Blog Archives — Page 3 of 12 — Alan Lampe

Weekend Networking

Last Saturday, my parents and I were in Scott, Arkansas, for the High Cotton on the Bayou Festival. The festival was held at the Scott Settlement, a collection of almost two dozen buildings on a football-sized field. It was in the high 80s that day, and that may have contributed to the low turnout. I still made some book sales, but I feel if the weather had been cooler, a lot more people would have come and out and enjoy the event. I found out about this event by attending the Arkansas Writers Conference in June. It was a fun event, and I encourage you to attend the festival next year.

Yesterday, I attended the Ozark Creative Writers Conference in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. This event was indoors at the Best Western Inn of the Ozarks. This was good because it was an overcast and rainy day. Tess Gerritsen was the keynote speaker. She wrote the Rizzoli and Isle series that TNT bought and made into a series. I enjoyed the day and catching up with my fellow authors.

Next month, on the third, I, and several members of my critique group from the Springdale Public Library will be attending the Tulsa NightWriter’s Club Craft of Writing Conference. I’m looking forward to attending this event with a great group of friends. An added bonus, this event is free.

Part of being a successful author is your ability to network. It was because of networking I went to the Ozark Creative Writer’s Conference. I hope to expand my network in Tulsa next month. Don’t overlook networking as you grow your career.

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What I’m Reading – Many readers I know like to inquire what their favorite author is reading. At the end of each blog post, I’ll let you know what book is open on my Kindle. I hope my choice of reading material inspires you to read a variety of authors and topics. Currently, I’m reading Ellis Peters’ Brother Cadfael series. I should finish up The Confession of Brother Haluin this week.

Bill’s Cajun House of Pleasure is available on Amazon, as an eBook, and in physical formats. It is also available on the Barnes and Noble website.

The 1915 Hurricane

This weather event did not happen in my book. But, I’m positive Bill overheard his father Woodrow and his Uncle Eustace talk about it. An unnamed category 3 hurricane hit Grand Isle, Louisiana on September 29, 1915. Grand Isle is due south of New Orleans, as the crow flies. Overland, you have to travel northwest along Louisiana 1 through Lockport and Mathews to US 90. Then east to the Big Easy. While in the Gulf of Mexico, the winds rated the hurricane a category 4.

The storm caused thirteen million dollars in damage and killed 275 people. The damage total is in 1915 dollars and is not adjusted for today’s inflation rate. In 1915, ships in the path of the storm were the only way to get meteorological data. Satellites in the sky tracking the storm weren’t imaginable back then. The storm began outside the primary shipping lanes, making early data hard to pinpoint. When it reached the Gulf and aligned itself with the shipping lanes, the data poured in. In the afternoon of September 29, the rising storm surge inundated the low-lying lands of Louisiana and areas next to Lake Pontchartrain. Western New Orleans flooded. Flood waters remained for up to four days in some areas. The surge of water crested between fifteen and twenty feet, a record for the region.

1915 Hurricane Car Barn

The high winds damaged almost every building in New Orleans. They demolished part of the French Market. The storm destroyed over 8000 telephone poles. The Presbyterian Church on Lafayette Square collapsed. The clock at the St. Louis Cathedral stopped at 5:50 p.m. The Times-Picayune building was damaged. In Leeville, only one house survived the storm. Winds blew down telephone wires in Morgan City. Many oyster boats sustained damaged in Plaquemines Parish, crippling the local economy. This was the deadliest hurricane to hit Louisiana until Betsy came along in 1965. Read about it in The Violent Mood Swings of Hurricane Betsy chapter in Bill’s Cajun House of Pleasure.

For more information on this unnamed hurricane, click here.

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What I’m Reading – Many readers I know like to inquire what their favorite author is reading. At the end of each blog post, I’ll let you know what book is open on my Kindle. I hope my choice of reading material inspires you to read a variety of authors and topics. Currently, I’m reading the Ellis Peters’ Brother Cadfael series. I finished reading The Hermit of Eyton Forest. My review is on Goodreads and Amazon. Next week I’m moving on to book fifteen, The Confession of Brother Haluin.

Bill’s Cajun House of Pleasure is available on Amazon, as an eBook, and in physical formats. It is also available on the Barnes and Noble website.

West Florida Republic

Another Sunday and another historical day in Louisiana. Today’s event took place at Fort San Carlos in Baton Rouge in 1810. The star-shaped fort changed names, and hands, throughout its history. The British built the fort. The Americans held it for a brief time in 1778 or 1779. The Spanish overthrew the English. The West Florida Republic took it from the Spanish. The Americans ended up with the fort in December 1810. They demolished it nine years later.

With the purchase of Louisiana, the Baton Rouge fort was the only non-U.S. military post on the Mississippi River. The Spanish still held the fort and the West Florida Republic land. Inhabitants of Baton Rouge planned a rebellion. Today, back in 1810, the rebels overcame the Spanish garrison at Fort San Carlos. They raised the Bonnie Blue Flag, a flag of blue with a white star, symbolizing the West Florida Republic. The Republic was short-lived, lasting only ninety days.

U.S. President James Madison believed the land of the West Florida Republic to be part of the Louisiana Purchase. He sent W.C.C. Claiborne to remove the fledgling republic and annex the land into the Territory of Orleans. The rebels offered little resistance to W.C.C. Claiborne and his forces. On December 10, 1810, U.S. troops raised the Stars and Stripes over the fort. Almost all the land that makes up the great state of Louisiana was now a part of the United States.

You can visit the site today. In Baton Rouge, walk south from the Louisiana State Capitol into State Capitol Park. Turn west, and you’ll walk right to the Pentagon Barracks Museum. Just south of the museum are markers for Fort San Carlos and Fort Baton Rouge.

For more information about this 208-year anniversary, check out Wikipedia and Fortwiki. Also, visit the Pentagon Barracks Museum website.

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What I’m Reading – Many readers I know like to inquire what their favorite author is reading. At the end of each blog post, I’ll let you know what book is open on my Kindle. I hope my choice of reading material inspires you to read a variety of authors and topics. Currently, I’m reading the Ellis Peters’ Brother Cadfael series. I’m almost finished with The Hermit of Eyton Forest.

Bill’s Cajun House of Pleasure is available on Amazon, as an eBook, and in physical formats. It is also available on the Barnes and Noble website.

Hurricane Betsy

Bill’s Cajun House of Pleasure survived two physical hurricanes, Audrey and Betsy. Audrey hit Louisiana’s Cameron Parish in 1957. Betsy made landfall in 1965. Today is the 53^rd anniversary of Hurricane Betsy thrashing New Orleans. The storm moved northwest and affected Baton Rouge, Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Illinois. While the storm passed near Bayou Cove, Bill had a heated exchange with a ghost that resembled Ariel, his dead fiancé.

Hurricane Betsy began as a tropical depression on August 27 north of French Guinea. It passed north of the Bahamas, then over south Florida on September 8. In the Gulf of Mexico, Betsy strengthened into a Category 4 hurricane. Hurricane Betsy breached the New Orleans levees. Flooding occurred in Gentilly, the Upper Ninth Ward, and the Lower Ninth Ward. The further north it moved, the less damage occurred. The remnants lasted until September 13 and dissipated over Pennsylvania. In the end, officials estimated Betsy accounted for $1.43 billion in damage. It was the most expensive hurricane at the time. A total of 81 people, mostly from Louisiana, died from Hurricane Betsy. The United States Weather Bureau retired the name Betsy from the hurricane roster.

Hurricane Betsy sunk several barges on the Mississippi River. One of the barges was MTC-602. It was loaded with 600 tons of deadly chlorine gas in cylinders. It was estimated that amount of chlorine could kill 40,000 people. It sunk near Baton Rouge. Navy and Army engineers were tasked by President Johnson to raise the barge and prevent another disaster. On November 12, 1965, the barge, and all the intact cylinders were removed from the river.

Bill had to get three new travel trailers for his employees. He also replaced the siding on the house of pleasure. It didn’t take long for him to open back up and make money again.

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What I’m Reading – Many readers I know like to inquire what their favorite author is reading. At the end of each blog post, I’ll let you know what book is open on my Kindle. I hope my choice of reading material inspires you to read a variety of authors and topics. Currently, I’m reading the Ellis Peters’ Brother Cadfael series. I finished The Rose Rent as well as Ghosts of Arkansas Highway #7 by Gary Weibye. My reviews for both books are on GoodReads.com. Tomorrow, I start reading book 14 of Brother Cadfael, The Hermit of Eyton Forest.

Bill’s Cajun House of Pleasure is available on Amazon, as an eBook, and in physical formats. It is also available on the Barnes and Noble website.

Long Live J.R.R. Tolkien

Fans of high fantasy tales should give pause today. On this day in 1973, forty-five years ago, J.R.R. Tolkien breathed his last. The great mind that vibrantly brought us Middle Earth, and its extensive history, died from a bleeding ulcer and chest infection. His wife Edith died twenty-one months earlier. They are buried together in Wolvercote Cemetery in Oxford, England. His works include The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and posthumously The Silmarillion. The Hobbit was published in 1937. The Lord of the Rings published in three volumes, from July 29, 1954, to October 20, 1955. I wish most of the trilogies of today would get published that quickly.

A black and white 1967 photo of J.R.R. Tolkien.

This is a 1967 photo of J.R.R. Tolkien. Tolkien is the author of “The Lord of the Rings” and an Oxford University Professor. (AP Photo) From William Bjornstad on Find a Grave website.

Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy spiked my interest to read the great master. I read The Fellowship of the Ring right before the movie premiere. Actually, I had one more chapter to go before I saw the movie. Peter did a great job of following Tolkien’s tale. With only a few pages to read, I was surprised at how much action Peter put into the end of the movie. The Uruk-hai attack and Boromir’s death take place in the book The Two Towers. Frodo and Sam leaving the fellowship ends the book The Fellowship of the Ring.

I’ve enjoyed my time in Middle Earth. It is a wonderful world with an incredible history. George R.R. Martin, likewise, created an extensive history for his Song of Ice and Fire series. These are the books the HBO series Game of Thrones is based on. Terry Brooks has an extensive history of his Shannara series. Although I have not read it, I’m pretty sure Robert Jordan knew the history of his Wheel of Time series before they were ever published. I’m developing the history of the new world I created in my second manuscript. A detailed history plays an incredible, and valuable, tool in your story. Don’t neglect it.

Next week, there’s a major anniversary of an event that struck Bill’s Cajun House of Pleasure. You don’t want to miss it.

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What I’m Reading – Many readers I know like to inquire what their favorite author is reading. At the end of each blog post, I’ll let you know what book is open on my Kindle. I hope my choice of reading material inspires you to read a variety of authors and topics. Currently, I’m reading book thirteen of the Ellis Peters’ Brother Cadfael series, The Rose Rent. I also started reading Ghosts of Arkansas Highway #7 by Gary Weibye.

Bill’s Cajun House of Pleasure is available on Amazon, as an eBook, and in physical formats. It is also available on the Barnes and Noble website.

Summer Events are Better Indoors

I hope you don’t think I fell off the face of the earth! It’s the end of August and only my second blog post of the month. Editing my second manuscript has kept me busy most nights and weekends. Last weekend I was on the road in the rain. If you didn’t see my posts on Twitter, here’s a recap.

I took my dad with me to the Mississippi Book Festival at the state capitol on Friday, August 17. From Pine Bluff, Arkansas, to Yazoo City, Mississippi, it rained. A deluge pounded us from Dumas to McGehee. It was clear at Lake Village for lunch, but the storm caught up to us when we returned to the road. We got to our hotel, checked in and relaxed for a bit before going to supper. While in the restaurant, another downpour occurred, knocking out the DirecTV service. By the time we finished eating, it was back to overcast skies and a few drops.

Saturday, August 18, had a 70% chance of rain. We got to the capitol and setup my table in the Author’s Alley tent. It was a hot, muggy day under the tent. A light rain popped up around 2:00 and last thirty minutes. The humidity ramped up after that. At the end of the day, we returned to the hotel with sticky clothes.

Sunday morning the rain returned. It came down while we traveled northeast through Mississippi. At the Arkansas state line, we exited the storm. When we returned to Springdale, it rained again. By that time, we were eating supper at a local restaurant. Overall, we didn’t get too wet physically but dealt with a bunch of rain and high humidity over three days.

Sales were not great on Saturday. One of the many things I learned during this trip is this: attend indoor summer events where there is air conditioning. Outdoor events can be great, but when the humidity is over 90%, and the temperature is over 80, you want to be indoors, not under a tent.

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Bill’s Cajun House of Pleasure is available on Amazon, as an eBook, and in physical formats. It is also available on the Barnes and Noble website.

Retreat and Upcoming Festival

Last weekend I was in Winslow, Arkansas, at Oghma Creative Media’s annual retreat. It was great to meet the other authors my publisher has signed. We also heard what the plans are as the company continues to grow. The Sky-Vue lodge in the Boston Mountains is a wonderful setting. We saw a storm roll in, and when the sun is out, you can see a vast majority of the mountain range. Meals were included in the three-day event and we ate well. Looking forward to next year’s retreat.

In two weeks, I’ll be at the Mississippi Book Festival. It’s at the state capitol on Saturday, August 18. Pulitzer Prize-winning authors Rick Bragg and Jon Meacham will be there. Julia Reed, Salman Rushdie, and Jesmyn Ward round out the official panelists. I’ll be in the Author Alley’s tent along with M. M. Le Blanc (Cajun historian), first-time author Pamela E. Lockridge, Michael Piazza, Andrew Plattner, and many more. You can check out the whole list here. I’m looking forward to this romp in the swamp!

Mississippi Book Festival 2018

Editing continues on my second manuscript. I wasn’t able to get as much done as I wanted last week. This week should be more productive.

A couple of Louisiana anniversaries to note. Yesterday, back in 1901, the Allen Green School opens in Grambling. You know the school as the name it adopted in 1946: Grambling State University. On the same day, Louis Armstrong was born in New Orleans. He was a jazz trumpeter and his “Hello, Dolly!” song knocked the Beatles out of the number one spot on the Hot 100 in 1964. He was 62 years, 9 months and 5 days old, the oldest person to ever hold the number one spot on the Hot 100.

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Bill’s Cajun House of Pleasure is available on Amazon, as an eBook, and in physical formats. It is also available on the Barnes and Noble website.

Editing My Manuscript

I’ve established a rhythm of editing my second manuscript: do one chapter a day. That may seem like a minor goal, but it really does work. Three chapters are already done. One more will be done today. As the work continues, I may be able to edit two chapters in one day. That would be good as I still have to develop the history of my new world and create a religion. A writer’s work is never done.

Are you following me on Twitter? My Twitter account is @alanlampeauthor in case you need it. I have two promotions going on right now. Many people are liking and retweeting the promotional tweets, helping me grow my tribe. Recently, I started tweeting daily Louisiana history facts. I’m still not a marketing expert, but I have a better understanding of how Twitter works. The results are pretty good. Hopefully, between the promotions, retweets, and my own work, my hashtag #rompintheswamp will actually become a trend.

It’s been a while since I used the phrase history doesn’t write itself. It gets analyzed to death by all sides, but it doesn’t write itself. Everyone has their own version of history. And we all believe our own version of history is the only truth. Sadly, it doesn’t look like this will change anytime soon.

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Bill’s Cajun House of Pleasure is available on Amazon, as an eBook, and in physical formats. It is also available on the Barnes and Noble website.

Seize the Idea

When a great idea comes, you have to seize it and write about it right then. On the morning of July Fourth, I wrote the “From Inspiration to Publication” talk I’m giving this Tuesday at the Village Writing School meeting at the Pizza Hut in Eureka Springs. As I wrote that, Peggy, you remember her from Bill’s Cajun House of Pleasure, cried out to me saying, “My story needs to be told.” After lunch, I wrote the first chapter of a new story I hadn’t planned on writing. As I wrote the beginning of Peggy’s story, a lot of her adventures popped into my mind. As well as a lot of questions.

Peggy traveled with the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus for several months, before and after the Hartford Circus Fire in 1944. (Incidentally, the 74^th anniversary was Friday, July 6.) To accurately write her story, I’ll need to find out the circus’ schedule and everybody who worked at the circus. No telling who Peggy may bump into and I want to make sure whoever she meets, was actually there. This also involves The Great Wallendas, as she mentioned she was training with them. It’s also been historically established they were performing when the fire started. Lots of research to do on this story. However, her life before the circus should be pretty easy to develop.

Another project on my plate is the editing of my second manuscript. I finished the story at the end of June. It only has fifty-five thousand words, and by comparison, Bill’s Cajun House printed over 89,000 words. I have work to do to make the manuscript long enough for a book. I also have plans to write another story in the same medieval fantasy world that my second manuscript is set in. The world is large enough to tell all sorts of stories and I intend to be in this world for some time.

Going back to Bayou Cove can be fun, too. Hopefully, I’ll be able to make progress on each front throughout this month.

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Bill’s Cajun House of Pleasure is available on Amazon, as an eBook, and in physical formats. It is also available on the Barnes and Noble website.

Spontaneous Summer Plans

Another week has flown by and spontaneity has hit. During lunch with my parents, my sister asked us to go see Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. It was an on the spot decision and off to the theater we went. The movie has its flaws. After all, this is the fifth time the world has let dinosaurs run amok, twice in America, and it looks like there will be one more in the series. When will we learn that dinosaurs and humans just don’t mix well together? Still, it was great to spend time with my sister, nephew, and parents.

Open up your calendars, you have two chances to see me in the next ten days. First, I’ll be at the West Fork Treasure Trove, 36 Main Street, West Fork, Arkansas from 2-3:15 this Saturday, July 7. Then on Tuesday, July 10, I’ll be giving a talk from idea conception to publishing (and everything in between) at the Village Writing School’s meeting at the Pizza Hut in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, from 12-2. Also, on Friday, check out Two Ends of the Pen blog and learn more about me and Bill’s Cajun House of Pleasure. At the end of the month is my publisher’s retreat in the Ozark hills.

On August 18, come get your pleasure at the Mississippi Book Festival at the Capitol Building. I’m looking forward to being around so many other authors and fans of books. It’ll be a romp in the swamp. On September 9, come see me at the Fayetteville (AR) Public Library Second Sunday author talk from 12-2. It’s also the start of the NFL season, but books are more fun anyway.

I’m working on setting up other events for the summer and fall. Hope to meet you at one of them. I’ll gladly autograph your copy of Bill’s Cajun House of Pleasure. And in case you missed my post from this week, I finished the first draft of my second manuscript. Going to do some editing on it before sending it to my publisher. Hopefully, my second book will be printed before the end of 2019.

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What I’m Reading – Many readers I know like to inquire what their favorite author is reading. At the end of each blog post, I’ll let you know what book is open on my Kindle. I hope my choice of reading material inspires you to read a variety of authors and topics. I finished reading book nine of the Ellis Peters’ Brother Cadfael series, Dead Man’s Ransom. My review is on Goodreads and Amazon. Tomorrow, I start book ten, The Pilgrim of Hate.

Bill’s Cajun House of Pleasure is available on Amazon, as an eBook, and in physical formats. It is also available on the Barnes and Noble website.