You write exceptionally accurate historical novels, due in part to
your interest and background in scholarly research into the past. Do you
usually start from having an idea for a story, then locate the era? Or do you
want to write in a specific time period, then find the story? (Or do they
arrive together?) Tell us a little about your process for determining the right
historical "place" for your work.
I usually have a historical event in mind, and then I figure out how
to create a story using those events. I’ve written a number of books about the
Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars, and then to subdivide that further,
about surgeons in the Royal Navy. Like all good historical fiction novelists, I
never want to waste all that painstaking research by only writing one book on
the subject. I have a fine library on the Royal Navy and on surgical practices
of the late 18th, early 19th centuries. I’ll by darned
use that research several times. I also have a highly competitive nature, one
that challenges me to tease out historical facts from obscure events and make
them interesting.
It’s certainly my natural interest in a topic that fuels my story
ideas. My Spanish Brand series has come out of a real fondness for Southwest
border history that I can trace back to my undergraduate college years. In
fact, I came across the idea of writing about a juez de campo (brand inspector) from a footnote – and a cryptic one
at that – in a textbook. Then the writer in me immediately started thinking of
where would be the most dangerous place in all of North America for a brand
inspector with a ranch of his own to live. The answer of course, was
Comanchería, that area where the Comanches ruled in New Mexico and West Texas
for 250+ years. So then there must be Comanches, and so on, and that is how a
story begins.
You have held an array of different jobs, from professor to park
ranger. How has your work life informed and impacted your writing life?
I suspect my life as a writer has always been tied in with my
employment. Working as a ranger at some interesting historic sites has deepened
my love for and interest in the tumultuous history of our nation. I learned to
treat history with great respect, and present it in such a way that visitors
will leave the site with a deeper appreciation of their own. That’s all I try
to do when I write. Everything I do,
almost down to grocery lists (well maybe not), impacts the writerly me.
Historians are trained to be observers; so should novelists be. An
understanding of human nature is essential to be a good historian and a good
novelist. Working as a journalist taught me to avoid purple prose and strive
for simplicity. Contract research honed some skills where I still need work.
Medical writing for a hospital and a hospice made me a danger to myself!
You have been published through different publishers, and have
published a remarkable 34 novels! How has your experience differed from
publisher to publisher? What advice do you have for new authors starting out as
they look for a home for their work?
Hard questions! Some publishers “get it,” and others don’t. I
enjoyed writing for Signet, where I began my writing career, after a series of
short stories that I shopped around myself. Problem was, I became typecast as a
writer of Regencies only, which was never my major interest. Oh, it wasn’t a
bad thing, but I’ve had to work hard to prove to some publishers that there is
far more to me than just Regencies. Some publishers are convinced that their
way in the only way, and their titles, however inane, are the only ones.
Happily, I am now writing for two publishers who have told me, “We will take
anything you write.” Music to my ears, yes, but underneath, I know they want more
Regencies… And I oblige, but not for every novel.
My novel due out in November, Doing
No Harm, is a Regency, but a Regency done my way. (FACT: I almost never
read historical romance, so no writers have every influenced me that way. I go
my own way. Let others follow, if they wish.) I’ve become well-known as a
writer of Regencies about ordinary people. Two reasons for that: I know a lot
of ordinary people, and I am far too skeptical historically to imagine an
England cluttered with so many lords and ladies. In Doing No Harm, my hero is a surgeon in the Royal Navy up through
the ranks, recently retired, who yearns for a medical practice in a quiet
country town where nothing ever happens. Well, hardly anything. The larger
picture is a look at the atrocity of the Highland Clearances in Scotland.
I’m wandering here. Sorry. My advice to new authors is to read good
books, and read about novels set in places and times that interest them. When a
new novelist can identify with a particular publishing house that seems to
suit, he or she should write the manuscript, then write a fabulous query letter
and see what happens. An agent is helpful in this process.
I would resist the urge to self-publish. That hardly ever turns out
really well, and all the nuts and bolts with publishing take away time from
writing, and time from improving one’s craft. I try to learn from every book I
write.
Check Back Nov 15th for Part II
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