The first books I ever penned were contemporary romances, and are currently buried in a box in the basement. Though they had workable plots and a dashing hero, once each story was written, the excitement fizzled. Sure, I was proud I had actually written 2 stories from beginning to end, but something was missing. Something I couldn’t quite figure out. I felt the same in my home life. I’d look around at the contemporary décor on the walls and anxiety would bubble inside me because what I was looking at wasn’t what I wanted. It took time to deduce that a western flair was. Ever since I was young, I loved horses. And John Wayne. Moreso the women in his films. I liked their clothing, their hair, and the ranches and saloons where they lived.
At the time, I was living in New Jersey. The state along the Atlantic didn’t offer much in the way of cowboy décor, (that would come later when I moved to Colorado), but my admission helped to ease some of my home life anxiety. A typewriter and notebooks helped to ease the writing anxiety. With pen in hand and a good imagination, I was able to hit on a storyline involving a cowboy and a girl who had amnesia. The more I thought about the story and wrote in my notebooks, the more I began to take notes, to include the color of Royce and Paige’s hair and eyes, the ranch Royce owned, the town not too far from him. I branched out from there into other characters; Royce’s siblings, his father and mother and his backstory concerning his mother. Then came Paige’s background and family. And with it came the realization Royce’s brother and Paige’s sister needed their own story, so out came another notebook. Not just to detail Lucas and Missy’s descriptions and backgrounds, but Missy’s home. She lived in California and researching the Barbary Coast led to her residing on a ship that had been converted into a gambling hall. Plus, there were her girls, her maid and an evil banker requiring their own stories. And a ruthless outlaw. But I wasn’t done there. Royce had other siblings, and as you guessed it, I needed more notebooks.
Fast forward to the present, and I currently have notebooks and computer files for 3 series, to include 10 novels and 6 short stories. Some of those notebooks are combined, and all contain not only the main characters, but secondary characters to include descriptions and jobs. Two series’ notebooks contain hand-drawn layouts of towns. When developing the hero and heroine, I don’t ask many questions, such as their favorite book or color, but I dig deep. I start with the hero and where he is in his life when the story opens and work backward to his childhood. It’s how I discover what in his past brought him to the beginning of the story, what defined him to be untrusting, wanted by the law, or just needing to keep to himself. And then, I do the same for the heroine. And when the story is finished, I set the notebook aside, because I know when I begin the next book in the series, I’ll have to go back to it for something. Usually that something relates to a secondary character’s name, or his occupation. It isn’t until I’ve finished the series that I put the notebook(s) away. But they’re never too far from my hand. In all honesty, they are my heart and soul to my characters, to my writing and me.
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