Chicken Ranch report no. 4

Monday saw no writing from me, I'm sorry to say. The frenetic pace of the weekend finally caught up with me, and I crashed early. Sleep was much-needed and welcomed. Today has been much more productive for me.

Sadly, I discovered today that my dream telescope, the Meade LXD75 SN10-AT has been discontinued. I came this close to purchasing it after saving up quite a bit of money several years ago. Unfortunately, when I tried to place my order, I learned that it'd been backordered. Uh-oh. I'd seen this movie before. I tried to pay in advance anyway, knowing that if I waited, something would happen to deplete that stash of cash I'd worked so hard to save up. No dice, I couldn't pre-order. Sure enough, one of the kids needed unexpected dental work within a few weeks, and the money was all but gone by the time I got the notice a month later that they were ready to fill my order. Because the universe likes to jack me around that way. Someday I will get a high-end scope, but I'll end up paying significantly more than I would have for the SN10-AT, which makes me sad.

That has nothing to do with writing about the Chicken Ranch, however. Tonight's writing was filled with its own unique challenges. When writing about the earliest days of the brothel, there's a dearth of evidence available. No primary sources. No newspaper accounts. Essentially, there's nothing beyond oral tradition and oral traditions can be pretty screwy. So I'm writing up one version of the origins of the Chicken Ranch, the most widely-repeated version, and it's killing me. Because I've traced this story back to a single source, and I am convinced the author was shoveling 100 percent, grade-A B.S. That kind of stuff drives me insane, but then again, that's why I'm torturing myself with the writing of this book, to set the record straight and lay out the truth and the lies to the best of my limited ability. But enough of my inane drivel, here's a sample of tonight's work:

The very first madam to run a brothel in La Grange arrived in 1844 on La Bahia Road from New Orleans, that infamous Sodom-On-The-Mississippi, with a covey of three "soiled doves" in tow. Of their lives in New Orleans, or whether they made any detours along the way, nothing is known. It strains credibility to suggest that these women set out from New Orleans with the actual intent to settle in La Grange, a tiny frontier town barely known to anyone east of Nacogdoches, if even that. It is far more likely that their intended destination was San Antonio or possibly even the new capital of Austin. In any event, circumstances caused them to stop in La Grange, and in La Grange is where they stayed.

Yeppers, it does indeed appear that we're finally getting into some of the good stuff. I find history and background and worldbuilding fascinating (I am a Tolkien fan, after all) but I know good and well what folks will buy this book for!

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