The Story That Wrote Itself by Patti Sherry-Crews

Hello, Roses! Big thanks to my friend and fellow author, Andrea Downing, for inviting me to be here with you today.

Recently another author said something that got me thinking. She described one of her earlier works as “the book that wrote itself,” adding “I know we all have at least one of these.” I do have a few books that wrote themselves! But then I probably have more that I have had no help whatsoever from the book. I’ve had to write the whole thing myself by pulling words and ideas out of my head and trying to fit them all together to form a complete story.

Are we talking about inspiration? I wouldn’t go as far as to say I’m ever uninspired when I write, but there are maybe degrees of inspiration.

Books that write themselves, how does that happen? For me there have been a few ways. One, I’ve lived with storylines in my head from the time I was a child. I developed a repertoire of stories to draw from and would play through these stories to put myself to sleep or during other idle activities such as long car rides.

Because I was more a cowboy and Indians kind of girl than a Barbie fan, my earliest stories went something like this: A girl and her pony LOVE each other. But one day they have a falling out (maybe another pony was involved) and the pony runs away! The girl discovers he’s gone, and remembering why she loved the pony so much in the first place, goes out to find him. This is all heart-wrenching stuff, by the way. She finds the sad pony hiding in a cave and after many things are said (because the pony speaks fluent English) and many emotions emoted, they go on to live happily ever after.

Obviously, the story has evolved along with me. I began the process of fine-tuning their story and somewhere along the line, the pony became a human and the story more complex. In my new narrative a naive, rich girl has to flee when her father gets in trouble, and to get her from point A to B, her father sends her out on the trail under the protection of a hired gun, a journey that will take weeks on horseback. By this time, I’d seen Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid about a hundred times, so I add a section to my story where they have to take shelter at a Hole in the Wall type outlaw hideout for added suspense.  

When I started to write down my stories rather than imagine them, I sat down to write that historical western romance I always wanted to write, and Margarita and the Hired Gun, which had lived in my imagination for years practically wrote itself—and then got published, so that was cool.

Magic is another thing that helps a story write itself. Twice I woke up after vivid dreams involving people I’ve never seen before enacting a drama, which I’ve turned into books. And the other bit of magic is that I channel the spirit of a long dead Irishman, who speaks his own lines for me. It’s absolutely true. My psychic confirms this and says he was once a storyteller and has lots of stories to tell, so this is hundred percent fact. I’ve worked with him a few times. He’s great. He leaped into my head when I was writing the character of Michael, AKA Rafferty, in Margarita and the Hired Gun and spoke his own dialog lines, which was helpful.

But, now at nearly sixty years of age, I’ve pretty much run through all my childhood stories (some have become medieval romances). I haven’t had a vivid dream in years, and I don’t know where the dead guy’s gone, so I’ve been left to my own devices lately.

Gone are the days when I’d say to myself, “I fancy writing a book today.” Now, I am a professional writer with deadlines and things.

I still love writing as much if not more, and the characters I create populate my day even more than their allotted bedtime stories used to. But, my focus is scattered and it’s slower going. I sit down to write, churn out a sentence, decide to check out Twitter and Facebook, see this week’s slideshow of what celebrities did over the weekend to prove they're just like us—there are only 132 slides to flick through after all (and they prove they’re just like us by grocery shopping or walking around in their yoga pant while carrying a takeout coffee), and then go back and review what I last wrote. That sentence is really good, I think. Then I might write another sentence before seeing someone needs to take out the garbage (where are those celebrities when you need them to act just like us?).

I think I’m a better writer now than when I first started, but it sometimes feels like I’ve slowed down. This might be because since I don’t have old stories to rely on, I’m not always sure where a storyline is going and have to work that out. One trick I find helpful to jumpstart my inspiration when I seem to be floundering is to go back to an earlier portion of a work-in-progress and reread what I’ve already written, which gives me a renewed vision.

What about you? Do you have books that have practically written themselves? Where did that come from? Have you felt intervention from supernatural sources while writing? How do you find inspiration when it’s not finding you?

Blurb for Margarita and the Hired Gun:

Pampered Margarita McIntosh is not used to being forced to do things she doesn’t want to do—but when her father, Jock, sends her away for her own safety, she has no choice. The long journey from Flagstaff to Durango tests her personal strength of will as never before, and the secret she carries in her saddlebag could be the death of her.
A rough Irish gunman, known to her only as “Rafferty”, is entrusted with getting her to her destination “safe and intact”—something he fully intends to do to claim the reward he’s been promised by Jock McIntosh. With a price on his head, the promised money is Rafferty’s ticket to a new life, and he’s not going to jeopardize that for anything—not even love.
But there are steamy nights and dangers all along the arduous trail for MARGARITA AND THE HIRED GUN, with deadly secrets between them that passion cannot erase. With her father’s enemies after her and the secret she conceals, will Rafferty’s protection be enough to save their lives? And will the heat of their passionate love be enough to seal their future together—if they do survive?

Excerpt:

“The saloon must serve as a hotel,” she said.
Homer gave her an odd look as he stood up. “Something like that. I’m going to go find Rafferty.”
Now, she waited uncomfortably, alone at a table, while Homer went
up the stairs at the far end of the room. With relief, she saw him
returning, just one of the cowboys at the nearby table
half rose out of his seat as if about to approach her. Homer nodded to
them as he walked by, a warning in his face directed at the cowboy, who
sat back down.
Homer pulled out a chair next to her. “He’ll be down directly.”
The girl who had been sweeping minutes earlier, put down a pot of
strong smelling coffee and two chipped enamelware mugs at their table.
“Make that three mugs. A guest will be joining us. Can we get
something to eat?” Homer asked.
“Biscuits, eggs, and bacon.” The young woman headed off
without waiting for a reply.
Margarita’s attention was drawn to the stairs again. A man in a fancy
brocade waistcoat under a black jacket was making his way down the
stairs. He had long, silver hair, and a mustache curled up at each end,
defying gravity with the aid of mustache wax. Catching her eye, he
tipped his hat to her.
“He’s older than I expected,” she whispered to Homer, who turned to
look over his shoulder.
“That ain’t him,” he said, as the gentleman joined the card game in
progress.
After a beat, another man appeared at the railing overlooking the
saloon.
The tall man with black hair leaned on the railing. With his
arms stretched out at full span he took in the room below with a
predatory gaze. He was powerfully built with broad shoulders and long
limbs. Like a bird of prey, he held his head still while his eyes shifted
around the room. Margarita felt like he was deciding which one of them
he would swoop down to pick off first.
Although nobody moved, the room changed. It felt like
the very air grew hot and dry in his presence, charged with a heaviness
that wasn’t there a minute ago.
When he saw Homer, the man’s gaze came to rest for a second. Then
his stare shifted, and met with hers. He lifted his eyebrows in surprise,
fixing her with such an intense stare that Margarita leaned back in her
seat.
“Rafferty,” said Homer, nodding his head in the direction of the man,
who now moved toward the stairs, eyes still on Margarita.
He walked slowly, swinging one long leg after another, a slight
swagger in his shoulders. Unable to bear up under his direct gaze any
longer, Margarita looked down at her coffee. Her throat constricted in anticipation, but still,
he moved down the stairs and across the room at an unnervingly slow pace.
When he arrived on the scene, the women at the table stopped talking and looked
expectantly at him. He didn’t register their presence as he walked past
them—to their apparent disappointment.
The men playing poker watched him with wary eyes. One of them
touched the gun in his holster, nervously.
The cowboys stopped talking and drew closer together.
Without a word or invitation, the tall man pulled out the chair across
from Margarita. The gun sticking out of his waistband put a lump of fear
in her stomach.
He jerked his head in her direction, looking at Homer. “Why is she
here?” he asked in a deep voice, speaking in the same slow pace as he
walked. He had an Irish accent, she noted.
Homer poured out a cup of the thick, dark liquid for him. “Rafferty.
This is Margarita McIntosh, Jock’s daughter.”
“And she’s here for what reason?” he asked in a brusque tone.
Margarita looked up, her face burning with indignation. She was met
with quite a sight. The man across from her had a few days’ growth of
black whiskers covering the lower part of his face. Jet-black hair stood in
loose curls around his head in an uncombed mass in need of a wash.
He was without a jacket, and his long john’s undershirt was
pushed up at the elbows, showing long, muscular forearms. Worse, the
top buttons of his shirt were unbuttoned, exposing the patch of black hair
on his chest. The tight, sweat-stained garment showed every bulge and
indent in his lean torso, including his nipples. He was as good as naked.
Margarita tried to hide her shock at this unseemly display. She’d never
seen so much of a man’s body before, up close.
His eyes bored into her. They were steely eyes the color of indigo set
in bloodshot orbs. Her discomfort seemed to amuse him. He narrowed
his eyes, and a smirk twisted his lips as he observed her watching
him. Other than his lips and eyes, he was as still as if he’d been carved in
stone. Very economical in his movements.
“Well, here’s the thing. She’s the job. Jock wants his daughter
delivered to his sister in Durango. He wants you to make sure she gets
there. Safe—and intact,” Homer said, in a way which made her redden.
The man called Rafferty grinned rakishly, displaying surprisingly
even, white teeth. “If it’s safety he’s after, there’s better ways to
transport his precious cargo, I would think.”
“He wants her movements to go undetected.”
Rafferty leaned over the table. She could smell him now. He smelled
like sour sweat, whiskey—and cheap perfume. There was some other
odor Margarita couldn’t identify, but it repelled her.
She raised her handkerchief to her nose to breathe through its
lavender-scented folds. Catching her gesture, the dark man glowered at
her briefly before the smirk returned to his lips.
“I’m a hired gun. Why does he need me to accompany her? She can’t
take a stagecoach or train? I have to wonder what’s going on that my
particular skills are required.”
Homer raked his hand through his hair, clearly wrestling with how to
answer the question. “Jock is on the run. He got involved in a dispute.
He’s afraid the men that are after him will grab his daughter to lure him
back. That’s all you need to know.”
He jerked a thumb in her direction. “I’m not interested in this job,” he said, starting to stand up.

Margarita and the Hired Gun is available alone or now in the collection Under a Western Sky along with five other full length historical western romances for only $0.99.

 https://www.amazon.com/Margarita-Hired-Gun-Patti-Sherry-Crews-ebook/dp/B01EAS7F50/

OR

https://www.amazon.com/Under-Western-Sky-Historical-Romance-ebook/dp/B078SGY1HW/

Patti can be found at 

http://pattisherrycrews16.wixsite.com/author-blog

 AND 

https://www.amazon.com/Patti-Sherry-Crews/e/B01C7L8QUU/