Day One with Award-winning Mary Connealy

Mary Connealy writes romantic comedy…with cowboys. She is a Carol Award winner, and a Rita, IRCA and Christy finalist. She is the author of The Kincaid Brides Series including her latest release, bestseller Out of Control. In Too Deep releases in February and Over the Edge is coming Summer 2012. She is also the author of Lassoed in Texas Trilogy, Montana Marriages Trilogy and the Sophie’s Daughters series.

Mary, welcome back to Favorite PASTimes! What’s changed for you in the past two years?

Has it really been TWO YEARS since I was on? How did that happen? I’m writing for a new publisher now, Bethany House. They are wonderful to work with and I’m having a great time writing my romantic comedy…with cowboys.

I’ve also released a contemporary novel under a pseudonym. Ten Plagues by Mary Nealy. It’s set in Chicago. Very different for me. I had so much fun writing it but I chose the pseudonym to WARN PEOPLE!!! 

You’ve done the contest route more than anyone I know. Can you tell us about what entering those contests did for you and your writing?

If you go back to before I was published, I credit writer’s contest with the fact that I’m published. The ACFW Genesis Contest led directly to the requests that led to a sale so I’m a big believer. The critique you get from a neutral pair of eyes is worth the price of entering, even without winning. And yes sometimes the critiques aren’t right. And sometimes they hurt and sometimes they’re contradictory. But you can still learn from nearly all of them. If not learn more about writing, then learn more about accepting criticism and getting tough.

You write both contemporary and historical, mysteries, romance…tell us how the Cowboy factor came in.

I wrote for ten years before I got my first book published. By then I had twenty finished books on my computer. And the historical westerns were the ones that finally hit. I made a decision at some point in those ten years that is no one would publish me, then I might as well entertain myself. So I just wrote whatever I wanted, whatever amused me. When that first book sold to Barbour Publishing, they asked me what else I had. They ended up publishing 8 already written books, including Ten Plagues and some other fun but not historical novels.

I do love writing cowboys, though. I love the Stetsons and the self-reliance and the cluelessness about women and the heroic tendencies. People had to be strong to survive in the west. One of my points of view is that there were a hundred ways to die in the old west and if you were stupid, there were a thousand. So the west thinned out the weaklings and only strong people were left to face each other. Both good guys and bad guys, both women and men. It makes for lively conflict.

Research and attention to detail make or break the historical novel. Share with us your best strategies for research and fact-checking. Have you caught yourself up on any unusual details or fantastic sources material that you’d like to share?

Usually when I’m researching, the first thing I do is type whatever I’m researching into Google and tack the word ‘wiki’ on the end. Wikipedia isn’t a terribly dependable research source but it is great for giving history of a subject, background info. I use that to jump off of, to do further research that is more reliable. I also love anytime I can get first hand accounts of something. An old diary entry for example, there is so much personal in that and there are tons of diary entries findable online.

Tomorrow Mary will introduce us to two of her characters from her newest release. Don’t forget to leave a comment or question for Mary by early Friday morning to enter the drawing for a copy of her book, and fine out more about Mary and her writing.