Well, I’m coming back after a rather cold winter here in New Mexico. My yard is ready for summer. My writing career has taken a new turn. I’ll be publishing a children’s book in 2009 by the name of ‘Belle’s Star,’ so I’ve been busy editing that. I also went to Albuquerque for the annual New Mexico Press Women’s Communications Conference. I had the experience of riding on the Duke City’s new commuter train, the Railrunner. Kind of a roadrunner on wheels, I guess. Well it was an Albuquerque adventure, let me tell you. I was settling in my seat when the conductor announced into the PA system: “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re going to have to back up because there’s a bus trying to crosss the tracks so it can meet us and the people need to get aboard on the correct side of the train.”
The engineer gave the mandatory long blast on the whistle to signal backing up. Then the train started going beep-beep, beep-beep, just like the silly roadrunner cartoon. We rolled a few feet and stopped. The doors opened and two or three folks climed aboard. The conductor picked up his microphone. (You understand this conductor was dressed in a baseball cap, University of New Mexico Lobo’s Tee-shirt, and khaki dockers. He had a tag that read ‘conductor,’ so I guess that made him official.) Anyhow you’d expect a good ‘Allllll aaaaaaaboooooorrrrd’ from a conductor, right? The kind that when he shouts it in New York, you hear him in San Francisco without difficulty, because it’s come from the bottom of his toes, supported by gigantic lungs. Well, I guess conductors who wear baseball caps and Lobos Tee-shirts are different. He said, “Okay folks, we’re outta here. Next stop downtown.”
And it was. That’s a real New Mexico story, and I think Shelby McCoy from my DLSIJ book, ‘Snap Me a Future’ will have to have such an encounter. She’ll certainly have to be swimming in the beautiful heated pool at the Albuquerque Courtyard by Marriot, climb out and while drying herself, discover a jackrabbit staring at her through the glass wall of the pool house. That adventure also happened this time in Albuquerque. He and I must have looked at each other for a good three minutes. Jackrabbits have very big brown eyes and very long ears. They sort of have playful smirks on their faces.
My next book about Shelby is in rewrite phase. Doesn’t have a title yet, but for this one, I stole a bit of Taos history and planted it in her town of Mesa Vista in the Four Corners. Mesa Vista is a lot like Farmington up here in the Four Corners, except on a north-south axis. Taos had a number of -ahem-houses, shall we say in the early part of last century? Business men wandered in to have monkey business. They didn’t want to be seen. Taos is a small town, so in 1900 it was even smaller.
Anyway the business men had tunnels built from their offices to the houses of monkey business. In the new story, the tunnels land in Mesa Vista under the arts mall, and Sam and Shelby end up in one. Sam is her Lab/Setter, you remember who’s always running around wagging his huge tail and knocking down the houses, trees, knicknacks, and whatever else he makes contact with. He’s the sort of dog that makes a person feel like a mouse.
By the way if you like books about the southwest, check out conniegotsch.blogspot.com That’s the blog for my radio show Write On Four Corners. There’s lots about southewst authors, literature, workshops, etc.
This winter was extremely cold in New Mexico, as I mentioned to start this ramble. We actually had snow on the ground for a couple of months. That gave everybody something to talk about. I hung out in the dark room subjecting innocent little pieces of paper to nasty chemistry. Most of them turned into nice black and white photos. I’ve had a solo show and gotten into several other shows. One week I found out I got the award for Best Two Dimensional Piece of art, and got rejected from a different show. As Shelby McCoy would say ‘go figure.”
I assure you in this new story she’s still using black and white film and paper. No digital for her except at the Mesa Vista Times.
Well, that’s about all I can think of to say right now. I hope spring is finally here and quiet–all over the country.
Posted on May 11th, 2008 by Connie Gotsch
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