My wife showed me an Instagram post from the official Louis L’Amour Instagram account (what a concept!) showing the late great western author’s office. Damn, was it cool. The guy had so many books he had to have gigantic nested bookshelves on hinges to contain them all.
I like Louis L’Amour. He died in 1988 and didn’t start publishing novels till he was in his forties. He cranked them out in accordance with a formula that people guzzled down like soda. If you spend enough time around old men you will eventually stumble upon the L’Amour novels that they leave on shelves and counters like eagle feathers. I’m pretty sure the first L’Amours I encountered were purchased, read, and left lying around by a person that my parents would describe as one of the most boring people on Earth. Stephen King (I think) dismissed L’Amour’s work as “creative typing,” but it was very creative typing.
I like books that have shooting and blasting and he always offered that, as well as stark lessons about the difference between hard men and bad men. Actually there are some cool women in his books on occasion. I started reading his short stories and the very first one listed, “The Gift of Cochise,” which is what the movie Hondo is based on, starts with a woman standing up for herself with a shotgun against raiders.
I like his attitude toward writing. He just kept it simple. He tried to have fun, provide fun, and make the next book a little better than the last one. He’s comforting. I like to be comforted. I think I write more, and better, when I’m comforted.