Black Rose Author, R.C. Larlham, brings the 40’s
and 50’s back to life.
Today we
are lucky enough to hear from author R.C. Larlham. He is going to talk about
his new release, ‘The Old Man and Me.’
Please
tell us a little about your new release? When is it scheduled to go live?
‘The Old Man and Me’ was released on September 19. I'm not sure
what "released" means, because it took me another ten days to get
copies of the book. Meanwhile, I was biting my fingernails, back to the elbows.
As far as the book goes, let’s start with the fact that it’s not
really a novel. The Old Man and Me is a book of true short stories ... a memoir
of mostly my boyhood and teen years in the '40s and '50s.
Tell us
about the cover of the book. Is there any history there?
The cover photo was chosen by Black Rose's people out of about
two-dozen I sent them. We boarded the two horses for the winter one year. The
little black and white pinto was a mustang named Domino. He was a wild horse, captured
when he was about four-years-old. That's me riding him. I think I'm about
thirteen years old. The brown mare my sister Lyndella is riding was a harness
racer named Tango. A harness racer is a racehorse, which trots or paces around
the track, pulling a two-wheeled "sulky" with a driver instead of a
rider. Tango, unfortunately, was subject to nosebleeds. Both horses were owned
by a day camp. No one who rode them knew anything about horses. Both horses
pretty much cordially hated children. The man holding the horses for the photo
is “the old man,” Dick Larlham, my father.
2) What
inspired you to write your novel?
I had pretty much given up on inspiration to write a book of any
sort. I'd tried novels, but I always got bored with them. However, I am, and
always have been, a storyteller. My daughter introduced me to an Internet site
called Gather, which catered
primarily to storytellers. I began to write some short stories and poems in
response to various prompts (themes for the month in various genres), but some
of them were pretty outrageous, and some were of no interest to me. However, I
discovered that I could simply tell whatever story came to mind and publish it
for folks to read and comment upon. So, I did it a lot. As I wrote
stories about my years growing up in the 1940s and 1950s, people began to
comment that I should stop and write a book. My response was always that
stories were the best I could do.
Do you
have any writing rituals?
Yes, but they're pretty loose. If I'm working on book two of the
memoir, I'll start by sort of mining my memories for basic events that
happened, and then write down two or three sentences for each of them. Just
give me a glass of ice water and a full 1 1/2 ounce shot of Bushmills over ice
sitting next to the computer and I'm ready. I write narrative style, front to
back. I do some go-back as I remember details so I don't forget them, but
mostly I do a second read and write as soon as I've finished the first. I can
finish-write about a thousand words in about three hours.
Are you a
plotter or a pantser?
I am most definitely a pantser. This may explain why I get bored
in the middle of my novels. I don't know where they're going next.
Do you
have any new projects on the horizon?
Oh yeah... ‘The Old Man and Me’ is envisioned as a three (or
more) volume series of overlapping books. Book two carries the subtitle, ‘Stories
I Didn't Get To Tell You.’ It begins with several new high school stories, adds
more college and Army stories and then moves to marriage and graduate school in
the isolation of Northern Utah. I married the prettiest girl in Hiram College.
She was a sophisticated young lady from Falls Church, Virginia and I plunked
her down in a place where they got ten feet of snow every winter and religious
prejudice was the reverse of anything she'd ever experienced. Not my best plan
by a long shot.
Do you
have any advice or aspiring writers?
Write every time you can (and some when you can't). When I'm not
working on editing a finished manuscript, I try to write a thousand words a
day. Sometimes the whole thing gets junked the next day, and sometimes two or
three days' worth will yield one good thousand-word chapter or story. But I
write them.
Do you
have a muse?
I have the lovely Laura. We were married forty-four years before
she had to go. When she died, I nearly crawled into a deep, dark place in my
head and pulled it shut behind me. But I wrote about her instead. I wrote about
our life together (the good and the awful), about her long fight against MS,
her failing end, and her final hours. And all that kept me sane. If I couldn't
have written, I don't believe I would have survived emotionally. Now, she rides
my heart and keeps me writing.
Please
tell our readers where they can get more information on your books.
Well, they can begin by visiting www.blackrosewriting.com/books
and buy directly from the publisher. Through November, there is a 25% off sale
in which they can participate. The book is also available through Amazon.com,
Barnes&Noble.com,
Smashwords and other
e-book platforms.
Well, looks like our time is pretty much up. Thank you so much
for the opportunity, Judy. I enjoyed this very much. Good Reading!
Chuck
