Granbury Gambol

A rainy Saturday did not deter my friend, Candice, and me from our trek to Granbury. The historic Gordon home (Tarleton University's Langford Center) hosted a superb photo exhibit by JB and Susan Harlin. This was the perfect jumping off spot for a day of arts, laughs, good food, and window shopping. Fran Leibowitz once said that, "Teaching someone how to be a writer is like teaching someone how to be an adventurer." To some extent, that's true. I'm going to add that to be a writer, you need a sense of adventure - a willingness to explore and also observe a variety of people, things, and locations.

Author Scott Spencer said, "The initial spark that starts a novel can come anywhere, though I don't know when it has ever come when I'm sitting at my desk. Behind the wheel of a car has been a lucky place for me." (WSJ 9/10/10 p. W5)

I will say, Granbury struck me as a lovely setting for a novel or a crime mystery. Small town feel, with plenty of outside traffic flowing through the square, as the imposing clock tower ticks down the hours.

Or the old jail could prompt historical fiction. I bet there were some cattle rustlers and other hustlers corraled in this small stone fortress.

From Steve Hely's fiction, How I Became a Famous Novelist, "Writing a novel - actually picking the words and filling in paragraphs - is a tremendous pain in the ass." (p. 73) His fictional character studies popular books and then bangs out one based on his observed formula. " If you tried to fit in actual emotion, or stuff you cared about, you'd just bog your novel down. Writing was like a magic trick." (p. 70) His system proves successful and the ultimate marketing, too, snowballs into success. But he feels hollow, a charlatan. "To fail to tell a story honestly was sacrilege." (p. 231)

The Granbury trip was refreshing. New perspective on Texas travel, characters, history. A grillworked layer set against a stormy sky.