So Stacey, you’ve clearly been busy writing since we last interviewed you. Six stories in two years! What’s your secret?

First off, I want to thank Love Western Romances for their wonderful support over the past two years. It’s been an amazing ride and LWR has been a helpful and appreciated part of my writing journey—not to mention a fantastic support for the Western Romance Genre. Thank you!

The big secret of those six books is stockpile.  I’d been writing for five years when I sold Mustang Wild, so half of those six westerns were completed manuscripts. On average, I’ve maintained a 2.5 books a year production and always have a few manuscripts going at once.  I’d like to finish a solid three books a year, but with active teenagers demanding a large chunk of my time, I don’t see that happening until I’m relieved of chauffeuring duties.

What’s been the most surprising aspect of this journey into the realm of published author? And what aspect has been exactly as you expected?

My biggest fear of crossing over to the publishing side was working under a deadline—I always wondered how I’d manage it when I tend to write more than one book at a time. Even though I anticipated the struggle, I was still surprised to discover it was even harder than I imagined it would be. My biggest challenge is still making my brain stick to the story that’s due when I’ve always bounced between books. I have always been obsessive about finishing a manuscript I start, but focusing on one book at a time is a major challenge for me. Working out the magic ratio of time and words written per day is still hard—I’m just no good at consistency in that respect. But hopefully my editors will keep being thrilled with the work I turn in. Above all, I want to deliver good westerns and hope to maintain at least two releases a year. Right now I’m working on two books for my new western series for 2010—and am totally behind deadline—ack!

In books authors get to control the world of their characters but in real life, we can make a mistake, miss an opportunity, etc. What would be a “do over” moment in your life?

I wish I had listened to my high school English teacher who encouraged me to pursue writing, wish I had owned a computer and discovered the romance genre before I was thirty. Alas, I’d been sure my English teacher was just trying to be nice and I had no clue I’d ever have any real interest in writing. By the time I stumbled into romance writing, developed a passion for westerns, and had my first manuscript (Bride of Shadow Canyon) ready to submit in 2002, westerns were on a serious decline. I’d missed the western golden era, and spent four frustrating years being asked by editors if I could write contemporaries or romantic suspense.  I did, ultimately, start writing contemporary romantic suspense—finished four manuscripts, right before I sold all my westerns.  Life certainly takes unexpected twists and turns. But I’m a firm believer that everything happens for a reason, even if we can’t see that reason in the moment.

What percentage of your “writing” time do you actually devote to writing versus research and promotion and any tips on balancing that with your role as a mom.

My writing has stages; research, daydreaming, sketching, daydreaming, trying to fill in the rest of the words by the due date. I generally have ninety percent of my research done before I ever start writing. I usually find my stories by doing research, days upon days of historical and geographical textbook reading—it’s those historical tidbits that develop my characters, their conflicts and their setting. Promotion is sprinkled in throughout the year—I always seem to have a book DUE when a book is coming out.  Get’s kinda hairy, but then, everything is hairy for me at the end of a deadline. I write and research while my kids are in school and my laptop is pretty much attached to my hip. We live in the boondocks so once I drive to town at three o’clock to pick up my boys I spend the next few hours writing in my truck while shuffling my kids from band, to tutoring, to more music lessons. After dinner I’m back in my office until the wee hours of the morning. Sleep is overrated. If I’m near the end of a deadline or God forbid beyond deadline, my family knows I’m psycho—don’t cook, don’t clean and I start locking my office door.  Needless to say, my hubby and kids hate the final month or so of deadline insanity. Me, I kinda love it, because in those weeks I’m bound the most tightly to my story. And then I give the book a kiss goodbye, smother my family with attention, and start the process all over again  :)

You have two books out, an anthology Stetsons, Spring & Wedding Rings which includes your story Courted by a Cowboy and Mountain Wild, the third in your Wild series.  Let’s talk first about Courted by a Cowboy.  Can you share with us the genesis for your plucky heroine, Constance Pauley, who was scarred in a fire?

The story concept for this novella is actually the only one I’ve done inspired by a true story of someone local. I had just begun to dabble in writing when I heard about a local woman who’d ended up in California as the result of a house fire in Montana in the early 1900’s. Eighteen years old and working as a housekeeper in a boardinghouse, she’d accidentally knocked a kerosene lamp into a basket of linens. No fire-retardant fabrics back then, the room was quickly ablaze and she suffered burns to her legs and hands.  The rural Montana community didn’t have a physician capable of treating such burns—not without the loss of her legs.  The town sent out a wire asking for help. The nearest hospital willing to treat her was in San Francisco, and arrangements were made to send her to California by train. Back then a caboose was coupled at the back of each train and the only doors on the standard cars were on the ends, the passage too narrow for a stretcher to get through. Bound to the stretcher with blankets, she was hoisted up by a number of men and slid in through a window. Her treatment was a success and after her release from the hospital she found a teaching job outside of San Francisco. She met and married a farmer and eventually found her way to our small agricultural town where she taught school until she retired.

I was fascinated by the imagery of this young woman being bound to a stretcher and the fear she must have felt as that window swallowed her up into the belly of the train, transporting her hundred of miles from her home. Those images started the manuscript originally titled Morning Star, and became my Courted by the Cowboy novella in Stetsons, Spring & Wedding Rings.  As for Constance Pauley herself, I think she gets a lot of her pluck from my husband’s Grandma Kuel. Five feet of Irish charm, laughter, and sass. She began teaching in a one-roomed schoolhouse when she was around nineteen (her to-be suitor and hubby working the farm across the road), and had told stories of how she’d been terrified those first few days because some of the boys were a foot taller than their spunky teacher. But she stood her ground and was stern as they tested her authority, while silently shaking in her shoes because she knew she couldn’t physically make them stay in school. And yet they did. 

And now, tell us a bit about your latest release out this month, Mountain Wild.

Mountain Wild is the third and final book in my Wild Trilogy. Garret Daines first appeared in Mustang Wild at the tender age of thirteen and did his best to defend his older sister. In Maverick Wild Garret had packed on some muscle and developed a serious crush on Chance’s heroine which ultimately caused him some heartache in the end, and prompted his decision to buy his own cattle ranch at the age of sixteen. Garret’s heroine, Maggie Strafford, made her first appearance in Maverick Wild, as the infamous Mad Mag who drops in to save Chance Morgan’s hide a time or two. It wasn’t until I’d reached the end of Maverick Wild that I knew Maggie would be coming back for her own book. She captivated me with her harsh exterior and subtle kindness, and I wanted her to find love and healing. I knew tender Garret, whom I’d watched grow up, could become just the man to reach beneath that hard exterior to the gentle women beneath. My editors were actually against the idea of having this raving mountain woman as a heroine, but I’m stubborn (a shocker, I know) and sent them the opening chapters I’d written…and was then asked to write the book ASAP. As for the historical backdrop of their book, it follows the cattle wars of 1889, prompted by a natural disaster during the winter of 1886-87 when a freak winter blizzard nearly wiped out the cattle trade in Montana, freezing cowboys and cattle alike. In the years that followed ranchers struggled to rebuild and hold onto their land as new money came into the area looking to capitalize on their tragedy, and as often happens, desperation and greed turned to violence. Garret and Maggie find themselves caught up the turmoil, as well as trouble from their own violent pasts. I do hope readers will enjoy Garret and Maggie’s journey and transformation.

Your heroes are always wonderfully drawn, complex men but your heroines really stand out for me. They are gutsy, independent women. How would you compare the women who settled the west, like your heroines, with the modern woman of today?

Nearly all of my heroines are inspired by my grandmothers—my true heroines who endured and overcame so much hardship. I’ve never known harder-working women, full of strength, courage, devotion, love and flat-out determination to do the best they can by their family and their community. They are stronger women than I, and I’m always awe-inspired when I think of how they started out, taking chances, starting their families and working hard to build a home from the dust up, providing the rest of us with a solid foundation. They are my women of the west, the ones who stood beside their men, working just as hard, if not harder, to carve out their place in the world. I believe women of today emulate of that kind of strength and courage, able to stand alone if they have to, but can find love, appreciation and strength in the arms of the men who love them. Those are the women I feel empowered by, and the women I strive to portray in my books.

Any advice, based on your own experience, for authors who are seeking publication?

Every finished manuscript is ammunition, growth and another step toward publication. Don’t stop writing, don’t stop learning, don’t stop submitting.  Beyond learning, fine-tuning and loving your craft—persistence is everything.