INTERVIEW With KATHLEEN RICE ADAMS

                                           
 KATHLEEN RICE ADAMS

Howdy, y'all!

That's Texan for "welcome to my home on the range" ...er, web. Yep, I'm Texan to the bone -- which isn't a bad thing. Texans are tough and determined, but we're also downright friendly. Most of us have never met a stranger, and we're always willin' to help out or offer a weary traveler a nice, tall glass of sweet iced tea.

Pardon me for not waving, but as usual I'm glued to my laptop, typing away on one manuscript or another. When I'm not roughhousing with the people in my head, I'm a professional journalist, history buff, animal lover (there's always at least one dog underfoot), and an irredeemable rabble-rouser.

LINKS:

TWITTER

http://twitter.com/#!/disorderlywords

FACEBOOK

http://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=100000653413590

WEBSITE

http://www.kathleenriceadams.com/

INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

What is the most adventurous thing you’ve ever done?

Getting up every day is an adventure for me.   :-D   I did take a ride in a hot-air balloon once, which I thought was fairly adventurous for someone who’s afraid of heights.

What adventure would you like to have that you haven’t done yet if money and skill were no problem?

I tend to take adventures as they come. Almost anything—even the mundane or seemingly tedious—can be an adventure, if one approaches it with an open mind, curiosity, and a willingness to learn. Look behind the obvious. Chances are there’s an adventure back there just waiting to happen.

Who are some of your favorite authors?  What commonality do you see in them?

Oh, lord. I enjoy so many different authors with wildly divergent styles, themes, genres, and voices: Zane Grey, Benjamin Capps, Larry McMurtry, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Kurt Vonnegut, William Faulkner, John Steinbeck, Alexandre Dumas, Piers Anthony, Douglas Adams, Noel Coward (playwright), Robert Frost (poet)… Those are just the classics off the top of my head; the list could go on forever. I enjoy and admire a whole slew of contemporary authors, as well.

Commonalities? Hm. If I had to guess, I’d say what fascinates me about their work is the way in which they explored themes and Big Questions about the essential nature of man.

I believe color says something about a person’s personality.  What’s your favorite color?

My favorite color depends on the mood I’m in. I gravitate toward the vivid and generally don’t care much for pastels. In some cases, black and white can be more expressive than any color separated from the spectrum.

If you could have a do-over life, what one thing would you do differently?  What would you do again?

There are many things I’d do again. As for what I’d do differently? I’d have given up the kind of fear that encourages so many of us to live conservatively in order to secure a future: fear of failure, of public ridicule or disapproval, of losing physical treasure. That kind of fear actually produces more regrets than it prevents.  J

What is your writing process from conception to finished MS?

Wait… We’re supposed to have a process? Somebody should have told me this earlier.

Honestly, I think “process” has become one of those buzzwords that obscures the joy of doing something one loves. Writing is an adventure. It can be messy, frustrating, shocking, frightening, and a whole host of other negative descriptors. It also can be joyous, mysterious, and liberating. Why try to boil creativity down into something as limiting as “process”?

Each of us attacks a story in his or her own inimitable way. I think sometimes we do more harm than good by trying to fit creativity into some tidy, preconceived, one-size-fits-all mold. Give yourself permission to say what you want to say without worrying how the message will emerge or how whatever emerges will be received. Follow the story wherever it leads in any way that makes sense to you.

Are you a planner, panster or both?

I’m one of those annoying hybrids who does both. I always know the ultimate resolution before I start writing. I don’t always know where a novel will begin (So many options arise from the backstory!), and I seldom have any idea what will happen in the vast middle that flummoxes so many of us.

Generally speaking, once I’m several chapters in, I see a vague path from Alpha to Omega, but I’ve learned never to set anything in stone because that’s the best way to find myself under a whole pile of those notorious writer’s blocks. For me, flexibility is enormously important. Every detail along the path from beginning to ending is subject to change or even deletion, but the heart of the story—the essential theme—remains the same.

What is your all-time favorite movie?  TV show?

TV shows: Wild, Wild West. Hell on Wheels. Boston Legal. Murphy Brown. The West Wing.

Favorite movie is a tougher call. I’d have to put Gone with the Wind in there, along with Fried Green Tomatoes, High Plains Drifter, and Memento.

How important do you feel writing workshops are to any writer? I believe in education of all kinds. Workshops can be incredibly helpful for writers, especially when they’re just starting out.

I agree—but I also believe education can be overdone to the point it’s counterproductive. There are so many educational opportunities for writers these days, all of them endorsing different methods for attacking the core issue: telling a story.

Every writer needs basic education in the elements of story and mechanical aspects like spelling, punctuation, and grammar. By all means, writers should explore different techniques for accomplishing the aspects of storytelling with which they struggle. Some techniques may be helpful for some people; no one technique is helpful for everyone. Participating in an endless series of classes and workshops hoping to find the holy grail of storytelling? That way lies madness.

If you could learn one new skill, fear and money no deterrent, what would it be?

According to two RWA-chapter writing contest judges several years ago, what I need to learn is basic English skills and Texas topography. No joke: One judge advised me to take a remedial English class, and the other told me I needed to visit Texas because obviously I have no clue what the state looks like.

Because I try not to ignore good advice, I just may take them up on that.  ;-)

What advice would you like to give to an aspiring writer?

Never give up, and don’t listen to well-meaning advice meant to change something essential about your vision. No matter how good critique partners, editors, agents, teachers, and others are, none of them has as elemental a connection with your stories as you do. All of us—even those who edit—can use help with spelling, grammar, punctuation, repetitive word use, and the other technical aspects of writing. No matter how professional or how experienced, everyone makes mistakes in those areas from time to time.

Deeper elements of storytelling—plot, voice, characterization, symbolism, and the other artistic elements of story—may be highly stylized or plain and straightforward, but those aspects are where art resides in a writer’s work. No one but the writer can make those decisions. If someone else offers advice in those areas, consider it, but don’t let someone else’s opinion make your story into something you never intended for it to become.

Everyone has an opinion. Don’t ever let anyone convince you theirs is more valuable, more “proper,” or more commercial than yours.

What is the best advice anyone ever gave you?

About writing? Four things:

1) Just tell the story.

2) Love is what happens to two people on their way to do something else.

3) Trust the reader.

4) Resist the urge to explain.

If you could live anywhere in the world you wanted to, where would it be? (Language is no barrier)

I’ve lived all over the place; visited several foreign countries and all but a handful of U.S. states. My favorite place always seems to be the place I’m in at the moment. That said, even though I spent most of my formative years outside Texas, I’ve always had a soul-deep connection to the Lone Star State.

I wouldn’t change the vagabond life I lived for most of my [censored] years, because it broadened my horizons, exposed me to things and people and ideas I otherwise might not have encountered, and taught me tolerance. No matter how different we may seem on the outside, most human beings are remarkably similar deep inside, where it counts.

Where do you write?

I have a small, but beloved, home office that began life as a porch but somewhere between 1915 and 2000 was converted into a tiny solarium. One wall is windows overlooking a small, jungle-like backyard; two of the other three walls retain the exterior wooden siding original to the house. The hardwood floor tilts a bit toward the yard, as most porches do, and the space tends to be too cold in the winter and too hot in the summer because it isn’t insulated like rooms usually are and has no air conditioning, but I love bringing the outdoors in through those windows, and the exterior-inside walls inspire me.

How much time do you devote to writing each week?  Do you have a day every week that you take off?

My day job involves writing. I write something every day, whether or not I want to. I try to write at least a sentence or two on one fiction project or another every day, although I’m not always successful. Even when I’m not putting words on a page, though, I’m always working on stories in my head. Sometimes, that’s the best kind of writing. When you’re “stuck,” go do something—anything—else that will free your mind from whatever trap it’s wandered into, and odds are the roadblock will dissolve on its own.

What is a genre that you have not attempted that you would like to try?

Steampunk/weird west. Actually, I have a story on the drawing board that I’m itching to get into. It’s a weird west alternate history about the Texas Revolution. We’ll see if it pans out.

Is there anything you would like readers to know about you?

Honestly, the things readers don’t already know about me are probably best left unknown—mostly because I don’t know them myself. I try to be a WYSIWYG person: What you see is what you get. I learned a long time ago that it’s easier to be the same person all the time. No pretense, no artifice, no hiding behind a different mask depending upon the crowd. Those, and stealing, are things that annoy the living daylights out of me in other people.

Whether or not some folks realize it, most humans have an innate ability to see through fakes. We may not be able to articulate what makes us uncomfortable about another person, but a niggling suspicion in our gut says something’s not quite right. Always go with your gut. It’s seldom wrong. Where we get the “gut response” incorrect sometimes is when we misinterpret what our gut is trying to tell us.

“Making Peace” appears in the Prairie Rose Publications anthology Cowboy Cravings: Four spicy tales of love on the frontier put the “wild” in Wild West.

Excerpt:

Making Peace

July 1865, the Texas Crescent

Keeping to the shadows on the porch, Maggie Fannin peeled back the shotgun’s twin hammers and hauled the weapon to her shoulder. She didn’t need to aim. Simply pointing two barrels in the general direction of the Johnny Reb slumped astride a gaunt blood-bay would blast him clean out of the saddle if she pulled the triggers.

And she would do it, if he came any closer. “Hold up right there, mister. What business you got here?”

Head hanging, the horse let loose a long blow saturated with fatigue. Maggie couldn’t see much of the rider’s face with his stained slouch hat pulled low like it was, but the dust coating both him and the gelding said neither had seen rest—or a bath—in a long while.

“Expecting trouble?” The grate that trailed from beneath the hat’s brim bore equal measures of Southern grace and exhaustion.

She adjusted her grip on the gun. “It don’t hurt to be careful.”

The Reb must’ve been some kind of officer, judging by the shabby braid encircling his hat and crawling up the cuffs of his tattered shell jacket. A sheathed saber at his side rattled when he freed his boots from the stirrups with a halfhearted kick and slid from the McClellan saddle. He dropped the reins over the horse’s head, and then clutched a fistful of mane to steady himself.

Muscles aching under the shotgun’s weight, Maggie reoriented her aim. Except for the saber and a knife peeking from one knee-high boot, the stranger wore no weapons. Saddle holsters held a carbine and a pistol. He didn’t seem inclined to reach for either, but she mustn’t drop her guard. Too many dispossessed graybacks, poor as dirt and looking for trouble, had drifted through in the months since the Confederacy surrendered. A woman alone on a rundown homestead made easy prey.

The dilapidated cabin might crumble around her ears, but never again would someone chase her from her home. “I don’t remember invitin’ you to step foot on my property.”

“Your property?” The Reb shoved away from the horse. A boot met the lowest porch step with a thud. Slinging a gauntleted grip around the handrail for support, he pulled off his hat and ran a faded sleeve across his brow. Ragged brown hair, graying at the temples, spilled across sallow skin and hung limp beside hollow cheeks glistening with sweat.

His gaze traveled the length of the shotgun’s barrels until the most startling blue eyes she’d ever seen fixed her with an unsteady stare. “You out here all by yourself?”

Maggie fought her trembling arms to keep the gun level. “That ain’t none of your business.”

The Reb cast a glance over the cabin and the surrounding brush. Tall grass, already seared brown at the tips by the summer sun’s relentless glare, waved in the slight breeze. The man swayed, as though the wind blew him, too. “You’re on Collier land. How long have you been here?”

“Long enough.”

“How long?” The growl behind the words set her pulse bounding even as the Reb’s face contorted, and a sharp hiss snaked between teeth set on edge. His battered hat tumbled to the ground when his hand rose to grip his temples between thumb and fingertips.

My God. He’s sick, and no tellin’ with what. The gunstock slipped, dropping the barrels an inch. “You need to leave, mister. Right now. Or I will shoot you.”

The shaggy head rose and a fever-bright gaze captured her with a plea wrapped in a challenge. “Then pull the triggers.”

BUY LINKS:

PAPERBACK

http://www.amazon.com/Cowboy-Cravings-Cheryl-Pierson/dp/1500223743/

KINDLE

http://www.amazon.com/Cowboy-Cravings-Cheryl-Pierson-ebook/dp/B00L2JF6HU/

NOOK

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/cowboy-cravings-cheryl-pierson/1119742762

SMASHWORDS

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/449153