Whenever I start a new book, my natural inclination is to set it in a Cowboy town—be it in Texas or from my Wyoming series, I like something small, comfortable…homey. Places where the people all know each other’s business—good, bad and whispered about. The atmosphere that instills trust and even a little suffocation. I know that may seem at odds, but really it’s just like a regular family. I mean, how many times have you wanted to run screaming from your home (I have four sons between 9 and 16—so maybe that’s just me & a “right now” phase… ) to then later not being able to get home fast enough smoosh those little faces in hugs. To me that’s what a small-ish town does in a story. Makes you run the family-feeling gamut because really, it’s its own character.

Even when I set a book in something that’s not a small town, it’s still a lesser-suburbs of a Dallas or Fort Worth—I do like the hustle and bustle of some place like Dallas or even bigger New York, but place like that (to me) are for shopping trips and date night. (and yes, I tend to write most of my stories in or around the D/FW area).

I have an idea for a new book—it’s been rolling around in my head for a little while. I know what I want the hero and heroine to be like and maybe a little bit of the storyline. Right now, I am just trying to figure out where to place the story. First thoughts were another fictional cowboy town—the catch is, my here is a Jersey boy born and raised—I have his name and what he looks like cemented in my head and he is what he is. And I know I want my heroine to be a small-town, peaches and cream kind of girl. I like the back and forth that can and will happen. As I said my natural inclination is to pop them in rustic Texas somewhere—but the trick is to make it convincing as to “why” my hero is so far from home… in a homey town that would surely drive him nuts inside an hour of stepping out in the dirt road.

To me, that’s what fun about writing, setting your people in places they might not normally get to visit—much less maybe get stranded in . So I will set to writing my next homey adventure with my Jersey boy and his the Little Miss Small Town Queen.