A NEW Author's Walk Through Creating 1857

Summer 2025 

• • I've always loved history - wars, nations, business empires, the people who shaped them.  I decided to step into history, building and creating a world that brings history to life.

  • The setting of the Utah War was decided as the backdrop to my first Historical Fiction novel.

  • Initial planning and brainstorming begins.

  • An initial book title They Came In Winter is selected.

  • INJURED - I had a slip and fall that messed up my shoulder and all work stopped for months.

January 2026

• • I begin the process of healing from shoulder surgery and return to what had been They Came In Winter.

  • I created A Walk Through History LLC as the umbrella for this world.

  • The first novel started over - I scrapped all the previous work.

  • My characters begin to come alive as they live and work in places like: Salt Lake City, Washington City, Fort Leavenworth, and East Hollow.

  • Research. Research. Research.

Spring 2026

• The first 3 chapters take shape as we meet Ezra & Rachel Donovan, Thaddeus Shane, Nathaniel Carswell, and more.

• An early glimpse of a pre-Gilded Age company.

• Research, Research, Research

Summer 2026

• I land on the first book title: 1857, the year the novel begins.

• Historical figures start popping up throughout the first 3 chapters:  Daniel Wells, Brigham Young, Captain Jesse Gove, Colonel Edmund Alexander, Major Lot Smith

• Research, Research, Research

• Launched awalkthroughhistory.com - the home of author Arthur Howard.  

• Settled on full title/subtitle: 1857· Unsettled Horizons· A Novel of the Utah War

• Got caught in a research deep dive in July. Reading 227 pages of correspondence between U.S. Army leaders. Then a year's worth of letters from Captain Jesse Gove to his wife.

• Had that moment when a deep research dive revealed that a fictional character, part of a prominent fictional family, had the exact same last name, rank, and was in the same Company of the same Infantry Regiment. No choice but to change the last name of an important family.

• Four chapters complete and you realize you have finally created your own style of writing. So, no other choice but to go back and rewrite and rework the first three chapters.