Susan Payne has a Western Romance for Us

Susan Payne is back with a newly released romance set in the Old West and more about her writing life. Her Regency Christmas Anthology was a Zara West Reader’s Club giveaway.

Welcome, Susan. Glad to have you back.

What do you do when you are not writing? 

I used to do a lot of things although I often kept stories going in my head while doing them.  I raised five children and enjoyed all the things that went along with that.  Scouts, clubs, dance, soccer – you know. Dinner was always on the table at six o’clock every night except Holidays. Those we spent as an enlarged family with friends and relations.  I cooked and hosted because it is what my mother taught me. 

I still cook as if forty were showing up for a meal – probably why I write about cooking large meals in my books. Over a camp fire or wood burning stove. My grandmother followed by her daughter used one since my childhood.  It comes natural for me to put them in my books.  The way they sound, smell and feel reminds me of her and her strengths.

Is there an event in your life that affected you as a writer?

I remember staying with my grandmother for days at a time. She lived on a farm she and my grandfather, with help of other family members, built on the 90 acres her parents gave them to lure her home after she was married. She married her brother’s friend who had come home with him from the Navy. He was from Pennsylvania and an engineer making eye glasses – frames and all. When the war was over, he came back and asked her to marry him but took her home with him for about a year. 

She missed her family and Michigan so he brought her back.  He wasn’t a farmer and always had jobs in factories, but she ran the farm and animals.  She raised five children – four boys and one daughter. Was on the schoolboard and housed the teacher every year making sure her children got extra homework. Our Christmas presents always included at least one book.  She usually had read them before buying ours. She was a wonder, and I find my characters doing or saying something I know she had done dozens of times.  A real pioneer woman.

How did you choose the genre you write in? 

I don’t think I chose it as it chooses me.  Anything from the past would suit me.  I often think back to cavemen and try to figure out how they managed.  Not much of a plot since it was pretty much subsistence living, but someone had to figure out how to catch fish and dry them for winter use. Someone had to decide to make drawings on the wall to show next generations how to drive the herd over the cliffs and then collect the carcasses.  It wouldn’t be an extended story unless they used more words than I believe they had back then.  Hmmm, maybe I’ll give it a try.  I think love is as old as man so I have a shot….   

How much research do you do for each book? 

I always have been inspired by the characters that show up in my head.  I have so much trivia I used to be teased about it like Sheldon in the television show, Big Bang.  You know, segue “Do you know why we clink glasses together when we make a toast?” I have a million useless information bits to share with the world.  I do research some things to make sure certain words were used at the time I’m writing about. Learn about the clothing or foods available to them. Sometimes I surprise myself at how much I can pull from memory and then verify before I put it into a story.  Sometimes I get carried away and read more than I need to, but end up using the info in other stories.  I love historical times and often find myself reading similar genres.

What project will you be working on now or what book will be next? 

I have several works-in-progress as usual.  I put them into the computer and number them, but don’t write them in order.  Depends on who shows up in my mind demanding to be written about next.  I’ll find a conversation going in my mind and need to figure out who is speaking – to me or to one another.  Most often to one another.  As if I were interrupting a private conversation, but I feel if they wanted it kept private then they shouldn’t be in my head in the first place.  Right? I put it down, sometimes adding to others already written down between the two.  It will get to be several thousand words before I feel a strong enough pull to write it up and send it on its way.

Can you tell us about any other upcoming books, series, or writing plans?

I will finish out this year with one more novel.  Blind Faith, a Regency.  I would like to put together another anthology, I liked finding the right stories to work with one another. I also am going into a slightly different arena by publishing short stories readers can download to their phones, etc.  A Woman of His Dreams and How to Return a Mail Order Bride will be out early 2021 as eBooks. Something to read while waiting in the dentist office or travelling. I like shorter works myself so that I can get them finished and move on to my own work. I always leave my readers (and characters) with a happy-ever-after and the feeling they have new friends. 

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Three Sisters by Susan Payne

What does a Federal Marshall, his deputy and a Pinkerton have in common?  How about three lovely young women running from something?

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Available from AMAZON

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Learn more about Susan Payne

  

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Are you a fan of Western romances? Susan Payne would love to hear from you. Post a comment below.