Until recently, I lived in the UK having gone to get my M.A. and ended up getting an MRS as well. During this time, family vacations were often on guest ranches in the American West, where my daughter and I have clocked up some 20+ ranches to date. In 2008, I returned to my hometown, NYC, but I frequently exchange the canyons of city streets for the wide open spaces of the West, and live part-year in Wyoming. I guess my love of horses, ranches, rodeo, and just about anything else western, is reflected in my writing.
What’s your guilty writing procrastination secret?
Just about anything, unfortunately! Telephone call, outside editing work, time to walk, have to work out, meals dragged on, need to go into town—you name it. I work best under pressure, or so I keep telling myself.
What does your writing space look like?
How do you come up with the titles of your books?
All sorts of ways. I had a Christmas story in an anthology and the title A Christmas Carol(e) came to me and I wrote the story around that title—with the heroine’s name Carole of course. Loveland had another title the editor rejected, and so it was named after where the story is set. Dances of the Heart was originally called Texas Two-step, but there are so many books with that title I decided to throw that out. With most of my other books, the title came after or as I wrote them, although with Always on My Mind it was sort of a light bulb moment. Originally, I had titled it Ring of Fire, after the Johnny Cash song, but then as I was writing one day I realized what was happening to the two characters and after that, it was a no-brainer.
Do you work with an outline or just write?
I’m a true pantser. I may scribble notes to myself with ideas, but basically it’s all the story unfolding in my head. I did do an outline for Loveland and an earlier book that was never published (the shoe box book most of us have under the bed…) but only because the stories were fully formed before I wrote them.
What do you enjoy doing when you’re not writing?
Travel. Having lived in Europe I really have covered most of it (I think all but 3 countries last time I worked it out). I’ve also traveled a lot in Africa and lived in Nigeria for a time, and I’ve traveled fairly extensively through Latin America. So now I’m covering the USA and have done pretty well, chalking up 43 states at last count.
Where did the inspiration for your current story come from?
There’s a well-known local dancehall near my home in Wilson, WY, and apparently, back in the ‘70s, there was quite a bust-up between the local ranchers and some hippies who came in. I started to think about this, how you couldn’t really get two more disparate groups of people: ranchers who are maybe 3rd, 4th, 5th generation working their land, living their dawn to dusk lives, and a bunch of free-wheeling hippies, smoking pot, taking each day as it comes with no plan. So it occurred to me, what if…?
Tell us more about your current release.
I think I develop two related ideas throughout this book. One is how we don’t always say what we mean or feel, how we keep things bottled up for fear of making a fool of ourselves, or fear of hurting someone, or we just plain keep things inside. We’d like to say some things but just don’t, and that can lead to all sorts of misunderstandings and problems. The other idea, which is related to that, is the not getting in touch with someone. You think of them—and they may be thinking of you without you knowing it—but neither of you makes a move due to whatever reason: time passed, you fear the results of the contact, he/she may think you a fool, whatever. That also leads to unresolved issues. Facebook has changed a lot of this—people now search long lost pals all the time, but back in the 70s it was very different.
What books might we find on your bedside table?
I have subscriptions to True West, Cowboys & Indians, and Western Horseman, and read them pretty much cover to cover. There’s a very long TBR list on my kindle but in paper, waiting for me to bend the spine, is Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Underground Railroad, and Olga Tokarczuk’s Nobel Prize winning Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead. I do read some romance!
Describe yourself in three words.
Inquisitive, nosy, and day-dreamy.
What can we look forward to with your upcoming or next writing project?
I have an historical western that is resting at the moment before I send it off. As usual, it takes place mostly in Wyoming but it does roam back east and down to Colorado as well.
Where can we find you and your books online?
http://andreadowning.com
https://www.facebook.com/writerAndreaDowning
https://twitter.com/AndiDowning
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6446229.Andrea_Downing
http://www.amazon.com/Andrea-Downing/e/B008MQ0NXS/
https://www.bookbub.com/profile/andrea-downing
https://www.pinterest.com/andidowning/andreas-roundup/
https://www.instagram.com/andidowning/?hl=en
https://www.bookbub.com/profile/andrea-downing
Always On My Mind
Love is a word we need to say.
1972 - Vietnam, the pill, upheaval, hippies. Wyoming rancher Cooper Byrnes, deeply attached to the land and his way of life, surprises everyone when he falls for vagabond hippie Cassie Halliday. Fascinated and baffled, he cannot comprehend his attraction—or say the words she wants to hear.
Cassie finds Coop intriguingly different. As she keeps house for him and warms his bed at night, she admits to herself she loves him but she misinterprets Coop's inability to express his feelings.
Parted, each continues to think of the other, but how can either of them reach out to say, "You were 'always on my mind'?"
Always On My Mind - Available 02.19.2020
https://www.amazon.com/Always-My-Mind-Andrea-Downing-ebook/dp/B082S8TQD1/
Check out our 5 Star book review of Always On My Mind
http://stillmomentsezine.blogspot.com/2020/01/between-pages-always-on-my-mind.html
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