INTERVIEW with LOVELAND author Andrea Downing
How did someone who has spent most of her life living in the U.K. come to write a western historical novel?
I have spent most of my life in the U.K., but I grew up in the states on a diet of westerns on television. I tell some people that when I decided to move to England to do my MA I made a wrong turn and went east instead of west! But my love of the west never faded; almost all our family vacations while my daughter was growing up were spent on ranches out west. I think at last count we notched up 17. Loveland is a combination of both worlds, Britain and the American west. The story came to me when I was reading histories of the west and discovered how many of the large cattle companies were run by ‘remittance men’—second sons of the aristocracy.
How much research did you have to do for Loveland?
Quite a bit. I had to read a number of memoirs of the period to be sure to get the words and voices correct. I don’t know if I always succeeded but I certainly tried. And, of course, I went out to Loveland, Colorado, to see the land, see the prairie, and also drove up to Cheyenne, Wyoming, which gets a mention in the book. In actual fact, at one stage, Cheyenne was the hub of the British aristocracy in the west and it was the wealthiest city in the world on a per capita basis.
What inspires you?
I’d have to start with my daughter—she’s the most inspirational person I know. But if I put motherly pride aside, just being out west inspires me. Those wide open spaces where you feel you can really breathe and be yourself, the towering mountains standing like guardians—the whole geography of it just fascinates and inspires me. To think of the people who first went there, not knowing what lay ahead, turning open prairie into tilled fields and cattle range and making a new life for themselves away from everyone and everything they knew—that’s truly inspirational.
How long have you been writing?
Since about age 6. I think my first novel was written in one of those speckled black and white notebooks—and it was probably a western! I worked in publishing for a time and later edited a poetry magazine and have been writing on and off for years, but am rather shy about showing my work. Some years ago, while I was still living in Britain, I wrote a 600 page book I intended to try to have published. It got rejected by about 3 agents so I gave up—which, when you think about it, is pretty laughable. Anyway, all my friends sort of ‘yelled’ at me, told me how foolish that was, as did my daughter. They’ve all been my cheerleaders until I finally decided I had nothing to lose.
Can you talk about what you are working on now?
I have a short story, Lawless Love, coming out Sept. 4 fro The Wild Rose Press as well as a full length contemporary in front of an editor. Tentatively titled Dances of the Heart, it’s about four people with very different lives, very different conflicts who come together and relationships blossom while they all undergo some interior change. There’s a mother who is a successful writer but has a deep fear of growing old and letting a man, who might reject her, into her life; her daughter, meanwhile, has just suffered the death of her fiancé, quit law school and now lacks direction to get her life back on track. Then there is a hard drinking father who blames himself for having sent his oldest son off to Afghanistan, where he died, while his younger son carries a secret which affects them all in the end.
What drew you to write romance?
I don’t know that I was specifically drawn to write romance but they are definitely the stories I imagine. I like having happy endings, I like having a beginning, middle and an end, and I don’t particularly go for this modern thing of leaving a story hanging inconclusively. And, of course, I like to think of people overcoming the odds to be together and fall in love. I mean, who doesn’t like a good love story?
What’s the most challenging part of the writing process for you?
I call it ‘the tyranny of the clean white page.’ Usually I have the beginning and the end figured out, can even write the last scene prior to anything else. But that middle bit, that getting from A to Z, is difficult. I’m a pantser and my characters write the story themselves so I never really know what’s going to happen and at times that white page just looms and torments me.
ANDREA DOWNING
Andrea Downing has spent most of her life in the UK where she developed a penchant for tea-drinking, a tolerance for rainy days, and a deep knowledge of the London Underground system. She received an M.A. from the University of Keele in Staffordshire and stayed on to teach and write, living in the Derbyshire Peak District, the English Lake District and the Chiltern Hills before finally moving into London. During this time, family vacations were often on guest ranches in the American West, where she and her daughter have clocked up some 17 ranches to date. In addition, she has traveled widely throughout Europe, South America, and Africa, living briefly in Nigeria. In 2008 she returned to the city of her birth, NYC, but frequently exchanges the canyons of city streets for the wide open spaces of the West. Her love of horses, ranches, rodeo and just about anything else western is reflected in her writing. Loveland, a western historical romance published by The Wild Rose Press, is her first book. She is a member of Romance Writers of America and Women Writing the West.
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