A Struggling Writer’s Early Thoughts
These are selected from thousands of random notes that Louis L’Amour made throughout his life. Some are the musings of a young man attempting to find his own voice, the ramblings of a creative mind that simply would not turn off, a mind that was struggling to make sense out of all parts of the world with words. Remember that these notes are like the random and unedited thoughts that we all have throughout the day … private experiments in thought to be improved, modified, or discarded before we release them for public inspection.
The following was written at a time when Louis was living in a 10 by 12 foot room in the back of somebody else’s apartment and express a very personal desire for a specific future. He sat on the bed and put his typewriter on a folding chair to work. He lived there for several years and wrote over one hundred short stories and several novels in that room. At the time he was in his late thirties or early forties.
1.) A home: a fair sized tract of land in a secluded spot with running water if possible, or else a good spring and well. A few acres of arable land. Tress, flowers, a comfortable house, equipped with all latest aids to comfort.
2.) In this house an extensive library for study and research. A fair resume of the sciences and How To Do It books as well as literature and history.
3.) A good car.
4.) In this car a mine detector. {BEAU NOTES: He means a metal detector, after WWII surplus mine detectors were sold off for people hunting old coins and other items in ghost towns or on the beach.}
5.) Several excellent rifles and plenty of ammunition. Also, two shotguns, 12 gauge and a .410. {BEAU NOTES: Louis was never much of a hunter but he was an excellent target shot}
6.) A fair sized home use telescope for observation of planets, and stars.
7.) A good motion picture camera and a projector. Also a fair-sized library of films.
8.) A wire recorder and plenty of spools. {BEAU NOTES: Tape recorders as we now know them were invented by the Germans during WWII. They were still rather rare in the 1950s. Wire recorders used a spool of hair thin wire to record speech — they were not high enough quality to do a very good job on music — and a typical wire recorder was about as large as of a medium sized suitcase.}
9.) A combination radio and record player with a good supply of records.
10.) In the library all the American Guide series and Sailing Directions.
The photo is of Louis at the time hard at work, and you can find more of Louis’ musings on The Louis L’Amour’s Lost Treasures website:
http://www.louislamourslosttreasures.com/LLLT2015WebExclusivesNotesResearch.htm
