The Last Rodeo(CPlatt) Colin Woodward smiled in the darkness of the cinema theatre, his eyes fixed on the screen. In his mind he was up there, riding along with the gun-slinging cowboys. He shoved a fistful of popcorn in his mouth and watched, eager to see if the outlaw hero would be caught by the lawmen hunting him down.
On the tram home his head was still on the epic Western he’d just seen. He glanced out the window as the tram rocked along, his imagination running wild. He was no longer on the Manchester tram back to Eccles but was riding the rail-road to El Paso. In his head he was no longer heading back home for a cup of tea, then bed, but on his way to have a show-down with a no-good outlaw. The rainy dark, Northern England streets had been replaced by the wide open plains of the Old West.
Colin had been obsessed with Westerns and the cowboy life since he was a kid. Despite coming from the North West of the UK, he had always imagined living his days back in the Wild West. The place and the period had always captivated him. From playing cowboys and Indians as a child, and watching endless Western films, starting with John Wayne and progressing to more modern movies. His fascination with the West had never left him. Since he was a boy he had been writing what he called his Cowboy Stories. Even now, in his thirties, he would spend many an evening on the sofa scribbling away in his notebook, working on his latest short story. Every story was a Western, of course. He was proud of his collection of stories, not that he did anything with them apart from typing them up and printing them out. Even that, seeing his words on the printed page, was special. His stories had recurring characters and places. He took delight in naming some of the Frontier towns in his stories after places local to him in the UK. A lot of his stories featured an outlaw he’d invented called Jake Ringo.
As the tram rattled on Colin pulled a dog-eared, yellow-paged paperback from his coat pocket. He found where he was upto in the book, a Western, and started to read. He was finding this novel, like a lot of Westerns he’d read, was very dated and so badly written. Despite being written after 2010, it had the style and feel of something written over fifty years earlier. In most of the Westerns he read there was the honourable hero, a love interest, and a despicable villain. Very little changed from one book to the next, except the names of the people and places. And the writing was so bad. The words didn’t flow, didn’t jump off the page like they should. Instead of flowing most of the Westerns he read kind of clunked and clanged along like a beat-up car in need of scrapping. He often found himself wondering who actually wrote these appalling novels. He wouldn’t have been surprised to find most of them were primary school English projects.
He leaned his head against the tram window and tired to ignore the real world around him and also ignore the gaping flaws in the novel he was reading. It was a Western and that was all that mattered.

Back home he made himself a coffee and flopped on the sofa. He sipped his coffee and watched a Western film on one of the movie channels. The movie was made around 2000 and had a modern feel to it. Not for the first time Colin wondered why the Western novels couldn’t keep up with the times like the movies did. He was the only person he knew who still read Western fiction. A lot of people read books, mostly of the crime and thriller genre, but nobody else read cowboy books. And no wonder, if the books he read were anything to go by. If you did not have a die-hard love of the genre and the period, why would you read this tripe?
The film he was watching was decent though. He found inspiration coming to him again. He reached for his notepad and scribbled a few ideas down for potential future stories, all Westerns, of course.
At the office one lunchtime the following week, he was spending the hour break as he always did. No time to eat, as he was torn between reading his latest Western and writing one. As usual he tried to ignore the flaws in the book, and lose himself in the period. He was once again struck by how much better his stories were than the drivel that was in print for him to read. His stories, although based in the Old West, were nothing like the rest of the Western fiction that was being published. His stories were exciting, fast-paced and usually had some plot-twist that he hoped the reader would not see coming. Not that anyone read his stories. Still, he consoled himself in the fact that his work was superior in many ways to the published novels he was reading. And what he was doing wasn’t particularly clever or technical. He was simply adhering to the old adage, write what you would like to read.
He put the paperback book down on his desk, pages down, cover spread out. He made a note of a rough plot outline for a story, and then continued writing another tale he was in the middle of writing. As he mulled over where he could take the story, he chewed on the pen lid. His eyes wandered over the cover of the novel he was reading. On the back cover was the logo of the publishing company. Lawless. What a fitting name, he thought, for a Western publisher. Then a though occurred to him. Maybe, he thought, just maybe.
He waggled his computer mouse to wake his monitor. Ignoring the emails from customers chasing their deliveries, he clicked on the internet explorer icon. With butterflies in his stomach, and trying not to get his hopes up, he typed Lawless publications. A second later he was staring at the website of the American publishers. The silhouette of a cowboy on horseback left the reader with no doubt as to the genre being published.
His eyes quickly scanned the screen. He was looking for something specific. There it was. One link towards the bottom of the screen. Submitting your work. He quickly clicked on the title.
No way, he whispered, as he read that Lawless publishers were ‘always on the look out for new talent’ and that they ‘provided the best opportunity for fresh and exciting writers’. They would be ‘delighted to consider work from unpublished authors’. His mind raced. Just imagine.
He read the submissions guidelines several times. They would accept works of novel-length via email on word documents. The work must be spell-checked and re-read thoroughly before being submitted. Colin nodded, that all sounded fair enough. He took a deep breath. This was it. This was the moment he’d been working towards. He was like a Sunday-league footballer hearing that a scout from United was watching the match.
He scrolled down the list of novels they had published. He had read most of them. They were mostly clunky, badly written books with predictable story-lines. They were so naff. They had straight-laced heroes, loyal women and dastardly villains in black hats. Cliché after cliché. There wasn’t a single original idea in the entire back-catalogue. If Colin’s stories were similar to modern Western movies then the books on offer from Lawless were more in keeping with the cowboy films of the fifties and early sixties. Things had moved on since then, he thought. Hadn’t these guys heard of a Spaghetti Western? Clint Eastwood? Young Guns in the 1980s? Not to mention Deadwood? Now, that would give these guys a shock.
Never mind, forget what the other writers were doing. What was important was Colin and his writing.
He charged through his front door that evening with a determination and purpose in his step. He made himself a coffee and sat down at his kitchen table. He stared down at the spiral-bound notepad in front of him. Surely if he gave it his best shot, then he would do well with the publishers. His writing was better than any of the cheesy books he’d read. Colin wasn’t the most confident person, and could be awkward when asked about his stories and what he was writing. If somebody in the office asked what he was writing, he would feel his cheeks burn read as he mumbled that he writes short stories. But, when he read his work back, he had to admit, there was something there. He was pretty good. And compared to the books he’d read by Lawless, he was a regular John Steinbeck. His next task was to write a Western novel for the publishers. Not a problem. As the saying went, this wasn’t his first rodeo.
There were two aspects of this new project that Colin found daunting and yet thoroughly exciting at the same time. The first was that he was writing for a specific purpose. He was writing something for consideration by the publishers. Normally he wrote his stories purely for the fun of it. He would get an idea for a cowboy story, some slant on the traditional tale, some update and his own twist. He would spend the next month or so writing the story and then type it up, changing, editing and redrafting as he went. No pressure, no audience apart from himself. Now though, he was writing specifically for the publishing company. He couldn’t get it out of his head that once complete, he would be sending his work off for consideration.
The other thing that struck him was that he would need to write something considerably longer. He was used to writing short stories. His stories told a tale, always a Western, but were not overly long. They certainly were not novel-length. He calculated that a full-length novel would be around the word-count of over a dozen short stories. He knew he had the stories. But could he actually write a full-length novel? It would be a huge undertaking. It would be like asking someone who regularly runs ten kilometres if they could do a marathon. They could run, it would just be a matter of increasing the distance. In theory, why not? He recalled a conversation he’d had with his father a while ago. In a pub, over a few ales, the topic had come up of his stories. His father had asked why he didn’t write a novel. Colin had shrugged. He’d always tried not to over-think his writing. If he thought about it too much, maybe he’d no longer be able to do it. The words just came to him. There was a concern that if he thought about it very deeply, then he’d lose what gift he had. He’d finished the last of his beer, got another round in, and then, asked a question that came back to him now.
‘Do you think I could?’ he’d asked. ‘I mean, I only write short stories. Could I do it, do you think?’
‘You’re a writer, Col. Of course you could do it.’ his dad had enthused.
‘Really? I mean, it’s a large undertaking.’
‘Rubbish. What’s a novel, but one short story after another?’
And even now, he went over his father’s words. He was right. Of course he was. He’d seen the Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh at a book-signing. The Scottish author admitted that really his seminal novel was actually a series of short stories. Perhaps he could pull this off. A novel comprising of a series of short stories? He nodded to himself. Yes, he decided, yes I can do this. A novel, he told himself, is one short story after another.
He grabbed his notebooks and set about seeing which stories could be cobbled together, with a continuing character, to make a longer volume. He pored over his notes and flicked through pages like a student studying for a big exam. In a way, this was his test. He made fresh notes and marked up certain passages and phrases. He chuckled to himself in delight. This was it. It was happening. Colin was plotting and planning his debut novel. A Western, of course.
Over the next few weeks he continued to thicken up, plan and outline his novel. Every now and again it kept coming to him that he was actually doing this. I’m writing a novel, he would tell himself.
As the weeks turned into months, the ideas seemed to come together. His stories were congealing and becoming one larger tale. He had his opening line: Charlie pushed through the saloon doors. He paused a second as the swinging doors stopped and let his eyes adjust to the dim room. He had a rough idea of the stories he wanted to tell and the way he wanted it to go. He would tell himself to relax, and slow down and remember, to enjoy the writing process. That, after all, was the whole point of writing.

It was just short of six months later that he found himself typing the words:
‘So we can shoot it out?’ laughed Robert.
‘So I can buy you a whiskey.’
He stopped typing and stared at the screen. He raised his fists in the air like an underdog boxer having won the title fight. I’ve done it, he whispered. He felt light-headed. That was partly down to the elation at having completed his novel, and also partly due to the late-night writing sessions he’d been doing to get his novel finished.
He called his parents, still in shock at having finally completed his novel.
‘I’ve done it.’ he blurted out.
‘Done what? What’ve you done now?’ his dad quipped.
‘The novel. It’s done.’
The line was quiet for a long moment.
‘I’m proud of you.’ he said quickly before handing the phone over to Colin’s mother.

Colin spent the next two weeks tweaking and redrafting. Like a Formula One mechanic going over an engine, Colin thoroughly checked and tinkered and adjusted. Finally, he had the book as good as he could make it. He knew it wasn’t perfect, but was as decent a novel as he could craft. Maybe, he thought, the editors would chop and change it further to make it fit for publication.
One evening, with a hopeful smile, he typed up an email to the publishing company. Even the title of the email, submission, gave him goose-bumps. Was this really happening? Was he about to do this? His work, the novel that he’d poured everything he had into, being considered for publication. Surely not. But, he thought, he stood a good chance. As good a chance as anyone else. He tapped a short message with a brief description of the novel and thanked them for their time. Then he clicked send. That was it. It was done. He sighed.

For the next two weeks he checked his emails constantly. The website had said it could take a month to hear back, due to the volume of work being submitted. He knew that he had a month to wait but every time he clicked on his inbox, there was that glimmer of hope that there would be the message from Lawless accepting his story. As the days went by he became more and more excited. Imagine. A published author. The stuff dreams are made of.
Then the message appeared in his inbox. It was early evening and he’d just had his plans to flake out and binge-watch an American TV show thrown on its head. He should treat himself. A few beers, maybe even a curry to celebrate. Here it was. He stared at the unread message in bold. From Lawless Publications, Subject: Submission. A smiled danced on his lips. This was the moment when everything changed. Even if he didn’t make a fortune, he would technically be a published author. Somethings you just couldn’t put a price on.
He clicked on the message, holding his breath. He read the message. He stared in disbelief. He read the message again to make sure he wasn’t misreading it.
Thank you for your submission. We have decided to pass on your story at this time.
What? No. Surely not. There was no mistaking the single-line message. They were going to pass. He had sent them a novel he’d spent months and months crafting. And they were going to pass, as though he’d offered them a biscuit?
He paced up and down his living room, breathing hard. Maybe there was something wrong with his work after all. He grabbed the printed copy of his novel and sat down at the kitchen table. Maybe if he fixed what was wrong and resubmitted it. He started to read.
It was even better than he recalled. It was a fast-paced novel, with a cracking plot. There were plot twists and turns, shoot-outs and stage-coach robberies. The main protagonist was an enigmatic outlaw called Charlie Barton. The book was modern and fresh, and yet somehow also in keeping with the traditions of the Western novel. Even the title, the Ballad of Santa Rosa was, in his opinion epic. When he finished reading he shrugged to himself. There was nothing wrong with it. In fact it was a good read. Let’s just see how it compares, he thought. He took a book from the shelf. He stared at the cover. Above the drawing of a Western street, with a gunslinger about to draw, was the title. In large garish lettering, Bullets & Hopes, loomed at the top of the cover. He shook his head at the naff title. And they rejected his punchy title? A gold star at the bottom declared that the writer was ‘one of Lawless’ best-selling authors.’
Colin quickly opened the cover, eager to see what this book had that his work did not. He read with fascination. It was just awful. It was cliché-ridden, badly worded dross. It was the kind of thing his grandfather used to read in large print when Colin was a kid. He read the first few chapters and then stopped. He’d read enough. It was so bad. He skipped to the back cover. The author beamed proudly from under a ridiculously large cowboy hat. He would be ashamed to put his name to the book, let alone his photograph. How on earth the publishers could accept guff like that and turn down his work? It just made no sense. He clenched his teeth as the anger built up. It was just wrong. He was a good writer. He knew he was. And it was a fact that his work was as good as, if not better, than the tripe they were publishing. And they had rejected him? It was a joke. They should have been grateful to have someone who could write as well as he could, someone with a fresh exciting take on the genre. But no, because it was not cliché ridden and wasn’t full of two-dimensional characters, they had turned him down. He swore and tossed the paperback book across the room. He shook his head. He needed a drink. He shrugged into his coat and, slamming his front-door shut behind him, headed for the pub.
He tried to keep the desperation and anger from his voice as he ordered a pint of lager. He took a gulp of his pint. He sighed. We have decided to pass on your story at this time. The words went around his head. It was infuriating considering the absolute twaddle they actually did publish.
His mind wandered as he went over it all. He absently looked around at the customers in the pub. There was a young man in a shirt and tie explaining how he’d been laid off that afternoon. A couple in their sixties sat in one corner watching the world go by. On the table were two instrument cases. The cases were too small to hold a guitar. Maybe a violin? A ukulele? One frail-looking guy in his seventies was leaning on the bar telling anyone who would listen that he knew all the top London gangsters back in the 1960s. He tilted his trilby hat back and boasted that he knew them all. Something occurred to him. The stories were right here. Right here, in this pub. What a selection of characters. Maybe instead of focussing on the Old West of the 1880s he should instead concentrate on present-day Manchester. This was the place, he decided. These are the kind of people he should be writing about. A phrase came to mind from a writing course from years earlier. Write what you know. Yes, that’s what he would do. He rummaged in his coat pocket for his notepad and paper.

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