Friday, March 9, 2018

Today's SleuthSayer's blog

by
O'Neil De Noux

2:46 a.m., and I lift my fingers from the keyboard and look at what I've just written on the screen in front of me and realize it's a pretty good paragraph, almost eloquent. Did I write this? Eloquent? We'll see if it makes the cut to stay in the book. I've cut lots of stuff I thought eloquent at first.

The characters keep moving and talking and I stay along with them, typing it out and wonder how many people are going to read this and if they do, will they think of me. No. Why? Because I'm not important. The story is important. The people in it are important. The feelings brought to the reader are important. I'm just the instrument. It flows through me but I'm not important and that's how it should be.

Plot is important, especially in a mystery story. Moving without a plot is like walking through swamp water where your feet can easily bog down and you have to struggle to get moving again. Having said that, I've written stories after creating characters and a situation and not plotting the story and it worked.  It was hard work, but it worked. Writing fiction is confusing work. There are no rules. Except getting it written.

When I wrote my historical novel BATTLE KISS, I knew the Americans would win the Battle of New Orleans. What I didn't know was how the villians (The British) were so heroic and faced incredible hardships to end up on that battlefield only to get slaughtered. I found a starting point, knew how the battle would turn out, created characters and let them lead me through it all.


I've done the same thing with mysteries, often changing the plot as I go through it, dropping in a body or two. What I don't write well are formula stories. Wish I could as they seem to sell.

Like many other writers, sometimes I'm focused like a laser and everything falls into place. Sometimes I have no idea what the hell I'm doing. The odd thing, when writing a novel especially, is to let it simmer when it seems like you're stuck. Daydream about the story when you're away from the computer. EVERY time I've done this - it comes to me. The solution. Why? Because I'm the instrument. The device that gets it done. A novel is a living creature struggling to be born.


In SAINT LOLITA I knew I needed one thing to make it different from other books in the series. Put most of the action away from New Orleans and see how my recurring character LaStanza does away from home. Big problem at first as I researched which Caribbean island to set the story. I'd been to some islands but did not know enough about any island and internet research bogged me down. Hey, it's a novel. Fiction. So I created the island of SAINT LOLITA which lies 76 miles west of Grenada. The novel struggled through my limited intelligence to live. But it's alive. And the Lolita joke worked well.


I knew HOLD ME, BABE would be about a lost song. I gave it to New Orleans Private Eye Lucien Caye and let him go with it. Other characters peeked in, some became important, some not so but the book came together and was nominated for a SHAMUS Award. Same with THE LONG COLD. I'd worked a couple cold cases when I was a homicide detective. What if I had LaStanza work a 30-year-old unsolved murder of someone he went to school with? THE LONG COLD was also nominated for a SHAMUS so someone must have liked reading it.



Sometimes the instrument works like a laser - sharp and focused. Sometimes it gets stuck in mud. Sometimes it doesn't know what the hell it's doing. But it gets done. The short story, the novel, comes together and it's a great feeling re-reading later and thinking - Did I write this?

That's all I got today -
www.oneildenoux.com



Thursday, January 8, 2015

Account of THE BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS from BATTLE KISS

Battle of New Orleans battlefield in the 21st Century

TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO TODAY
January 8, 1815, New Orleans
Climactic Engagement of THE BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS
(from BATTLE KISS, Part 3, “The Battle of New Orleans” www.oneildenoux.net)

Before dawn, British General Sir Edward Pakenham’s plan is too complex and already falling apart. The attack force sent across the river is delayed as the man-made canal keeps collapsing, yet no one informs Pakenham. The British army slips into their attack position as close to the American line as possible. Hidden by darkness and thick fog, they near the edge of the Chalmette Plantation to go at the Americans in a rush. General Andrew Jackson cannot sleep and moves up and down his line, boosting morale. His men are well fed, well supplied and itching for battle.

Gen. Pakenham realizes his west bank attack will be only a diversion as most of the cannons and only part of his force is able to cross the Mississippi. He is unaware that the men with the fascines (to fill the canal in front of the American line) and the ladders are NOT in front of his troops. He has 8,000 men hidden in fog, within range of US artillery. Gen. Jackson’s 4,000 Americans watch and wait. Just before 6 a.m., a signal rocket rises into the gray sky from the British line and the wail of bagpipes echoes across the Chalmette Plantation, along with the steady beat of drums. They are coming!

6 a.m., the fog lifts, revealing the British army advancing at the quick step, two columns, each sixty-men wide and so long the Americans cannot see the end of the line. A tidal wave of red coats, Wellington heroes, the men who defeated Napoleon’s armies in Europe have come to storm the American line and swoop into New Orleans. It is an amazing magnitude until the American cannons open fire.

The Battle Rages – British artillery is ineffective. American cannon fire – deadly. Baratarian pirates guided by Dominique You and Renato Beluche, US Infantry artillerymen and US Navy gunners fire cannon balls and grapeshot into massed infantry. Entire British companies are blown apart. The Scottish Sutherland Highlanders, ordered to cross the battlefield at the diagonal, right across the American line of fire, are decimated. Gen. Pakenham and Gen. Gibbs rush to the front to rally their wavering troops.

The Battle Continues – British riflemen storm the redoubt near the river and the fighting is close, man against man, but there is no support for the British and US Marines, Infantrymen and New Orleans Riflemen kill the British now trapped in the redoubt.
Near the swamp, Gen. Pakenham is blown from his horse. Wounded, he mounts another horse to be hit again by grapeshot and rifle fire. He dies on the battlefield as best friend Gen. Gibbs is also mortally wounded. Near the river, Gen. Keane is critically wounded.

Maj. Gen. Lambert, the lone surviving British general, sees the attack has made no impression on the American line and brave soldiers are dying under withering American fire. He withdraws the army. Gen. Andrew Jackson, standing near the center of the US line is amazed at the carnage. This he did not expect. No one expected such a lopsided victory.

The Battle Ends – As the British withdraw to de la Ronde Plantation, Gen. Jackson is urged to pursue, destroy the British army. He does not rise to the bait. His job is not to destroy the British, but to protect New Orleans, which he has. NO – the British did not run through the brambles, rush through the bushes where the rabbits couldn’t go. They withdrew orderly and wait. Casualties on the British side are over 2,000. Eight Americans were killed at the Rodriguez Canal.


A detailed, blow-by-blow account of the battle is in my novel BATTLE KISS, Part 3, “The Battle of New Orleans” www.oneildenoux.net

Friday, September 12, 2014

BICENTENNIAL of the BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS



Monday, September 12, 1814, British Major General Robert Ross is killed by an American sniper during an engagement at North Point during the Battle of Baltimore depriving the British of the general chosen to capture New Orleans. After the Duke of Wellington declines the command, the task falls to his brother-in-law and favorite field commander – Major General Sir Edward Pakenham.

from BATTLE KISS, Part 1, “The Redcoats are Coming” www.oneildenoux.net

Sunday, April 20, 2014

Bicentennial Celebration

The Bicentennial Celebration for the Battle of New Orleans on January 8, 2015, should be a big. I am trying to get BATTLE KISS involved. No luck yet.

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Napoleon escaped Elba


199 years ago today, February 26, 1815, deposed Emperor of the French Republic, Napoleon, escaped Elba to return to France. When the New Orleans Expedition was offered to the Duke of Wellington the previous October, he declined the assignment, citing Napoleon was exiled on the small island of Elba and just might not stay there. He was right. Wellington's brother-in-law Sir Edward Pakenham accepted the assignment as Commander-in-chief of the New Orleans expedition, leaving England on November 1, 1814. Pakenham was killed at New Orleans on January 8, 1815, depriving Wellington the service of his favorite field commander. Wellington bemoaned the fact he sorely missed Ned Pakenham as he prepared for his climactic battle with Napoleon at Waterloo in June, 1815.

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

An Epic Novel


Cover art by Dana De Noux

In my novel BATTLE KISS, I describe the six engagement of the Battle of New Orleans in 1814-1815 as accurately as possible. But the book is not just about the battle. It is about Lucia Rodriguez and Aimée Monlezun and the men enamored of them – Matthew, Harold, Gérard, and Poul. It is about free man of color Sam Catoire and his Tiffany, about US Infantry Capt. Carmenbray and his Elizabeta. It is about the British Lowe brothers and master spy Alicia Allenwood. It is a book about love and war. And in war, not everyone survives.

BATTLE KISS is told from multiple points of view – American, British, Creoles – through the eyes of women and men who are soldiers, seamen, marines, pirates, free people of color, slaves, native Americans, Acadians.

It is about New Orleans and from where we came.

BATTLE KISS by O’Neil De Noux www.oneildenoux.net



Monday, January 20, 2014

SIGNIFICANCE of The Battle of New Orleans


The significance cannot be understated. It ended European ambitions in the US. Forever. It re-affirmed the American Revolution and put the US on the world stage as a maritime power. It strengthened our manifest destiny to rule our land from the Atlantic to the Pacific (which still took a while), but the Battle of New Orleans solidified US control of the Mississippi River. For many years, January 8th was a national holiday.

Many Catholics still believe the victory was a ‘miracle’, that prayers to the city’s patron saint Our Lady of Prompt Succor drew heavenly attention to the battlefield and guided cannonballs and bullets from General Jackson’s rag tag army across the Chalmette sugarcane plantation to forever stain it with the blood of the invaders.

POINT OF FACT – The Battle of New Orleans was the last time British and Americans met as enemies on a battlefield.

BATTLE KISS is an epic novel by O’Neil De Noux www.oneildenoux.net