Imagination fills the gaps.

Sometimes I struggle because I want to be right. When writing history, it’s easy to slip up and include an object not yet invented or miss a social cue that today would be non-existent but back then ever so important.

The temptation is to research while writing. Yet that interrupts the flow of the underlying story. In the beginning I wrote a single flash fiction  based on a historical event. It lead me to wonder…why? Then…what if?

Writing flash fiction and reading more about the event was complementary. It allowed me to find the story among the facts.

Once I felt the story had a hold of my imagination, I was ready to draft long prose. Yet, that temptation to be right, to be accurate, frequently grabs me. And when I go to look up a fact or better understand a place, I find that the story dwindles.

My discipline has been to use my imagination to write what I don’t know. My strategy is to go back and create a research list for revision. The importance is the story and getting it down. Once a writer has material, then revision is possible and research is refined.

This is why I like NaNoWriMo as a tool for drafting. My imagination gets a full 30 days of play. There is no right or wrong way to do it. It’s just pure writing. And that leads to discovery beyond any research.

Thought for the Day:

“The work is the work itself. If she writes a lot, that’s good. If she revises a lot, that’s even better. She should not only write about what she knows but about what she doesn’t know. It extends the imagination.” ~Toni Morrison

Word Count: 2,900

Excerpt From Rock Creek:

The voices in the hallway drew closer and two men emerged. One was as tall as Hickok but broad as a bull ox. His dark brown hair was thick and she recognized those intense brown eyes. It was Cob McCanles. He wore a linen scarf of black and white around his neck and his billowing white shirt was as bright as fresh snow. His dark brown leather vest was snug as were his close-fitting trousers that were the color of buckskin, but made of that material Sarah called linsey-woolsey. The other man was shorter and rounder like a barrel in a gray suit. His pudgy cheeks were hidden behind a mass of graying facial whiskers and the top of his head was bald and gleaning.

“Mr. Waddel, Mr. McCandles,” Horace greeted.

“Hello, Cob,” said Nancy Jane.

If Cob was surprised to see her, he didn’t reveal it. He merely nodded at her.

“Cob,” said the man Horace had called Mr. Waddel.

“Kin name for David Colbert,” said Cob.

“Ah. So, this miss is your kin?”

“No she is not. A neighbor.”

“I see.”

“I’m a friend of Horace.” Nancy Jane felt that the office was too small for her and these three men.

The round man turned to Horace who was starting to blush once again. “Oh, she’s your friend, Mr. Wellman.”

Horace sputtered. Nothing he said was coherent.

Nancy Jane wasn’t sure what to do, now. “I’m going to go over to the boarding house where Joe Baker is staying with his wife. I’m bunking with him.”

“You know Joe Baker, too? Another employee.”

“And Jim Hickok and Dock Brinks. Most of your freighters. The ones that head into Colorado, that is.”

“Just how do you know all these men? I’m not sure Mr. Majors would approve.” Mr. Waddel looked like that pastor that once told her Pa they were headed to hell.

“Nancy Jane Holmes was a cook at Rock Creek station before Mr. McCandles bought it. Her father has long settled in the Territory and he’s done carpentry jobs for us. Joseph Holmes.” At last Horace found his tongue.

“Holmes, yes, seems I recall hearing that name.”

Cob looked at Nancy Jane. “Carpentry? He didn’t build those hovels I tore down and rebuilt did he?”

Nancy Jane wouldn’t have called them hovels, but she did know that Cob’s work was stouter and more square. “No, fixing spokes mostly.”

“A wheelwright then.”

Nancy Jane shrugged. “He once had a carpentry shop in St. Jo. Used to make fine lady’s boxes.”

“In St. Jo, Missouri! Yes, Joseph Holmes. I remember now. My goodness, I think I bought one of those boxes you speak of. Heavens, I thought his family all died when the typhoid fever swept the place.” Mr. Waddel’s face softened.

“Me and my brother survived. Pa moved us west. Thought it would be healthier.”

“What’s your brother up to these days? I’m always looking for men who know the territory. Does he hunt, scout?”

“I do, Sir.” Maybe she could get a job, just like she kept telling Sarah. These men be damned.

They all laughed like she told a great joke. Even Horace, although halfheartedly. “I hunt near every day and know the lay of the land. I can outrace most your outriders including Dock Brink who they say is your best. I can load and shoot a Hawkins rifle with great accuracy and I ain’t’ afraid of the wide open spaces like most easterners.”

Cob stopped laughing. “Lass, you’d be called a mountain girl back home and expected to be self-sufficient. You aren’t any different from the women I know. And none of them work a man’s job.”

Nancy Jane stuck out her chin. “What of Sarah? She keeps books. That’s a man’s job.”

Cob folded his arms. “Yes, she does keep books. Once for her Da and now for me. Sarah’s kin. No man outside of kin would hire her to keep books.”

“Mr. Waddel, would you hire Sarah Shull to keep books?”

Mr. Waddel raised an eyebrow and shook his head. “I would not hire away the book keeper of a man whom I have business dealings.”

Nancy Jane wondered what business dealings he could have with the company. “What if she wanted a job?”

“The company does not hire women.”

Nancy Jane balled her fists at her  sides. “Fools!”

“Nancy Jane, that is enough.” Horace looked appalled, Mr. Waddel shocked and Cob laughed with mirth.

Cob said, “What do you do, Nancy Jane? I could hire you.”

Mr. Waddel shook his head. “Are you upon hard times Miss Holmes?”

“No Sir. I’m self-sufficient as a mountain girl.”

Cob grinned.

Horace said, “Mr. Waddel. Nancy Jane lost her husband to the border troubles, her brother too. And this past summer her young child died of sickness. Her father is immobilized with his grieving.”

Nancy Jane couldn’t believe Horace would spill out her troubles that were no one’s concerns but hers. She set him straight. “He weren’t my husband.”

Cob said, “And an honest lass.”

Mr. Waddel looked stern. “So you do sleep with men. Is that why my freighters stop by your place?”

“No Sir. They know I hunt and stop by my place for venison and to ask what I might have seen out in the open country. Might say I inform your scouts. Only Horace…”

“Nancy Jane!” Horace flushed his reddest.

Good. Let him suffer.

Mr. Waddel turned to Horace. “Is she you’re common-law wife?”

Horace hesitated. Nancy Jane didn’t know what he meant. “What’s that?”

“It’s a man who has taken a woman out on the frontier. He’s then responsible for protecting her. Watching out for her. Otherwise the woman would just be a common strumpet.”

“Yes, Mr. Waddel. Nancy Jane Holmes is my common-law wife.” He then looked down at his desk.

“Good, then. You’ll see to it that you take care of Mrs. Wellman. David, or perhaps, Cob, it’s a pleasure doing business with you. I look forward to the improvements you’ll be making to the station to prepare it as a stage stop.”

The two men left with Nancy Jane staring at Horace. “Mrs. Wellman? So your wife is here in town?”

“You. He was referring to you as Mrs. Wellman. My common-law wife. And no. My wife is back in Ohio with family. She hates the frontier, and I’m not all that fond of the pressures of Ohio. I feel freer out west.”

Later, when Nancy Jane went to visit Joe Baker to explain her turn of events, she found Joe looking woeful. His wife it seems was not happy to have a house on the prairie unless it was a fine house. She spoke endlessly of Denver and what the ladies were wearing. She yelled at her daughters to be quiet and soon took each girl by the arm and drug them off to bed.

“Maybe Cob could help you build a fine home.”

“Maybe.”

The two stepped out so Joe could smoke his pipe. Nancy Jane took a few puffs. Hickok saw them when he stepped out of the saloon for fresh air. “Why so long in the face friends?”

Nancy Jane explained that Joe’s wife wasn’t happy to be homesteading after all, and that she was somehow Horace’s common law wife.

Hickok chuckled. “You? A squaw wife?”

“I’m no Pawnee!”

“True. You could probably out ride one. Well, let’s toast to our futures.” Hickok pulled out a whiskey flask and they each took a pull.