The Research

I read about this subject for 20 years before writing this book; it was a series of paintings at first, and then a story started forming, and it wouldn’t go away. That’s when I decided it was time to start. I procrastinated until I really hated myself. A year later I finally sat down and started writing seriously. Three years on, it might actually be done.
Please buy my book!

Writing fiction is surprisingly hard work, compared to painting; there’s no way out of that LONG slog, one word at a time.

And all it takes is one weak page to screw up a story. You can hide your weaknesses in the brevity of a screenplay, or some short subject, but with a full-length novel you’re fully exposed.

(Did I remember to say to PLEASE BUY MY BOOK!)?

These are the best of the books I read on the subjects of Indian Life, free trappers, and the fur trade:

The North American Journals of Prince Maximillian of Wied, 3 Volumes
40 Years a Fur Trader
Vocabulum: A Rogue’s Lexicon
Letters and Notes on the North American Indians
Voices From Slavery
The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade database
Crow Killer
African Voices of the Atlantic Slave Trade
Mountain Man
Wildwood Wisdom
Mountainman Crafts and Skills
The Saga of Hugh Glass
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
The Indian Legacy of Charles Bird King
Bodmer’s America
George Catlin – The Complete works
The Heart of Everything That Is
Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher
Encyclopedia of the Great Plains Indians
The Avenging Fury of the Plains
People of the First Man
The Journals of Lewis and Clark