Why I Like to Write Time Travel Romances set in the Old West
While growing up, like most
children, I watched Gunsmoke, Wagon Train, Rawhide, Have Gun Will Travel, and
other western television programs in black and white. Life in many ways was
romanticized and fodder for a young girl’s imagination. I’d daydream. If I
lived back then, would I be the banker’s wife, a poor farmer’s wife, the
schoolteacher or one of Miss Kitty’s girls. Of course I had no idea what saloon
girls did other than pour drinks and sit on men’s laps.
So, this love of things past
carried over into my adult life. I went to college and trained to be a teacher,
but loved my history courses. We learned interesting tidbits about politics and
living in the white house. President Rutherford B. Hays, to the delight of the
Women’s Christian Temperance Union banned wines and liquors from the White
House. To get around the President’s decree, some staff and visitors injected
oranges with vodka. It wasn’t uncommon to see people sucking on oranges. This
ruling led Prohibitionists to vote Republican in the coming election.
I became a Home Economics
Teacher (now called Family Consumer Sciences) but often regretted not getting a
degree in history. Yet, studying Home Economics gave me the opportunity to
learn about the history of dress, furniture styles and housing.
I digress here, but wanted to
share my love of history which led to writing time travels that are set in the
old west. The first one I wrote, My Heart
Will Find Yours, I struggled with
how I would make travel through time and space possible. A writer friend
suggested I read up on ley lines, energy fields and ancient artifacts (ex.
standing stones). While reading I also ran across data on spin torsion fields,
a method used in the sequel Flames on the
Sky. Oh boy I had fun with these.
It is hard, however, to make
the methods believable. There has to be a key to make it possible. For example
in Outlander, there were the standing
stones. I've read stories where gateways open at different phases of the moon.
I'm sure each of you could list an example of a method you've seen used. If you
would, please list them in the comments below.
I hope I’m successful in
making my methods of time travel believable. And I want life in the past to be
factual and credible when I send my heroine back in time to a prior time
period. Oh, the fun I have writing these stories. We are so lucky to live in
this modern time where things are so easy. Imagine, learning to cook on a wood
stove, churning your own butter, wearing a corset and being restricted from
what men considered unladylike pursuits. The hardest thing for my heroine,
Texas Ranger Birdie Braxton, to cope with in 1890 is not being allowed to
participate in unladylike pursuits—mainly police work.
An idea for a new time travel
is perking in my mind, but I'm having difficulty coming up with a method. It is
to be set in Waco again sometime in the late 1800s. I'm stuck on the Victorian
era as I love the styles.
I hope this gives you a
little insight into why I like to write time travels. Thanks for stopping by
today. Please take a look at my other books on my website. Birdie’s Nest is available at Amazon.com
Blurb:
Texas Ranger, Birdie Braxton boards the Brazos Belle
to attend a costume party, gets tossed into the Brazos and when she's pulled
from the river she's told the year is 1890. A fact she can’t accept … until she
looks across the river to see Birdie’s Nest, her ancestral home, no longer
exists.
Tad Lockhart is a content man—a prosperous rancher
with a ladylove in Waco. He's not interested in marriage and family, yet …
until he pulls an unconscious woman from the Brazos who insists she's a Texas
Ranger from the year 2012.
As romance blooms between Tad and Birdie, she
struggles to earn enough money to build Birdie’s Nest, and Tad strives to mold
Birdie into a Victorian lady suitable to be his wife. Can Birdie give up
dabbling in police work and other unladylike pursuits yet stay true to herself?
When faced with an indiscretion from Tad's past, is Birdie's love strong enough
to support her man and be the woman he needs?
Excerpt:
His
mother, Olivia Lockhart, listened intently as Tad talked. She enjoyed a good
story and his tale of saving Miss Braxton titillated her interest.
“You say she thinks it’s the year 2012?” She fanned
her face with her napkin. His mother wasn’t overly large but her face was often
red, and she complained about the heat. “The poor dear. Do you think she’s
crazy, son?”
“No, ma’am. Her blue eyes are clear as a bell and
she talks rationally. If I didn’t know it was impossible, I’d believe her.” He
took another bite of roast beef and swallowed. “She had a gun holster strapped
to her leg and a Texas Ranger’s star pinned to it.”
She paled and the fanning increased in intensity.
“You looked under her skirts?”
“No, Mother. The nurse who undressed her found it
and turned it over to the detective in charge of the case. He showed it to me.”
“Well, thank goodness. All we need is another
scandal to tarnish our good name.” She shot him a heated look. “If you’d just
settle down, you’d --”
“Mother, don’t start that again or I’ll take my
meals in the bunk house.”
She sniffed. “Well, I’m just saying, you’re not
getting any younger.”
He laughed. “I’d hardly call thirty-five old.”
Her mouth turned down at the corners and she
sputtered. “Well, I’m not getting any younger, and I’d like to dandle a
grandchild or two on my knee before I die.” She fanned her face again. “At the
rate I’m going, it may not be that far off.”
Tad blew out a breath. “Mother, you are not that
old. I’ve seen you run up and down these stairs like a woman half your age.”
She pursed her lips and glared.
“When I find a woman who can keep my interest for
more than a day, then I’ll marry.”
“What about that woman you’re keeping time with in
town. What if she turns up pregnant and expects you to marry her?”
Thank goodness his sister was visiting with friends
tonight. He didn’t want her impressionable young ears to be privy to his
private affairs, which his mother considered scandalous.
“She’ll be sadly disappointed because I’ll not
marry someone I don’t love. Plus, I’m not sure she’d be faithful.” As far as
pregnancy, Doc Floyd kept him in a supply of condoms. Odd how the Comstock Law
allowed a man to have access to them to prevent disease, but wouldn’t let him
use them to prevent his wife from getting pregnant. Didn’t make a lick of sense
to him. If he fathered a baby out of wedlock, he’d see the child was well taken
care of.
“It’s a sinful relationship. God is going to strike
you dead one of these days.”
“Let’s drop the subject, Mother.”
“Mark my words, your clandestine affair will come
back to haunt you.”
He didn’t know how secret the relationship was, but
if it bit him on the butt, so be it. He was ready to call it quits anyway.
Thanks for stopping by. I hope you'll leave a comment, especially if you have an idea for a mode of time travel. All help is appreciated.
Happy Reading and Writing!
Linda
www.lindalaroque.com
http://www.lindalaroqueauthor. blogspot.com
