Why I Write Cowboys

I remember the cold. Horses breathing into it before daylight, their breath hanging in a dark barn. Coffee steam rising before daylight. Miles of highway between ranches. Dust over a rodeo lot.

Those details stayed with me after I left, which I didn’t expect. At the time, the work was just the work. Hard and repetitive. I fed the horses, patched the fence, loaded the stock, made the drive. I fell asleep and got up and did it again.

I write M/M romance about cowboys. I spent my high school and college years on ranches in Wyoming and Montana, and I followed the rodeo circuit for a few years after. That life shaped the stories I eventually wanted to write. Those years are what I keep writing toward.

What Stayed With Me

The men I worked beside were not one thing. Some were generous. Others were hard to be around. A few were both. They came from different places with different reasons for being there. What they had in common was a habit of letting their actions do the talking.

I noticed that early on. A man would fix a gate that wasn’t his without a word about it. A thermos got filled before anyone asked. Someone would take over a hard job so another man could rest, and never mention it. Another hand would stay close when a person clearly needed company, never saying why. Over time I learned to read those gestures. They told me more than conversation ever did.

I wanted to write about that. Not the image of the cowboy that gets passed around in movies and magazines, but the actual person. Tired and complicated and private. Capable of tenderness he would never admit to and often unsure how to handle it.

Why Romance

I chose romance because it let me put these men at the center of a story and explore what happens when wanting something doesn’t fade. When a man can’t write it off as exhaustion or loneliness and has to decide what to do with it. That question interested me more than any other.

The men in my books don’t fall in love easily. The attraction builds through shared work and daily proximity. Words come later, if they come at all. Each story centers on what it takes to stay after love has made leaving more complicated.

The Stories I Write

My books are slow burn M/M cowboy romance set in ranch and rodeo country. Rodeo Clown was the story I first wanted to write, but I didn’t have Scott Danner’s voice yet. I wrote the prequel novellas first to find him. They follow him from eighteen to twenty-five as he finds his voice, his work, and the men who matter along the way.

This blog will include pieces about the books, the characters, the writing process, and the ranching and rodeo experiences that feed the fiction. I’m glad you’re here.

Going Back

I miss that life more than I expected to.

Writing lets me return to those years with an understanding I didn’t have then. Back then, I noticed what men did. Writing gave me a way to understand what I had seen.

Writing these books is my way of going back.