It’s 2012 already. Seems like about a month ago I was sponsoring a class reunion for our Coloma Class of ’63. That was last July! Somehow between then and now my grandsons started school, we celebrated Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas! I shopped, decorated, wrapped and boom! It was all over and all the decorations are down and packed away. Soon my husband and I will vacation in Vegas and before you know it spring will be here again (which sounds great because we are hunkering down here in southwest Michigan for our first blizzard!).

It always astounds me how fast time goes by – and it’s a little frightening when you’re getting older. In two weeks I’ll be 67, but who cares? I feel 40 and thank God for my good health and the fact that I don’t look my age, thanks to good genes from my 90 year old mother who has always looked 15 to 20 years younger than her age – and who remains in good health! I hope I continue to take after her.

Speaking of spring coming faster than we think, I want to remind everybody to watch my Blog, Facebook, Twitter and my website for news about an on-line Valentine’s Party to celebrate the reissue of my novel, Wildest Dreams, from Sourcebooks and through Amazon. You can pre-order a print copy now, and soon you can order the book as a download to your Kindles! It’s so nice to be “on the shelves” again, and I hope to soon sell something brand new. In July Thunder On The Plains will also be available in print and as an e-book – and before long Amazon will offer my entire Savage Destiny series as e-books!

There has been a renewed interest in westerns in books and on TV, which pleases me greatly. The Old West is absolutely my favorite genre, and I’ve written 57 books, nearly all of them set in America’s Old West. Now many of them will be reissued as e-books. I hope to see resurgence of the genuine, good old historical romance, wherein there was a dark and handsome (macho-man) hero and a strong-willed beautiful heroine with the kind of courage and determination it took to “match” the hero and know how to handle him – and to face the challenges presented to women in the 1800’s Western pioneer era. Oh, how I love writing those stories!

I hope all of you have a successful and healthy New Year, and I look forward to corresponding with many of you through e-mail and Facebook and Twitter, and through continued blogging! Be sure to watch for some blog “tours” coming up! I look forward to “meeting” a lot of you on-line, and maybe I’ll get to meet some of you in April at the huge author book signing at the Romantic Times conference in Chicago! Drive safely in this winter weather!

Christmas is Almost Here!

Christmas is on the way and I’m all shopped, wrapped and decorated! Woke up to snow yesterday – a nice surprise for the holidays, but I don’t mind if it goes away after New Year’s. (wishful thinking for a Michigander!) Meantime, I remembered something about the blog I posted about how I love westerns and cowboys and realized I left out Tom Selleck and the movie QUIGLEY DOWN UNDER. I cannot get enough of that movie or the man. He personifies the perfect hero/cowboy in that movie, and I love the now-famous comment – “this ain’t Dodge City, and you ain’t Wyatt Earp.” The other actor I left out is Sam Elliot. What a voice! Just hearing that low drawl makes you think “cowboy.”

Hey, if you want to watch a good TV western, don’t miss HELL ON WHEELS Sunday nights on AMC. This is my kind of western! I like it so much that I have every episode down-loaded to my Kindle Fire so I never miss one and so I can watch them over and over! And with westerns coming back to TV, this couldn’t be a better time to re-introduce readers to Rosanne Bittner western historical novels, so I’m happy to see WILDEST DREAMS already available at Amazon.com for pre-orders! Watch for THUNDER ON THE PLAINS in July … and a little birdie told me you will soon be able to order all my SAVAGE DESTINY books as e-books through Amazon. Keep checking!

I will soon be holding a Virtual Valentine’s Day party! Watch this blog and my website for news about how you can join me and win a dozen roses and a free print copy of WILDEST DREAMS! 

And speaking of WILDEST DREAMS, please click the cover below to read the FIRST CHAPTER of WILDEST DREAMS:

Here’s to Happy Holidays to all my readers! 

 

Getting Up-To-Speed

There was a time when I moaned and groaned about the changes in publishing to e-books. I hated the internet (sorry, but I still don’t like “visiting” on-line – I don’t often post to Facebook or Twitter) – hated the idea of reading a book on a screen rather than holding it in my hand – didn’t understand blogging and all that “stuff.”

Well, here I am with a Facebook Personal and Fan page – a Blog – I’m on Twitter – I have a web site – and of course e-mail. My last hold-out … e-books and a Kindle reader. Well, I got to liking Facebook – great way to advertise my books to the entire world. I learned to like blogging for the same reason, and it’s a good way to help other writers with my (sage??) advice. After all, I’ve been writing for 30 years and have 57 published novels, so I must know something about this business!
 
Now comes e-books. I broke down and purchased the new Kindle Fire. WOW!! I’m a “downloading” freak! Who knew there were so many FREE books??? Let alone the convenience of reading other books whenever I want without having to haul them around with me – and of course I get to download my own books just for the fun of it! Two of my older books will be reissued through Sourcebooks.com (and can also be purchased through Amazon.com) in 2012 as e-books and will also be available in print. WILDEST DREAMS in February 2012 and THUNDER ON THE PLAINS in July 2012. I am, of course, advertising these all over the place, thanks to the Internet, so I hope those of you who are just discovering Rosanne Bittner will purchase these reprints – great new covers, and you can put them on your Kindle!

Back to e-books – I am learning to really enjoy my Kindle! I have also ordered the new AMC western, HELL ON WHEELS, so that each episode is automatically downloaded to my Kindle! How cool is that? I can watch each episode when it’s convenient for me. This is one of the features of owning the Kindle Fire that I really like, because I often miss some of my favorite TV programs. I either forget, or I fall asleep before they come on, or something else is on at the same time. We do have DISH but we don’t have one of those fancy DISH receivers that automatically stores stuff – and besides, this way I can watch my favorite TV shows in another room or while on vacation in Vegas. I don’t have to be home retrieving it from my DISH receiver.

All in all, I am slowly but surely breaking down and learning to like the new technology. I have an I-4 cell phone and now the Kindle – and I will probably purchase a Nook because it looks like some of my older books will also be reissued through Barnes & Noble. Be sure to watch my web site for news about that, and I will also post something on this blog if and when that happens.

Keep your fingers crossed that one or two of my books will catch the eye of someone in La-La Land and will become a new TV western series!! Wouldn’t that be great? If that happens, I’ll be able to download the episodes to my Kindle Fire and watch them whenever I want! What a world we live in! 

HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL!!

A Western “Gold Rush!”

I am busting with excitement! According to an article in the Denver Post this month, TV Westerns will see a big come-back over the next two years, thanks in part to the popularity of HBO’s DEADWOOD series and the remake of TRUE GRIT. I would like to think that the remake of 3:10 TO YUMA a couple of years ago (starring Russell Crow) also had an effect on this resurgence. I loved the 1950’s version of that movie and loved the re-make as well. However, I just don’t think anyone can out-do John Wayne in the original TRUE GRIT. What a man!

Reading the Denver Post article made me want to shout out with joy! They always say – what goes around, comes around (or is it the other way around?) !! Either way, that is so true, and I believe that romance in general is coming back around. I am talking about the good old-fashioned '80’s bodice-rippers but with better writing and better plotting and more realism. The comments in the Post article reflected what I have been saying all along – deep in the hearts of most of us there is always a soft spot for westerns. They actually warm our hearts, revisiting a time when men were men and women didn’t worry about wrinkles and perfect fingernails. Yes, the men were, in general, more chauvinistic, but they were MEN – who for the most part would have died before they even thought about waxing their chests or getting manicures. They didn’t have to go to a gym for six-pack abs. All they had to do was walk behind a plow and toss hay into a loft or cut down trees with an axe. Few wore fancy suits, and none had spiked, gelled hair.

Women stayed in shape scrubbing and sewing and baking and cooking and hauling wood and usually running after a brood of kids. (They needed big families back then to help with farm work, and of course, birth control was a whole different and more difficult matter “back then.”) For the most part men highly respected women and there were such things as manners and honor and dating protocol.

Of course life in the Old West was hard and people didn’t live as long; but neighbors knew and depended on each other. Something as simple as a picnic or a barn building was considered an exciting event, and obeying the law meant something. That can be comforting compared to today’s “anything goes” attitude and the stress of the insecurities we have today. As the Post article points out, stories set in the Old West provide a kind of solace to today’s viewers. In the reading and/or viewing of Westerns, we know that there will be the “good guys” who represent law and order and on whom we can depend to be honest and strong and a nice shoulder to lean on - and there will be the “bad guys” who get their due. However, as in most of my books and other really good westerns, like the stories of Louis L’Amour, no character is written as all good or all bad. As in real life, our characters have to be mostly gray. We have to give some reason for the bad guy to do what he does – and the good guy (and I’m talking about women, too) will usually be presented with a challenge to their honor or might carry a secret that “shades” their perfection and brings them to a life-changing decision.

America’s history is complex and driven by contradictions and change as the west turned from raw, unsettled land to a growth in cities and manufacturing and a surge of “Eastern” civility into the West’s wild and unruly ways. Back then an outlaw could end up a lawman, and visa-versa. There are outlaws like Billy the Kid who actually were protected and respected – and there were lawmen whose lives truly bordered on lawlessness, like Wyatt Earp and his brothers.

Some of the new shows coming so reflect a lot of my books that I was lathering at the bit with hope that maybe these programs will bring attention to my older books all over again, especially since a lot of them are so similar to books I have already written. One of the new shows is called “Hell on Wheels” which is set against the building of the Transcontinental Railroad – just like my book THUNDER ON THE PLAINS. That program is already going to start airing Sunday November 6th at 10:00 p.m. on AMC. I can’t wait! Another program in the works is called “Longmire” and is set in Montana’s Big Sky country, just like my book WILDEST DREAMS. Both of my books mentioned here will be reissued next year in print and as e-books from Sourcebooks! Another new program coming will be set post-Civil War and reflect how that war changed so many lives and changed the West, just like the book I am currently writing, DESPERATE HEARTS.

Another program, “The Frontier” is about a group of people heading west in the 1840’s. I can’t count the number of times I’ve written that theme – my entire SAVAGE DESTINY series began with a wagon train headed west. The Post article claims many of these programs will be written from a woman’s point of view – as are nearly all my books! 

As the article claims, and I’ve been saying for years – THE APPARENT REVIVAL OF THE WESTERN HAS BEEN A LONG TIME COMING! They are calling this a “western gold rush” for TV. Maybe it will also turn into a gold rush for writers who made a name for themselves in the genre, and for new writers who want to get in on something that’s going to be BIG!! My own agent is already talking to a Hollywood rep about giving some of my stories consideration because of the new popularity of westerns. Maybe one of my stories will finally hit the screen – at least a TV screen!

I’m ready, folks! I’m ready!

Musings on My Writing

I am sitting here thinking about all my years of writing, what I’ve been through during all of it, and wondering how in God’s name I managed to write and sell 57 books amid all that was going on in my life.

When I started writing I was 34 years old, and we had bought some property that needed a tremendous amount of work. Our sons were only 8 and 9 years old and very active in school and sports. I worked full time and drove 30 minutes each way to work. I did all the grocery shopping, cleaning, cooking, most of the mowing, ran errands, ran a son to the doctor every week (he had allergies and needed shots) – all the things most women are expected to do in spite of having jobs. My husband was (and still is) great, a big supporter of my writing, but he was busy with his own full-time work as well as the tremendous amount of work it took to fix up the property we had purchased. He was constantly cutting down trees, hauling brush, helping paint and fix up two cottages we rented, clearing the property, plowing a half-mile driveway in winter, and so on. Both of us were maxed out … yet I found time to write.

I did what I call “sneak” writing at work. I wrote after dinner at home, amid wrestling boys and a tv only about 5 feet away from me (very small house and no office). I often fell asleep at the typewriter long after hubby and kids were asleep (yes – I used a typewriter the first 4 years before I got a computer). I wrote through my father’s death from cancer, a sister’s death from cancer, the stressful teenage years of my sons, one son’s two failed marriages (third one has stuck), another son’s 10-year battle with cocaine (the darkest, darkest, most dreadful period of my life about which I still can’t talk much) – brain surgery for a non-malignant tumor – another serious surgery for yet another non-malignant tumor near my heart – two broken wrists (at the same time!) – and helping run a family business.

Through all that I attended conferences, did some charity work, have gone through four dogs, now have three very active grandsons and try to keep up with all of them. I have two full file cabinets stuffed with folders labeled “Cattle” – “Ranchers” – “Gold Mining” – “Mountain Men” – “Women of the West” – “The railroad” - and on and on and on. I would read anything and everything I could about the American West, and I took notes – reams and reams of notes. I cut out magazine articles from publications like “Old West” magazine and I would file them according to their subject matter – articles I might be able to use for another story. (I did all this before the internet made research so much easier.) I collected hundreds of research books for my own personal library, and nearly all of them have dog-eared pages and lots of underlining.

I was a writing demon, totally in love with my subject, and half the time when I would arrive at work I couldn’t remember how I got there because in my mind I was out west somewhere writing the next chapter to whatever book I was working on. How I managed to avoid killing myself on the highway, I will never know.

I think back on it all and wonder who that person was. I look at those files and wonder when I managed to find the time to do all that. I look at all those published books and wonder how I ever managed to sit and type approximately 6,000,000 words – actually at least twice that because every book usually ends up getting written twice after proofreading. Add to that edits – and the books I wrote that did not get published – and all the articles I have written for magazines and on and on – and I’ve probably penned a good 10,000,000 words.

I can actually remember just about every hero and heroine I ever wrote about. They were all very real for me, which I think is the #1 key to a good book. I lived with them, I WAS them. I truly think that in another life I was a pioneer, maybe an Indian woman. Something has drawn me to the West and the mountains almost my whole life, yet I’ve spent these 66 years right here in Michigan. Thank God I have been privileged to travel west for the past 30 years or so. My husband and I go there every year – at first just as vacations – now we own a condo in Las Vegas where we live for a couple of months every winter, and we still often take summer trips west.

It has been a long journey. I think it actually began in my teens, when I watched so many westerns on TV and most movies were westerns. I loved them. The first book I read that really got me going on the subject was A LANTERN IN HER HAND by Bess Streeter Aldrich. I cannot even think about that book without crying. What a fabulous story, depicting the loneliness of a woman going with her husband to live on the western plains back when there were no neighbors to visit with, no doctors to help deliver babies – when winters were long and dark and lonely – when women gave up their own personal dreams to support their husbands and children.

The book that truly made me want to write was THE PROUD BREED by Celeste deBlasis. What a love story! It’s a generational saga about the settling of California. The heroine was a high-born Spanish woman – the hero a white American citizen. Fabulous story – great historical story-telling. I recommend both books for anyone who wants to read the “real west.” Then along came Louis L’Amour, and I knew his men were the kind I wanted for my heroes. Usually when turned into movies his men were played by Tom Sellek, Robert DuVall, Sam Elliot and the like. Then there was that famous Clint Eastwood “squint,” and the big, blustery John Wayne. I guess I like writing the Old West because men could be men without worrying about going to jail and being sued for a quick punch to the jaw. There is something about a rugged cowboy standing there tall and lean with a gun on his hip and a cigarette in his mouth that just turns me on. Remember those old Marlborough commercials with Tom Sellek? That’s what started his career.

Well, this turned into quite an article, when all I meant to do was a little musing for a short Facebook entry or a short blog. I’ve never been able to keep it short. I tried short stories once for magazines. Couldn’t do it. Every idea turned into a full novel. I’ve written a couple of anthologies, but every time I finished one I thought about how that could have become a full book. And no matter who my characters were, I hated leaving them at the end of a story, which is why I wrote a 7-book series and have written several trilogies.

I don’t know where it all came from, but the stories poured out of my brain almost faster than I could type. Whenever I would finish a book I would feel beaten up and stomped on. I would literally ache. And then I would turn right around and start another story. For a while I was selling 2 – 5 books a year and making great money. Those days are gone now. Writers don’t earn anywhere near what they are worth, but that’s food for a different “musing.”

For all you other writers out there, don’t give yourselves excuses for not being able to sit down and write at least a little bit every day. There ARE no excuses if you are born to write. You won’t need college or other special training. You just need to love your subject and to be a natural-born story-teller. If you do both those things and make time to write, you will succeed. I wish the best of luck to all of you.

How In Heck Does This Ding-Dang Thing-A-Ma-Jig Work? (A view of the techy world from older eyes.)

Recently, I saw the You Tube video of the grandparents trying to figure out how to use Skype, and it made me realize how much you “young ‘uns” out there (35 and younger) take all such things for granted. Yes, the video was funny, but I don’t think younger people realize how incredibly confusing the internet world can be for older people. In many ways, it’s not a laughing matter. Older people are truly and innocently being forced into a techy world that was unheard of only a few years ago. It’s kind of like speaking two languages. If you are born into a family that speaks two languages, it’s a snap. But when you’re an older person trying to learn a completely new language, it’s intimidating and often very difficult.

Our younger generation was born into the world of the internet. Now there are even computer-like toys that teach infants some of the basics. When older people like myself need to have something “fixed” on our computer or are confused about a certain program we have downloaded (or trying to download) we turn to our kids and even our grandkids to help us out. That can be embarrassing and even a bit humiliating to a perfectly smart, independent, and active older person who hates having to ask for help.

In this particular situation, it’s not like going from horse and buggy to the automobile. The change has taken place much faster than that, and the internet world of Facebook and Twitter and e-mail and texting and web sites and blogs and droids and i-phones that do absolutely everything keeps changing every day! I recently griped on Facebook about that very thing. I am tired of opening Facebook to find out it has changed yet again and now is intruding into my personal “space” to tell me what I should be looking at. Leave me alone, Facebook!! If there is something I want to find, I’ll go find it! Quit trying to get into my head!

Is that next? An apparatus that reads our thoughts? It wouldn’t surprise me. My point here is that younger people have to understand how confusing the “techy” world is to people my age. I am 66 and I’m not stupid. I worked as an executive secretary for years. I do the books for 2 corporations and have my own writing business. I am treasurer for two service organizations. I have had 57 novels published and have won writing awards. I give public speeches and conduct workshops. I feel a good 25 years younger than my age and like to think I look quite a bit younger, too. I have no physical or mental ailments. I’m not some doddering old gray-headed lady who can’t figure out how to open her computer. I’ve been using one for years. I’m on Facebook and Twitter and have a Blog and a Web site and use my e-mail and I have an i-4 Apple cell phone...yadda - yadda - yadda. But I am still a bit daunted by all that is happening with the internet world. I have often thought about how much more daunting it is for older people who are retired and still trying to learn all this stuff. I’ve been pretty much forced into it because of my many different jobs. For the bookkeeping I had to learn how to use Quick Books, and for my writing I have to stay up on all the avenues the internet presents for advertising myself.

I do remember my first computer. I cried and wanted to take it back because I thought I would never figure it out. That was probably 25 years ago! I wanted to go back to my trusty typewriter. It didn’t ask me questions like, “Are you sure you want to delete this?” Gosh, no! Will the computer explode if I do? That thing really intimidated me, and I wasn’t an old lady then! I also remember when my parents bought their first TV – with a screen about one square foot in size and with knobs you fiddled with when the picture kept flipping or the horizontal would get all screwy. You could adjust brightness and of course every time you wanted to change the channel you had to get up and go do it manually. No wonder we didn’t have as much of a weight problem back then. I remember our phone was on a party line – had to wait for a neighbor to get off the phone before we could use it. All phones had cords and manual dials and there was only one phone per household. There was no such thing as 911, and when my mom got sick the doctor came to the house. We didn’t have to take her out. I remember learning to drive on a stick shift. I remember that when we printed something it was on a big drum-like machine with purple ink that you cranked with your hand. I remember the first memory machine at the lawyer’s offices where I worked back in the 70’s – a HUGE contraption that took up half the office! Only one girl knew how to use it and we were in awe of her. That would automatically print out certain legal documents and all she had to do was fill in the blanks, but there were codes to learn and all kinds of hoops to jump through to do it right. I don’t remember what it was called, but it was some early form of a computer and it was big and noisy.

When I watch old black and white movies it really hits me how far we’ve come with telephones and television and airplanes and vehicles. I’m not so sure all of it is good, but in most ways it is. I will always remember my mother (now 90) saying that when they came out with bar codes for scanning prices it was the “work of the devil.” To me the scariest thing about the internet is that, unlike something in print, once you put your words and/or pictures “out there,” it’s there forever. You can never take it back. Anyone can go back and find it at any time. So I try to be careful with my comments on the internet. There is no eraser for texts or e-mails or any of the other forms of internet communication. Some people have learned that the hard way!!

This movement into a new century of communication has come fast and furious and changes every day. That’s not easy for people my age and older. I am still trying to figure out how it all works. How on earth can my text message that I send out amid millions and millions of other text messages get to the recipient, who might be 5000 miles away, in just a couple of seconds? How does that one little message travel through space and land on someone else’s phone that fast? In fact, how can ANYTHING just go into the air and land somewhere? And how did all that information, millions and millions of pages of info. on absolutely anything you want to know about, get into the sites where they are? Who did that, and when? You just go on the internet and type in anything – ANYTHING – and it will bring you zillions of answers. How can all the pages of practically every book ever printed now be found on the internet? Who scanned all that – and when?

I just want younger people to realize how astounding all of this is to older people and not laugh at them. They are NOT STUPID! They are proud and curious and want to enjoy this wonderful new way to communicate; but some of them are still remembering hand-dialed telephones and black and white TV’s and stick shifts. They come from an age when you could explain everything in black and white – an age when men fixed their own engines and women wrote letters by hand. They are accustomed to being able to understand how things work. Texting a message 3000 miles away in two seconds flat just doesn’t make sense to them. I guess you could compare it to teaching young people how to churn butter and milk a cow and make all their own clothes and make all their own meals and baked goods from scratch. It would be hard to learn those things when you’ve never done them before.

I don’t think of myself as old at all. I keep forgetting my age. I was reminded the other day when I was watching TV with my 10-year-old grandson. Someone mentioned a “Hi-fi.” He turned to me and asked “Grandma, what’s a hi-fi?” Boy, did I feel old! And no, I still haven’t learned how to use Skype on my new Dell laptop!

Cowboys and...Well, just Cowboys!

I’ve been watching the promos for the movie “Cowboys vs. Aliens.” Looks fun! Looks like the western town/cowboy part is really well portrayed, although I haven’t seen the movie yet. I can’t wait! I am hoping this movie will stir a renewed interest in the genre - more movies and books about America’s “Old West.” I am also furious with myself for not coming up with this idea for a book of my own – a modern-day twist to the theme and time period I love writing about – cowboys and the American West of the 1800’s.

No matter how you look at it, cowboys have always been popular. You can barely count the number of western movies that have been produced over the last 50 years, the biggest share of them in the 1950’s and 60’s. Lately, remakes of famous old standards like TRUE GRIT and 3:10 TO YUMA, have done well. Then there are the famous “big screen” favorites like DANCES WITH WOLVES and HOW THE WEST WAS WON – and of course there are the unforgettable Clint Eastwood “shooters.” My favorites are THE GUNS OF JOSIE WALES, PALE RIDER and TWO MULES FOR SISTER SARAH. Then there is the name known world wide for his western films – John Wayne. Actually, my favorite John Wayne movie is THE SHOOTIST – his very last film. It’s so touching to know that was the last movie he made before he died from cancer, when in the movie he was an old gunfighter – also dying from cancer. In the movie he went out of this life in the way only an old gunfighter should go – he “went down shooting.” I, of course, cried my eyes out.

TV got into the act during the popularity of the mini-series with LONESOME DOVE and CENTENNIAL. And of course few people are unfamiliar with the numerous TV half-hour and hour-long westerns like HAVE GUN/WILL TRAVEL and GUNSMOKE, the most famous of them all. I sure hated to read about the passing of James Arness, but he will live on forever in the form of Marshal Matt Dillon.

As far as books, few authors helped keep the genre alive like Will Henry and Louis L’Amour did. Dee Brown did a fabulous job of enlightening readers to the truth about the gradual demise of the American Indian way of life in his book BURY MY HEART AT WOUNDED KNEE.

There is something about the American western frontier that fascinates, something about those pioneers that makes us proud and makes us want to keep the “right to bear arms.” We are even fascinated and in a strange way “proud” of our infamous outlaws, like Jesse James and Butch Cassidy. Even more fascinating is that there was a very fine line back then between outlaw and lawman. There were those who couldn’t say which Wyatt Earp and his brothers were … good? Or bad? How many books have you read, or movies have you watched, in which the “bad guy” was really good at heart?

Ah, yes, the American cowboy … restless, wild, roving, hard-drinking, ready for a fist fight, quick with a gun, tough, brave, rough looking yet handsome – even those who weren’t all that good looking were handsome in their own way when they wore those great hats and smoked that cheroot and stood their ground. I think the western hero has remained popular because we all identify with some part of their personality … perhaps we all daydream that we could be that rugged, that brave, that quick with a gun, that much in charge of our lives and ultimately that “free” to be whoever we want to be … that much “in control” of our own destinies and “unchained” from rules and responsibilities.

I truly believe there is a little bit of “cowboy” in all of us … and so I will keep writing books about men like that and the equally brave and tough women it took to keep up with them … or tame them … whichever they were brave enough to try. I love the American West, the American cowboy, and the American dreams they represented. It was an era when there were still frontiers to conquer, still places where man had never stepped, still gold and silver and oil to be found, still free land as long as you were willing to homestead that land, still endless horizons with no skyscrapers or smokestacks to mar the landscape. It’s the “cowboy” in Americans that makes them dare to try new ventures, dare to leave the familiar and take a new job or start their own business or move to a completely new area of the country. There is a little bit of “cowboy” in our armed forces, in that devil-may-care attitude of our veterans who fought world wars, in those who dared travel into space, in a boxer, a football player, a race car driver, even a reckless investor who risks it all on a hunch. It’s the American spirit, and a whole lot of that spirit can be identified as the “cowboy” in us. If you have a dream, if there is something you want to try but have put it off, if you want to stand up for yourself but are afraid to, if you have a good idea but haven’t put it out there into the real world, you need to “cowboy up!” Think like a cowboy, and you might be surprised where it can take you! I hope to keep that kind of spirit alive in my writing … and even though I’m told western history isn’t popular right now, I intend to “cowboy up” and keep writing what I love, because what goes around, comes around. Cowboys have always been a favorite, and although that genre isn’t the most popular right now, it will come back, and I’ll be ready!