Morning Cloud and Other Stories

Those of you who have been paying attention will be aware that I have contributed to the Underdog Anthology. As this seems to have gone down well, I am now publishing an anthology of just my own stories – this is currently with Leg Iron and, when he gets the time, will be out on Amazon. Which brings me to Morning Cloud. Frank Davis comments.

There are a number of different authors, and several of them are people with whom I am very familiar – e.g. Roobeedoo, Leg-iron, and Longrider -, two of whom left comments just yesterday under this blog. The stories are all very well-written, and almost all of them are shocking and surprising in one way or other. So far there’s only been one story that left me perplexed and unmoved. My favourite so far has been one about a gunfighter who also happens to be a startlingly beautiful Indian woman: she fairly leapt out of the pages to capture my imagination (and my heart).

Oh, wow! When the idea of a western occurred to me, it was pure self-indulgence and the story was a tribute to Shane, the archetypal western story. I did it for me. When Leggy came up with the anthology idea, I put this one forward, not being too sure about the reception, given that westerns are a bit niche these days.

However, I needn’t have worried, for when I mentioned that the next anthology is a collection of twenty-one of my stories, this was the response:

Any Morning Cloud stories within? She got a lovely mention yesterday…

Well, yes, as it turns out. The original will be there along with Morning Cloud’s Law. I felt that as this one follows closely from the first, publishing the two side by side made sense.

Morning Cloud, it seems has struck a particular chord. Which is interesting. She appeared in my imagination one afternoon three years or so ago while I was driving west along the M4. She came to me as a complete character, which is why I was able to craft her so easily. All I then had to do was mull over a setting and story line, which happened slowly over the next few weeks. By the time I came to write, she had a story and a background – something I have expanded on in the follow-up.

What I didn’t expect, was this:

Morning Cloud is a beautifully drawn character; I also fell in love with her. Hopefully Longrider will write some more stories about her, but if anybody wants to read the first, the Anthology is here:

I guess I’ll have to now… That said, the germ of an idea is forming as I write.

On the matter of her proclivity to a pipe:

It will give nothing away to tell you that, yes, of course, the beautiful gunfighter smokes.

She is a woman of her time – well, sort of – so smoking a pipe fits. But it also has the use of creating a setting where characters sit and talk, so I can expand the story and fill in the background. The irony being that I am one of those teetotaller non-smokers Frank was discussing… Ahem.

So, it seems, Morning Cloud has a bit of a fan club:

Yes, she’s an extraordinarily beautifully drawn character. And yet she’s drawn with just a few strokes of a pen inside a single paragraph. And of course absolutely everybody is madly in love with her.

That is a wonderful endorsement and I am delighted and honoured by it. I enjoyed creating her and her world, that others have enjoyed reading about it and identify with her, makes it all worth the effort. Maybe westerns aren’t so passe after all.

So, thank-you again.