Texas. His son, the novelist, later used the McElroy name as a pseudonym.

The eldest of four sons, Elmer was taught to read by his mother, a former school teacher. Not long after he started school in Crane, nine miles from the ranch, he skipped the second grade which made me the runt in every class for many years, he said. When they chose up sides to play football, I was the odd one that the unlucky team had to accept, and I usually got run over early in the game. So I spent a lot of time sitting on the sidelines reading.

Nearsighted, young Elmer excelled in reading, spelling, and composition, which made a boy suspect in the oil-patch town of Crane. Although myopia handicapped his athletic abilities, it enhanced his communication skills. The only area in which I could beat the other boys was in the use of words, and I capitalized on that.

He credits his mother with his voracious reading because she often read to him to him before teaching him to read for himself. When he was nine, he contracted a mild case of tuberculosis, as did several of his classmates, and spent the better part of a year in bed. That, no doubt added to my introversion and detracted from any athletic tendencies I might have had.

The youngster wanted to write as soon as he could read, and volunteered to create themes, beyond those assigned, when he was supposed to be doing his math. By the time he was nine, he was writing short stories, and by twelve had outlined the plot for the great American Western novel, which he said hes yet to write.

His mother encouraged him to write, as she did herself in longhand on a ruled tablet. That must have been contagious, he said. My father was an outdoorsman and he never quite understood my wanting to write, though he came to accept it after a time. I was not a good cowboy, which bothered him more than a little. Writing, to him, was a semi-honest way of making a living, on a par with law and politics.

His father, Buck Kelton left school in the seventh grade to earn his living as a cowboy. His own father had worked as a cowhand from the age of twelve to help support his family when his father died. This breaking off of schooling was not uncommon in those days. Even so, both my father and grandfather read a lot. There were always newspapers and magazines around because both kept up with national and world events, and in his later years, Dad read a lot of history.

Still, work to him was something to be done on horseback or with a pick and shovel, not behind a desk. While a senior in high school, I finally confessed to him my long-held ambition to attend the University of Texas and study journalism. He gave me a cotton-killing stare and declared Thats the way with you kids nowadays. You want to make a living without having to work for it.

The cowboy sent his son to talk to the ranchs Norwegian bookkeeper, a worldly soul by rural Texas standards, in the hope he could talk Elmer out of his foolish notions. But tales of sobering up O. Henry so that he could meet his deadlines, and of other hard-drinking newspapermen did little to squelch the budding writers enthusiasm.

He gave up when he saw that he was encouraging my folly. All right, Elmer, he said, if dats vat you vant, go ahead. But vun ting remember: vriters are alvays drunk, and dey are alvays broke. Over the years I have found little quarrel with the second half of his admonition, Kelton said.

Upon his discharge from the army following World war II, he needed three semesters to earn his degree in journalism from the University of Texas. He returned to school in Austin, where he spent his spare time and some study sessions writing short stories for submission to magazines. I suffered through a great many rejections before making my first sale in 1947 during my final semester at the university. My first sale was to Ranch Romances, edited by Fanny Elsworth, who will always have a special place in my heart.

Fanny Elsworth had rejected a number of his previous stories, but took the time to write him letters, telling what was wrong with his work as well as making suggestions. Everyone else was simply sending printed rejection slips, he said. From that point on, he wrote most of his stories with her publication in mind, but it was a year before she bought a second one. That one acceptance made up for dozens of rejections and gave me enough faith and hope to keep trying.

Kelton assumed that after his first sale, he would become a full-time, highly paid author within a short time. Meanwhile, he would work as a journalist. He began his career as a livestock reporter for the San Angelo Standard-Times before he progressed to editor of Sheep and Goat Raiser Magazine. In 1968, he hired on as associate editor of Livestock Weekly, where he worked for many years. His newspaper career was based on the livestock industry and his novels have somewhat followed in harness.

Kelton has given countless talks to young writers over the years, stressing his discouraging attempts at publication and numerous rejections following his first sale. Writers have to serve an apprenticeship, he said. Its a long, hard and bitter challenge, but after studying all the available books on writing, and talking to as many professional writers as he can find, the fledgling can only really learn by writing and writing and writing. The unsold stories are valuable training aids, he tells them, and are only wasted if the writer quits.

He wrote his novels for years on weekends and in the evenings. Ideally, I try to keep a firm schedule, he said, but I find it difficult because of other obligations, honor jobs and the like that keep coming my way. I always tell beginning writers to set up a rigid schedule as I did in earlier days, because unless you learn self-discipline, youre unlikely to ever make it.

He tries not to judge fledglings who constantly ask for advice, and he avoids reading manuscripts whenever possible, with notable exceptions. During the mid-sixties, an old horse trader and jackleg veterinarian by the name of Ben K. Doc Green asked Kelton for advice on publishing his book The newsman doubted that Green could put six words in a straight line on paper, but he became somewhat of a legend in Texas letters during the limited number of years he still had left to live. Before long, I was going to him for advice.

Kelton averages a call a month from aspiring writers with books that are going to be bestsellers and great movies. The caller usually wants to supply the idea and Kelton to write the book and split the proceeds. I always plead over commitment and lack of time, certainly no exaggeration, he said. If they are persistent, I will promise to read the manuscript and give dubious advice if the person will go ahead and write the book himself. Less than one person in fifty has taken me up on my offer, and the few times my hand has been called, I have bitten the bullet and read the manuscript.

The novelist cringes when he hears of an acquaintance who quits a steady job to write full time. He tells newcomers to consider writing as an avocation, not a full time career. If it proves to be more than that, fine, but dont risk the childrens college savings on it. Advising beginners is his way of repaying those who were generous with their time and advice when he needed them. The only way I can ever repay their kindness is by passing it on. I feel I owe this to a profession which has been good to me.

I enjoy writing when the inspiration is high and the story is rolling. When the inspiration is slow and the story has be pushed along with main strength and awkwardness, writing is a chore. The nearest he came to pure inspiration was in writing The Good Old Boys. Although the first ninety pages were hard going, the characters suddenly took control and the story fairly rolled out of the typewriter. I just went along for the ride. Often the words spill onto the paper without my knowing where they came from or why.

Times like that, writing is an exhilarating experience, and that feeling can carry the writer through a lot of slow, agonizing times when telling a story is sheer labor.

Kelton carries more of his novels around in his head for several years before they emerge on paper. The Day It Never Rained began developing during the long Texas drought of the 1950s, while Hewey Caloway, the restless cowboy of The Good Old Boys, germinated in his brain for fifteen years before coming to life. The authors shortest literary pregnancy was The Wolf and the Buffalo, after Harold Kuebler of Doublday asked him to write a novel about the black Western cavalry.

Because my newspaper training has taught me never to refuse an assignment, I said yes, and worried later about how to do it. But even as they discussed the book, a rudimentary plot and main character began to take form in the writers placenta. The lengthy subplot with a Comanche character evolved after he began to write.Gray Horse became so strong that I had no choice but to elevate his role and develop it as I went along.

Much of Keltons research comes from his extensive background in ranching and livestock, and needs little library ferreting to round it out. Some, such as The Wolf and the Buffalo and Stand Proud required considerable background research, both in his own formidable library and at county and university facilities.

Often, Im able to dovetail this with my newspaper work, which allows me much freedom of movement. Research is not confined to experience and books. He also visits his novels locale to get a feeling of time and place.

Louis LAmour said that when he wrote of a spring, that spring existshe had been there and tasted the water and found it good. When Kelton began writing The Wolf and the Buffalo, he visited the Double Mountain Fork of the Barzons River, where he tasted the water and found it gyppy as hell. Had I not tasted it for myself, I might never have conveyed this adequately to the reader.

Every trip I made, whether vacation, or working trip for the livestock newspaper, is in a sense research. Long stretches on west Texas highways afford a lot of time for thinking, for planning, for observing locations that may someday find their way onto a sheet of paper. With a writer, research never stops.

He most enjoys the feeling of accomplishment when a job is finished, and when he feels he has given birth to a good set of characters while telling the story well. But he hates false starts and moments when drawing works out of the creative well is like pulling my own teeth. Novels in progress haunt him, particularly when he reaches a problem point and must decide in which direction to continue.

The whole thing will boil along on a slow burner at some level beneath the conscious, then suddenly come bubbling to the top at an unexpected moment, waking me from sleep or jarring me as I am driving down the road. I write myself a great deal of notes on dialogue and catchy phrases, most of which I later find I cannot use.

Keltons office is located in one corner of his home and has been enlarged two hundred percent since the house was built in 1957. Three sides of his study are lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Two additional freestanding bookcases house his collection of reference books and friends novels. He said, I believe they breed at night.

Until a decade ago, he composed all his work on a typewriter, but converted to a word processor. Typing was the only subject he flunked in high school, and is almost the only one vital to my livelihood ever since. I usually revise and polishbut not alwaysa great deal more in the early chapters of a book and progressively less as the story takes on a life and movement of its own. Once in a while, when a story really rolls, I swing along with it and trust that I can make all the necessary revisions and give it a good polishing after the draft is done. In such a case, I am simply trying to preserve the momentum.

One of the Wests most admired and congenial writers, Elmer Kelton was awarded the WWA Saddleman for outstanding contributions to Western literature. His literary awards serve as badges of proficiency in the Western legion, and were fortified by the Texas Institute of Letters McCombs/Tinkle Award for continuing excellence.

The author smiled as he summed up his successes with: The sun has been shining on me and Im grateful.

©Copyright 2003 by Jean Henry-Mead. Excerpted from Maverick Writers. Reprinted here by permission of the author.