The Joy and Headache of Creating A Brand New Series

LOVE WITH AN IMPERFECT COWBOY

The following is the story line for Love With An Imperfect Cowboy, Book One of my new Lone Star Dynasty series that will be published in April:

He’s a decorated soldier/rancher with a tragic past. She’s a runaway bride. How was she to know that seeking refuge in the wrong bar after getting lost in a Texas storm could be so dangerous…or so sexy?

So—how did this story come to be?

I guess the most-frequently-asked question writers get is where do you get your ideas? I’ll start there.

For me ideas are sort of like pieces in a quilt. A writer has a lot of ideas that don’t seem to logically fit together until she starts playing with them and forming them into a new emotional pattern.

I grew up playing cowboys and Indians with my little brother. I rode horses with my cousins and performed in rodeos when I went to camp. My husband is an ex-vet, who was wounded in Viet Nam. I talked to the son of one of my friends who served as a colonel in the army in the Middle East.

Two of my cousins live on ranches and are always sharing stories about their cantankerous horses and the mischief they get up to. I have a friend who lives in the Upper West Side of New York, and she’s always telling me about the different neighborhoods near her.

I live in South Texas and frequently go to a large, legendary ranch to write. While there I hang out with cattle, migrating birds, rattlesnakes, deer, raccoons, killer bees, buzzards, javelina and all sorts of amazing wildlife.

The ranch is situated in a spot about ninety miles north of Mexico where lots of undocumented immigrants travel north to avoid the major highway, and I’ve come across these people on my walks. On the ranch and in the nearby town, everybody knows everybody on a first name basis.

When I began this story, I meant to write a 10,000 word Christmas short story, but the story kept getting more complicated and Christmas came and went. While writing it, I stopped and wrote two thirds of the heroine’s sister’s story, which will be book two. Then I came back and started writing on book one again. I actually wrote book four first. Then I wrote two thirds of book three. Then I began book one and dived into book two, and have just now completed book one. So—writing the series has been a messy process.

I fell in love with the characters of this book and very much wanted them to find happiness together.

Ann

                 

     LOVE WITH AN IMPERFECT COWBOY

Re-visioning An Old Series

     As a writer I have always loved the moment when a new idea strikes me and begins to bloom in my creative soul. Telling a new story is always such an exciting journey. There are frustrations along the way, of course, but exhilaration always follows the headaches when I see a way to resolve whatever problem seems insurmountable.

     I never ever wanted to self-publish because I knew that if I did so, I wouldn’t have nearly enough time to write. That has certainly proved to be true. But rereading and reworking old stories has been an enjoyable and enriching process.  Because every story is a part of who I am at the moment I wrote it, revisiting these stories has been a trip back in time. I can’t help remembering the event in my life that inspired a plot twist or a character trait and I find it enlightening to reflect on those events and what they meant to me then from a more mature perspective.

     Also—I feel a responsibility to bring my story children alive for all those e-readers who missed these books when they were originally published. 

Texas: Children of Destiny series

     I once received a fan letter begging me to republish my Children of Destiny series (now Texas: Children of Destiny). Many of her friends had signed this letter at the bottom. I was moved, but powerless at that time to get these stories republished.  Now I get to do this in the hopes that these characters will go out into the world and make new friends for me.

     I had to write PASSION’S CHILD (the first book) over three times before my editor was satisfied, and when I sent it to New York for the final time, I’m afraid I had few negative feelings about it. Later after it was published, I received a fan letter from a woman who was at MD Anderson Hospital in Houston sitting beside her younger brother, who was dying of cancer. She said that the only moments of joy she’d had during this ordeal was reading about Triple, the heroine’s son in my book. She said Triple’s antics made her laugh. I burst into tears and was so grateful to her for writing that to me since the book had literally drained me emotionally. She made me feel that the effort it took me was worth all the headaches if my character comforted another human being in such terrible distress.

Destiny's Child by Ann Major

     She made me think of all the times I have turned to stories during times of heartbreak when I needed a friend’s shoulder to cry on—but it was the middle of the night and I didn’t want to bother a friend, who’d already suffered enough tears from me.

     Even if I can’t work on new projects as much as I want to right now, it has been an unexpected thrill to breath new life into my older stories.

     Also—I feel a responsibility to bring my story children alive for all e-readers who missed these books when they were originally published.

     I once received a fan letter begging me to republish my Children of Destiny series (now Texas: Children of Destiny). Many of her friends had signed this letter at the bottom. I was moved, but powerless at that time to get these stories republished.  Now I get to do this in the hopes that these characters will go out into the world and make new friends for me.

Passion's Child by Ann Major

     I had to write PASSION’S CHILD (the first book) over three times before my editor was satisfied, and when I sent it to New York for the final time, I’m afraid I had few negative feelings about it. Later after it was published, I received a fan letter from a woman who was at MD Anderson Hospital in Houston sitting beside her younger brother, who was dying of cancer. She said that the only moments of joy she’d had during this ordeal was reading about Triple, the heroine’s son in my book. She said Triple’s antics made her laugh. I burst into tears and was so grateful to her for writing that to me since the book had literally drained me emotionally. She made me feel that the effort it took me was worth all the headaches if my character comforted another human being in such terrible distress.

     She made me think of all the times I have turned to stories during times of heartbreak when I needed a friend’s shoulder to cry on—but it was the middle of the night and I didn’t want to bother a friend, who’d already suffered enough tears from me.

     Even if I can’t work on new projects as much as I want to right now, it has been an unexpected thrill to breath new life into my older stories.