Meet Devon McKay

Wednesday is guest day at The Writing Corner and today we have joining us new author, Devon McKay, whose new book Cowboy on the Run has just been released for Kindle by The Wild Rose Press.

Devon, tell me a little of your writing journey? How did you get started? Did you always want to be a writer?

Actually, I wanted to work with animals. But, I’ve always been a story teller. Although, it had to be my version of the story. Even as a child I can remember reinventing the ending of classic bedtime stories with my own rendition of happily ever after. As far as the starting of my writing career, I always wrote. As a matter of fact, I can remember several short stories in the early stages of my writing career. None worth mentioning, unless I count my 4^th grade book The Cat Did It! To this day, just the thought of the story turns back time and makes me laugh like a silly nine year old! It wasn’t until I took a creative writing course in high school with an insanely inspiring teacher that I felt as if I actually had a future in writing.

 On your webpage you say you see romance in everything you see. Do you find yourself composing stories in your head of some of those things – like old buildings or lonely roads?

Absolutely! What could possibly be more romantic than an old building or a lonely road? Oh…the possibilities are endless! I think everything, and I do mean everything, has a story.

 Who are some of your favorite authors in your genre?

I have so many. Mary Balough, Lisa Kleypas, Julie Garwood, Jude Deveraux, Julia Quinn, Eloisa James, and several of the authors writing for The Wild Rose Press just to name a few. Honestly, the list goes on and on.

 Why did you choose that particular genre?

That’s easy. I’m a hopeless romantic. I’ve always been intrigued with the ups and downs of relationships and why people do the things they do when they are in love. Humans are a funny species…most of the time the turmoil is self-inflicted and it’s a bumpy ride. However, the outcome is always worth it. I’m a happy ending kind of gal.

 Your first book, Cowboy on the Run, has just come out. What gave you the idea for this story?

I got the idea from a verse in a song by Lady Gaga. “I’m not leaving here without you.” At one point, my hero actually used it in my book. The line got stuck in my head and I couldn’t make it go away. It’s quite a statement.  [ID1]  

Tell us a little about this book and what made you want to write it?

First love, lost love and two little secrets a mother can no longer hide. How could I not write it? I couldn’t help myself. Once I got the idea in my head, I simply couldn’t stop. Cowboy on the Run is about life and families. A modern twist on the knight in shining armor rescuing a damsel in distress. In this case, it’s more like a tarnished shell. And the damsel? Not so distressed. Although, I have to admit, a man coming back to reclaim his first and only love and refusing to take no for an answer certainly makes my knees weak. Finding out he’s a father to a twin boy and girl gives the story an interesting twist.

 What did you like best about your hero?

He’s flawed. There is no doubt about it, the man is screwed up. Oh sure, he’s sexy as hell with steely blue eyes and a devil may care attitude, but he comes with baggage. Raised singlehandedly by an abusive, alcoholic father, Nate learned at an early age how easy it was to run from problems. It takes him a while, but he figures out running isn’t the solution. Even with this newly found insight, he’s far from perfect. And the itch to run never goes away. It is always just below the surface.

What about your heroine?

Jessie has grit. Endurance. No matter what knocks her down, she’s able to somehow pick herself up and face the world again. Although, such a hammering doesn’t come without a price. She’s extremely guarded. In fact there’s very few people she does trust, defending her family with the fierceness of a lioness. Whereas Nate struggles with the urge to run, Jessie is the opposite – stubbornly fighting until the bitter end. She’s resilient. However, beyond her tough exterior, lies a vulnerable girl harboring a broken heart.

 What are you working on now?

I’m always working on something. I can’t go an entire night without snippets of new ideas for novels forming in my head and keeping me awake. Often times I am up at 4 am jotting down notes. It drives my husband crazy. I recently submitted a story to The Wild Rose Press about an overly ambitious advertising executive making a travel brochure on Alaska and the territorial Alaskan who plans on making her endeavor anything but easy. Fingers crossed my editor enjoys the story as much as I did writing it.

 What genre would you like to write if you had the time to research?

I’m toying with writing a crime novel and have written several short horror stories, but I like romance. I always return to the love stories. I think I might try my hand at a historical western. I can’t seem to stay away from those cowboys for too long.

 This is your first book with The Wild Rose Press, any advice to beginning writers?

Keep writing. Never give up the dream. Write a great book and submit it to The Wild Rose Press. TWRP is absolutely amazing!

 Is there anything else you would like reader to know about Cowboy on the Run?

My book is about family. Oh, there’s plenty of romance and I can’t say enough about the turbulent steamy affair between Nate and Jessie, but there is so much more to the story. There’s the big secret Jessie’s kept from Nate. The children. On opposite ends of the spectrum they are both charming and endearing, yet adventurous and impulsive. Not to mention the rest of Jessie’s family who are just as protective as she is. And did I forget to mention a villain? Yes, every great story must have an evil, untrusting sort lurking around in the background and up to no good. I don’t want to give away too much. Just a taste, so you will read the book.

Thank you so much for having me Rebecca. I had no idea that being a blog guest could be so much fun! We have something in common. Your book – Dead Man’s Rules is coming out at the same time as mine. Now that’s exciting! And I can’t wait to read it!

Thank you, Devon and good luck with Cowboy on The Run.

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Setting the Story Stage

When I am asked where I get my story ideas, I never have a set answer. Having worked in TV news for many, many years I have always been an avid news follower so news stories have always gotten my interest. I take an interesting story and play what if as I develop characters.

But people too can catch my interest, either with a story of something that happened to them or someone they knew and then I begin considering how to twist it into something else.

But my main source of ideas seems to be places. A location grabs my interest and I want to set a story there. From the first moment I set foot in an old abandoned Victorian house when I was in grade school and thought of a story I became hooked on writing about locations.   

My first book, Love on Deck, was based on my spending time at a baseball Spring Training camp. I’ve often told the story of how a walk on the Vancouver Sea Wall gave me the idea for my book, Deadly Messages.

  And that brings me to my latest romantic suspense novel, Dead Man’s Rules, just released on Kindle. This book was based on another of those scary trips into the unknown with a bunch of friends. We were scoping out an old company store that was said to have bloody handprint on the wall. No one knew where it came from or how it got there. It was spooky, even if it was barely visible, but it got me to thinking…  Before long I concocted the tale of Marco Gonzales, a dying man with plenty of secrets and a reporter who wants to find out the truth about his violent end.  

It turned out I couldn’t tell the whole story in just one book,  because I fell in love with the little town I created and I found new characters with their own stories to tell.  So far I have written one book and parts of two others set in the little town I made up of Rio Rojo, NM

Setting plays a critical part in this story – not just from the standpoint of the old dance hall (which is what I turned the company store into). And I find it plays a big role in all my stories, whether it’s a spooky old house (like Red Fern Manor in Shadows from the Past) or a sunny baseball field.

But writing a good setting can be a challenge. Sometimes I think you need to be at a location, but I also think you need to pay attention to any location you visit. Any place can be a setting for  your next book. When I was writing Dead Man, I drew on my roots in a small town, remembering the old drug store with its soda fountain, remembering how you could walk from one end to the next and back in a little more than an hour, which shows you how fast you can drive through it. And I called to mind what you might see as you drove through it as well as the houses in the better part of town and in the  more rundown sections and how close they all were. I also recalled the people you might meet in that town, the friendly drug store owner, the grocery store owner who remembered your name.

What I have done over the years is not just bring all my memories back to my stories though, when I travel, I keep future stories in mind. A drive through the mountains means inhaling the mountain air for its particular bite or even a walk on a Denver street means soaking up all the sights, sounds and smells around me so that next time I sit down to write about a city street I can conjure that up. Sitting in Los Angeles traffic not too long ago had me thinking about my next book, Blues at 11, as did a visit to the beach and one of my favorite restaurants there.

Any place you visit can turn into a scene setter in one of your books. Pay attention next time you visit… well anywhere! It could become a location for your next book. By the way, that old company store is still standing though you can't get into it these days and my last visit there to take pictures prompted a whole new round of different story ideas.

 

 

Getting off to A Late Start

The year 2014 is barely underway and I already feel like I’m way behind. February is already looming and I haven’t even finished my list of New Year’s resolutions that I started at the end of December. I set lots of great goals for the year but lost them within the first week.


Yesterday I found all my charts I’d started last month with everything I was going to accomplish this year and realized nothing was filled in. So now I am facing the second month of the year without having accomplished my first month’s goals.

Oh well, it is never too late to start and that’s what I am doing now. One of my goals this year is to be more constant with my blogs. Why? Well, I find that blogging, like teaching, helps me as a writer too. Here are a few points to consider:


Any sort of writing can lead to more writing.  What I find is that for me any sort of writing can be helpful because it gets me in the writing mood. It makes me sit down at the computer keyboard and start to put words together. Before long, even if I am writing something nonfiction, I start thinking about my characters and my stories and what I want to say next.

Blogging can make me do research at times. If I am working on a blog about writing, I find myself more apt to pick up one of my many writing books and look through it for  inspiration or ideas.  Usually I end up finding things I can apply to my own work or ideas I can incorporate into my classes.

Blogging has also introduced me to new authors and new genres. In the past I have had guest authors at my blogs or appeared as a guest on other author’s blogs. To do that I have had to research those authors and in reading over their blogs I’ve found some great books I didn’t realize were out there.  I also found inspiration to work on my new historical novel and just yesterday I read a blog on writing history and science fiction and why they are similar. It made me think and gave me some ideas for the future.

Blogging lets me get things off my chest and my mind. We all get frustrated in our writing at times and blogging about something that irritates me allows me to discuss those things and move on.

Blogging also allows me to express excitement too. It lets me share conferences or events I’ve attended where I learn things or discovered new ideas about writing. Again, that can lead to increased production on my own fiction. 

So now I’ve finished step one. I am going to work more on my blogs – look for The Writing Corner on Wednesday and my Champagne Daze celebrations on Friday. This Wednesday I will be blogging at Savvy Authors on how to even out the writing roller coaster.


Starting next week I will also be doing a Write That Novel blog on Monday. It’s Kindle release day for my Dead Man’s Rules suspense book and I’ll be writing about why I enjoy working with a small publisher, The Wild Rose Press.