Before moving on to Slim Randles guest post for today, I want to share this photo I took the other day. Sometimes the pictures just turn out perfect. Not because of any great expertise on my part, however. I think it’s just luck. I took several shots of this gathering of wildflowers from different angles, and this one showcases their beauty the best. At least, I think so.
Now, here’s Slim and Dud, who is doing some serious pondering over his writing. Where do you do your pondering, whether it be for writing or just general things that pop up in your life?
Dud was down at The Lunker Hole on Lewis Creek before it even turned yellow in the east. He had some thinking to do, and, as everyone knows, there’s no better way to think than fly fishing.
Just about the time Dud could make out The Lunker’s rock at the head of the hole, he had gotten a tiny midge tied on some leader and sent it on its way to the general vicinity of the rock.
It floated slowly downstream without being bothered by piscatorial pirates, and when the line told him he’d reached as far downstream as he could on this cast, he picked it up, waved it dry and cast back up at the rock.
Okay, now is a decent thinking time, so it was well to get started.
It’s the book, of course.
Why do I do it? He asked himself. It doesn’t make any sense. If I spent that time washing dishes down at the Mule Barn truck stop, I’d make more money. And the title? I like Murder in the Soggy Bottoms, but my friends keep calling it The Duchess and the Truck Driver. Maybe I should change it?
Okay, pick up the fly and send it back up to that rock again.
And the love stuff … the truck driver and the duchess are nuts about each other and have a kid in common from when he was in Europe on special assignment the last time. And the language problem. The duchess speaks a couple of European languages and the truck driver is from the South. But if they are so different, how did they have a kid together?
Cast upstream again. Wait. False cast until the fly is dry then … yeah, like that.
You know, it doesn’t make any sense, but some people actually write more than one book!
They have to be cheating somehow… they’ve GOT to be cheating…
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Check out all of Slim’s award-winning books at www.slimrandles.com, and in better bookstores and bunkhouses throughout the free world.
All of the posts here are from his syndicated column, Home Country that is read in hundreds of newspapers across the country. I am always happy to have him share his wit and wisdom here.
Slim Randles is a veteran newspaperman, hunting guide, cowboy and dog musher. He was a feature writer and columnist for The Anchorage Daily News for 10 years and guided hunters in the Alaska Range and the Talkeetna Mountains. A resident of New Mexico now for more than 30 years, Randles is the prize-winning author of a dozen books, and is host of two podcasts and a television program.