Someone took a look at my new book, Chasing Cowboys (Aloha Romance Writers, 2009), and asked me an inviting question, “What was it like writing this?”  Good question. Let me answer it this way.

As the storyteller in this novel, I had the big job of rounding up my two-legged characters and driving them down the trail.  Naturally they kept running off in all directions.  New critters joined the trail drive and I had to keep an eye on them.

And then, just when I thought I had them all ready to drive into town and sell them on the market, somebody told me to go back and change this and that, and darn it if they weren't right! So I kind of doubled back and made some changes, including adding a new antagonist we could all enjoy hating, and then I drove the whole shooting match back to town and this time it all felt a lot better.

It took a long time and now I'm dusty and tired and hungry. Looking back on it, and rereading the novel, I have time to reflect on what kind of crazy story I've told inside the covers of this book.  So here are ten things I learned writing about cowboys and rodeo queens:

1.  There's a lot of romance! This is by far the most romantic story I've ever written.  Sure, there's adventure and suspense and comedy, but mostly there's romance.  Rereading the novel brought up all the emotions that I had tapped and integrated into the characters and their stories. Just about everything I know about love and romance is in this book.

2. There's a lot of realistic setting and detail. Yes, I did a whole mess of research, hanging out in Reno on several different June visits during rodeo week, and exploring the town.  I wouldn't trade it for anything.

3. Romance works better if you use a light hand. My natural approach to storytelling is to look for the comedy on the surface of any romantic situation. There may very well be strong emotional currents at work just beneath that surface, but I trust my readers to feel those currents.

4. I learned that you can start a story with a romantic meeting (the romantic leads “meet cute” in the opening pages), and end it with a highly romantic, cinematic climax, but in between you can write chapter after chapter of realistic narrative. I believe every character, every twist of the plot, every word of dialogue, and every detail along the way.

5. What happens in that big middle of the story is that life gets in the way of romance. The demands of work and family and all the unexpected changes that life throws at us … that’s what creates conflict and threatens the happiness of the romantic leads. Above all, the greatest danger is physical separation. They need to be together, but you don’t always get what you want, or get it when you want it and desperately need it.

6. Two narrators are sometimes better than one. I let my forty-something cowboy, Charley Meyers, begin telling the story, because he was there and took Cody, the young cowboy wannabe from Iowa, under his wing. Then I let my 19-year-old blonde rodeo queen wannabe (a younger Donna than in her starring turn in Queen of the Rodeo), break in to grab some chapters and tell her side of the story. Donna appoints herself mentor to Lacey, the San Francisco lawyer lady who’s just transferred to Reno and mistakes Cody for a real cowboy. Donna also decides to play the difficult role of love cop and direct the romantic traffic, because you can’t leave these things to chance.

7. Cemetery dates can be highly romantic, especially for a first date. Trust me on this one. I made a couple of visits to the Old West cemetery on a hill overlooking Virginia City, Nevada. On the second visit I carried paper and pen and took lots of notes. When the wind blew a tumbleweed across my path I took it as a sign. I take lots of things as signs, but this one was special.

8. Rodeo queens are bigger than life. I kind of knew this already from my research in Reno, but it hit home as I told my story. If my rodeo queen heroine Donna Cooper was bigger than life in my first novel, Queen of the Rodeo (TripleTree, 2001), I figured that in the prequel she had to be a dynamic 19-year-old who thought she knew everything about life (including men) and did have a bigger heart than the rest of us. Donna is the true heroine of Chasing Cowboys, a secret I didn’t hide too well in the novel.

9. As for cowboys, all you have to do is look at the words on the book’s cover. “Easy to rope, hard to tie down.” I showed that to a young woman from the cowboy part of the Big Island, and she said, “The story of my life.”

10. Finally, I learned that there is great creative joy and satisfaction in being able to have a hand in the design of your book. Stephanie Chang, who designed the cover for Chasing Cowboys and the interior pages (the “innards,” as she calls them), was wonderful to work with and gave the book a great look. We spent over nine months on the book design (a friend called the book our “elephant baby”).

Coming Monday: "Designing Woman" ... more about Stephanie Chang and her Hawaii roots, her design work, and her creative choices on Chasing Cowboys.

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Next Wednesday, October 21, 2009 ... you're invited

12:30 P.M. to 1:30 P.M. - Author Singing (nah nah nah, just signing) ...  at Bestsellers in downtown Honolulu (Hotel and Bishop Streets) ... a made-in-Hawaii novel, Chasing Cowboys ... with Michael Little and the book's designer, Stephanie Chang(Stephanie Chang Design Ink).

Tags: Chasing Cowboys, Romance, Stephanie Chang, Writing

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