Hi Cowboy Kisses Family!!!! I'm still alive. Hope everyone is loving their 2022, so far!
I never thought of myself as a writer. Even my dad, God rest his sweet soul, said he never figured one of our family would ever go the literary way. He didn’t mean that in a negative way, I know. We were all more physically-inclined -sportsy even. Professional golfer maybe, but never a writer.
So, the fact that I couldn’t refuse Ruby’s advances proved I had not choice but to go the literary way.
When I started hearing Ruby’s running dialogue painting pictures of wide open spaces and complicated cowboys, I questioned if my personalities were beginning to split. Ruby was lost, and searching, haunted by the disappearance of her mother that happened almost two decades before. When she received the letter that her grandmother had died and left her Ruby’s Ranch, every sad and happy memory from her childhood came rushing back.
I’d never lived on a ranch, nor had I lost a parent, but this world being painted in my mind was as real as the one I’d grown up in. Once I gave in and started typing out the reality she was living, more and more of this amazing, fantasy world blossomed like a rose in spring. A tainted, screwed up, rose, but a rose all the same.
When Billy entered the story, I was interested but a little bit perturbed. I didn’t want her story to be about a cheesy love affair. I had to know what happened to her mother — and even more, I needed to know why my psyche would put such a dynamic, strong, woman though such heartache. Couldn’t she just focus on solving this and the other mysteries she encountered when she stepped on the porch at Ruby’s Ranch?
Why do we have to maneuver a love affair in the middle of the twisted reveal?
But Ruby was determined. She was going to make her grandmother proud and win the respect of the hands who didn’t know her from Adam. She would figure out why drove her grandmother crazy, even if it cost her Billy.
But Billy — what a delicious distraction. The boy next door who had loved her since they were children. Her best friend’s kid brother was all grown up now. He’d waited, patiently, for her return, only to have to wait even longer until she’d gotten the answers to all her questions.
That’s when things got weird. I wasn’t even sure where the words were coming from. I’d never had experiences that could possibly bring about the odd developments Ruby manifested in my mind.
As Ruby gathered the pieces to her broken family, she ran upon a circle hidden high on the mountain above Ruby’s Ranch. A place of pure calmness, and ageless history. A place no one at the ranch ever talked of. Had her mother somehow been swallowed up by this mysterious place? What the hell was it, anyway?
Where was it all coming from?
As Ruby peeled away the layers of deception, characters came into full view. Some good, some bad, all holding on to secrets. Mind you — I had zero idea where the story was going. I didn’t know if I was writing or channeling. It was a little disconcerting, but I couldn’t stop.
As it turns out, it wasn’t really Ruby whispering the story of these strong matriarchs who make up the bones of the Ruby’s Ranch Series. It was the legend talking to me. It was the thousand tiny pieces of the puzzle that forced me to assemble a story with uncharted twists and turns.
As I wrapped the first book, that inner voice forced me back to the keyboard. There was more to tell. Ruby had found most of her truth, but more questions came flooding out with every layer peeled back.
Once Ruby’s soul was calm, her mother Katherine started speaking to me. Once we understood exactly what to happened to Katherine, Granny Rube needed us to take her back to her childhood. A childhood like no other, and nothing that could be considered normal.
The women of Ruby’s Ranch, Rube, Katherine and Ruby, are all parts of a huge, untold mystery, only Emma can solve. Emma is speaking to me now. Stay tuned.
Thanks for listening,
Rhonda Frankhouser
Award Winning Author
You can check out all of Rhonda’s work @ www.rhondafrankhouserbooks.com
It's so much fun when characters speak to us. Glad you have most of it sorted out. Thank you for sharing the secrets to your success. Hugs, Rhonda!
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