Writing Contemporary Western Menage, or why it took my 3 years to write What She Wants...

Julia dared me, a few years ago now, to write a western contemporary menage that made sense to her. 

Now, I'm a fan of menage books -- in fact, I read them sort of voraciously. I love the werewolves, the were kitties, the contemporaries. I've got a huge collection and I enjoy them. 

Julia, though, the western contemporaries bothered her. 

"I want one that I buy, baby," she told me. "I want one where I can go, okay, yeah. Those two cowboys would share each other and some incredibly patient girl. I want you to write it for me."

I know a lot of cowboys. Rednecks? Rednecks play fast and loose with the rules, but cowboys are harder, cowboys have a code, rules. Y'all, I actually discussed this with my daddy and my brother. OMG, the awkward.

Finally, though, I did it and once the thought was out there? Let me tell you, Adrian and Packer were happy to oblige, and Calleigh? Well, this woman knows her own mind, that's for sure...

So, I got the concept pretty quick. What if there was this couple in an open relationship and the wife decided she was tired of waiting for her husband to come home to her? What if she wanted to play with him and his 'traveling partner', too.

Boom.

So I wrote.

And wrote.

And wrote.

And about 10K from the end, the file corrupted.

The backup corrupted. 

I ended up with the first, oh, 8,000 words recoverable?

So, Calleigh and the Aussies went in a box while I licked my writerly wounds. And lord, I did. God help you if you asked me where they were, how they were doing, because I'd just burst into tears.

Then one day I thought about them and didn't cry.

That's the day they went on the writing board.

What's the writing board, you ask? 

It's the whiteboard in the office where Julia and I pretend to keep track of things. (What She Wants isn't on this one because it was in editing already. For the record, (looks at the current board) it doesn't look like this anymore...the ink story is done, Julia's current square has stuff in it and my NEEDED square is, like, totally got 6 projects in it... O.o

It lingered for a few months, then I opened the file.

Cried.

Closed it, BUT I started talking about Adrian and Packer. Julia played along, encouraged me, then Calleigh started poking and, 70,000 words later, they're real.

:D

Also, Julia dubbed them incredibly hot, so yay. :D

Okay, so, that was the story of how Julia asked for a western contemporary menage and how it almost didn't happen.

Much love, y'all,

BA