Bonanza Fan Fiction by “Southplains”

In Part 1 of the Cowboy Camelot article I mentioned how closely the Ponderosa’s trials and tribulations emulated that of the historic King Ranch.  One of those similarities is depicted in the Bonanza episode “Bitter Water.”  (The original title was “Cattle Plague.”) 
 
In “Bitter Water,” cattle infested with the dreaded Texas tick are planted in [...]

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The Ponderosa.  A thousand square miles of land that Ben Cartwright swore heaven would have to go some to beat.
 
Amazingly, I’ve heard some people express disbelief in the likelihood that one ranch could be so large.  Well, folks, if you’re one of the skeptical ones, I hate to disappoint you, but the fact is ranches [...]

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Almost as if she feels remorseful over the dirty blow she dealt us with Hurricane Ike, Mother Nature has bestowed some glorious weather upon Texas this week.  It is the least she can do.  With 1.5 million (I’m not sure what the total count was at the peak of destruction, but the highest number I [...]

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I just finished what has to be the 600th WHN for a Bonanza episode that’s been done and done and done—‘My Brother’s Keeper’.  It’s an episode that’s a big favorite for many, and yet most fans have mixed feelings about it for several reasons.
 
I didn’t want to do it.  I tried to talk myself out [...]

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Well, heck.  Hubby just called and said the neighbor lost two calves last night to blackleg.  For those of you who don’t know what this is, it’s a highly contagious and usually fatal disease of livestock.  There were some references made to it in Bonanza, but I don’t remember the episodes off the top of [...]

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Riding alone is a different way to experience the world.  You see so many things you would never be aware of otherwise.  It’s akin to the difference in traveling down the interstate or taking country back roads—the interstate will get you to your destination faster, but you miss a lot along the way.
 
When I was [...]

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Ah, the ‘Super Cartwright’ syndrome.  You know what I mean: those jaw-dropping moments when Joe gets shot in the chest only to rise immediately afterwards and punch out ten stout miners.  Or Adam somehow knows who the real bad guy is even though all the evidence points to someone else.  Or Hoss wrestles a bear [...]

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An excerpt:
 
He could feel the thump of Adam’s heart beating against his chest, and his own heartbeat joined into perfect unison with it. He felt himself begin to lose his grip on consciousness and as he began to slide back into darkness the irony of it struck him; after a lifetime of fighting his oldest [...]

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It’s funny what inspires a person while they’re writing.  For me, inspiration comes from a variety of sources.  When I was writing Heroes, my inspiration came from a song done by Jeff Buckley called Hallelujah.  On the surface, this song has little to do with the plot of the story.  But Jeff’s singing has such intense [...]

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I’ll be posting little tidbits about my stories here–things like what background music I listened to while writing them, what inspired me, what problems I ran into during the process, etc., etc.

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For most of us, life as the Cartwrights knew it is far removed from our own.  In today’s world of cell phones and instant travel, it is often difficult to place ourselves inside the psyches of people who lived a century and a half ago.  The fact that our society is further removed from nature [...]

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After writing fan fiction for a year, I’ve learned something about my writing process, namely that the less I think through a story before writing, the easier it flows.  If I start planning and plotting and thinking, “Hey, this could happen, and then Adam could do this, and Ben could say that,” something odd happens.
 
I [...]

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I’ve always loved Bonanza.  Always.
 
By the time I was born the show was halfway through its second season.  I can’t say how old I was when I joined my parents in actually watching, but my mom tells me I was still in diapers when I first stood in front of the television set, my attention [...]

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I grew up in a Bonanza-watching family, and I always loved the show.  When I rediscovered it in 2005, I fell in love all over again.  I was soon searching on the internet for information on Bonanza and the Cartwrights, although I didn’t expect to find much.  Surely I was the only one in the [...]

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I grew up at the bottom of the Texas Panhandle in the region known as the Southplains—hence my username.  My family has been in Texas for five generations, since the early 1840s.  Our livelihood has always been made from cotton and cattle; I was working in the fields by age four and helped to deliver [...]

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