July 2019 – Wayne Turmel

Ritual, Writing, and Rye

If you’ve been following me for any length of time (and a thousand blessings upon your home and camels if that’s the case) you have heard me refer to an odd ritual involving a specific brand of rye whiskey, a particular cigar, and my writing. Since a couple of you have asked me about it, here’s the explanation.

I have never been very good at “treating myself.” This is partly due to spending most of my life broke as a joke, and mostly due to a healthy dose of Baptist guilt leftover from my childhood. While happy to partake in the celebrations and victory laps of others, I tend not to do the same for myself. It’s a thing.

But when I set out to write my first novel which eventually became Count of the Sahara (original title, Pith Helmets in the Snow. This is why publishers and editors get a voice in such decisions–to save authors from themselves and blessings on Erik at The Book Folks) I was fifty-two years old and not sure I could do it. I promised myself some kind of small reward if/when I ever finished the damned thing.

Having neither the money nor the spleen to do anything big and splashy, I thought a shot of something special would do nicely. But what?

Well, the book takes place during Prohibition here in the US. Byron de Prorok (you have read it, right?) one night gets his hand on some bootleg hooch from Templeton, Iowa and he and Willy get rip-roaringly drunk. Templeton rye was considered the best of the American rye whiskeys by Al Capone.

Years later the descendants of those folks have re-issued Templeton as a small brand. I saw it on a pub shelf one day and decided that if the damned book ever got finished, I would celebrate with a shot of Templeton Rye.

I did. It was yummy. It’s also a bit more expensive than the usual stuff we keep at home, so it’s for special occasions. It’s reserved for:

Finishing first drafts (applies only to novels and non-fiction books)
Finishing final drafts (ditto)
Acceptance by a publisher (also applies to short stories)
The day the boxes arrive with the Advanced Reading Copies.

I also celebrate with a cigar. Yes, I know. As I explained to my doctor, I’ve never smoked a cigarette in my life, I smoke a single cigar less than once a week, and I’m fully aware that taking a plant, setting it on fire, and putting it in my mouth is probably less than good for me. I also know that those with no visible vices are the people you can’t trust.

My smoke of choice, for what it’s worth, is La Aroma de Cuba El Jefe. Not a particularly fancy-schmancy stick but it’s the size, duration, and strength I like. Sue me.

Oh, and I generally do this alone. Solo. Just me. This celebration is for me and me alone, and today’s the day.

I have finished the first draft of Johnny Lycan. It’s unlike anything you’ve read from me. It’s decidedly not historical fiction, and some of you are going to hate it (or at least that’s what the gremlins in the back of my head are telling me) although I am very fond of the damned thing and I believe it will find a large audience.

If you need me today, I’ll be on the deck, in the shade because it’s a hundred freaking degrees out, celebrating and indulging my inner Hemingway. Now you know.

The First Draft is Done. Ta-Dah!

The first draft of a book is often malformed, ugly, and unfit for human consumption. Such is the case with the first draft of Johnny Lycan. You know what? I don’t care! It’s done. Let the rewrites begin.

Yes, Johnny Lycan. That might be a clue as to what it’s about. Or not. Stay tuned.

It’s done. It’s unlike anything I have ever written before, and I think it will be really good when it’s been whipped, prodded, dragged and mercilessly pounded into submission.

Here’s what it’s not: Historical fiction. Not even close. Those of you who read Count of the Sahara, Acre’s Bastard and Acre’s Orphans and have come to know me through those books, I really, really, really hope you stay with me. I get it if you don’t.

Here’s what it is: Nope, not ready to tell you yet. But it will be funny. And bloody. And more like some of my short stories than any book I’ve written so far.

Stay tuned for details, and of course, you can join my mailing list for updates. Just use the email link on the left-hand side to let me know you want to be added.

Now there will be a Templeton Rye and a Cigar. Because that’s how we roll here at Casa Turmel when milestones get met. Send thoughts and prayers for the ugly little bugger. He’ll need all the help he can get.

Join me August 4th at Dime Grinds

One of the first Las Vegas literary events I found out about when I moved here was Dime Grinds. The first Sunday of every month the Henderson Writers Group has three writers talk about their books, read, and introduce themselves to an always-packed group of readers and authors. Now it’s my turn.

On Sunday, August 4th, I’ll be reading from Acre’s Orphans, along with Steven Murray and Susan Johnson. Get a cup of regular coffee for a dime, hang out with the local writing community and have some fun.

Joe Maxx ( our local hangout, better than Starbucks) Coffee supports this fun event. 500 E. Windmill Ln, #175 at the corner of Windmill and Bermuda. Come visit.

Revisiting Roanoke with Harold Titus

The early days of exploring North America are full of fascinating missteps and accidents–lucky and otherwise. One of these is the “missing” Roanoke colony. Harold Titus has written about it in his new novel, Alsoomse and Wanchese.

Let’s start with the easy part. What’s your story?

Born in New York State in 1934, I moved to Tennessee when I was seven and then to Southern California when I was nine. I grew up in Pasadena, lived with my parents until I went to college at UCLA, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in history in 1956. I taught high school English for one year in Los Angeles, spent two years in the Army, then moved to Northern California and for 31 years taught intermediate school English, American history, and a drama elective and coached boys’ and girls’ after-school sports teams in suburban Orinda, just east of Berkeley. I retired in 1991. My first historical novel, “Crossing the River,” printed in 2011, is about the experiences of English and American participants in the first two battles (Lexington and Concord) of the American Revolution. My second historical novel, the subject of this interview, “Alsoomse and Wanchese,” was published in May 2018. I continue to write a blog mostly about American history and historical fiction (http://authorharoldtitus.blogspot.com).

What’s Alsoomse and Wanchese about?

Why are human beings so fascinating regardless of period of time or degree of cultural and technological advancement? My answer: strengths and failings of character, group ideological orthodoxies, non-conformity. “Alsoomse and Wanchese” narrates a year (1583-1584) in the lives of Roanoke Island Algonquian sister Alsoomse and brother Wanchese as they reject tribal conformity, question tribal decision-making, decide for themselves what is true and just, and seek accomplishment. Their six-village chief Wingina is at war with an upstart chief of one of his villages. Wanchese, 19, seeks to become one of Wingina’s essential men. His impulsiveness and quick temper work against this. His strenuous efforts to both achieve his goals and learn from his mistakes broaden him, temper him, make him laudable. Alsoomse, 17, is a questioner, a seeker, an individualist in a culture that demands conformity of behavior and belief. She is placed in situations that exacerbate these attributes, her subsequent conduct causing her leaders to regard her increasingly as dangerous. Englishmen sent to North American by Walter Raleigh to find a suitable place to establish a colony arrive near the conclusion of the novel, their appearance complicating each protagonist’s conflicts.

What is it about the Roanoke Colony you found so interesting?

What we know about the story of the “Lost Colony” of Roanoke Island is related to us by Englishmen. Missing from that story is any detailed understanding of the Algonquians, as human as any Englishman that stepped then on North American soil. In my novel, about to leave Plymouth Harbor, the painter John White and his associate, the young scientist Thomas Harriot, have this conversation.

Harriot half-turned. “I have seen your painting of the savage that Frobisher brought back [from Baffin Island, Canada] in 1576 and the woman and child from the 1577 expedition. I have been wanting to ask you about them.”

“Ask.”

“What … did you see? Are these people so behindhand as to be mentally deficient? I do not know what to expect.”

White leaned against the gunwale, his long coat bending near his right hip. “I saw human beings, who think, who suffer, who in our presence sought of hide human emotion.”

“What was their sense of us, as best you could tell?”

White moved his left foot ahead of his right. … “I wish there had been some way besides the use of gestures and facial expressions to communicate. What they thought and felt I can only imagine.”

“What did you think they felt?”

“Fear. Despair. Resignation. We uprooted them, Harriot. We took them to London as specimens! What they could have told us, if they had survived and learned our language!”

Historian Michael Leroy Oberg wrote: “Indians are pushed to the margins, at best playing bit parts in a story centered on the English. … Roanoke is as much a Native American story as an English one. … We should take a close look at the Indians who greeted and confronted Raleigh’s colonists. … Because Wingina’s people, and his allies and enemies, in the end determined so much of the fate of the Roanoke ventures, it seems only fair that we concentrate upon them, and how they understood the arrival of the English.”

That is what my novel does.

What’s your favorite scene in the book?

She was waiting for Wanchese in a corner of the chamber close to a raised, small-branched, deerskin-covered bed. At first he thought he was alone, that the girl would enter from outside. A slight movement caused him to look in her direction.

He stepped over to her. It was difficult to see. He made out her features.

She was young. Fifteen? Sixteen? Not yet Alsoomse’s age. She was naked, adolescent slim, her breasts small, her limbs and buttocks not yet pleasingly rounded.

Her eyes darted. She appeared defensive. This was not what he had experienced the year before at Mequopen.

“What is your name?”

Her right hand moved toward her mouth. “Waboose.”

It was an Algonquian custom that important visitors to an Algonquian village be provided young women to spend the night. Waboose is a virgin. She has been chosen by the chief’s wife to perform this duty but is frightened. Wanchese and she talk. They learn a few facts about each other and their respective families. Conscience-stricken, reluctantly, Wanchese relents. They sleep together but refrain from intercourse.

Where can people find you and your work?

You can find it on Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Booklocker

I’m on Goodreads

And, of course, on my blog.

We interrupt this interview for a shameless plug. Acre’s Orphans has won a much coveted “Discovered Diamond” award for historical fiction. You can read the review here, or just take my word for it and buy the book.