Writing Cowboy Stories

This month’s author talking about writing a new genre is Bella Settarra.

From Sailors to Cowboys...

My first series, ‘Sirens and Sailors’ was based on a mythical island and set in the future.  I wrote the series almost by accident.  I had been to a reader/author event in Scarborough, a seaside town in the north of England, and was inspired by the Erotic Romance genre, something I hadn't thought of writing before.  I bought the book of the event, ‘Smut by the Sea’ a set of short erotic stories set in and around the sea.

On my journey home I started to think about what I would have written if I had been one of the authors with the same brief, and I started writing ‘Last of the Sirens’.  That ‘short story’ turned into a whole novella, and the first book in a series of six.

My publisher for that series was Siren Publishing, a brilliant company to work with.  After writing that series I decided to try something different.  I wanted to prove to myself that I wasn’t a one-trick pony, and that Siren wasn’t the only publisher who would take me on.  I wrote ‘Ménage on Moone Mountain’, which is the first in a series called ‘The Men of Moone Mountain’, and was delighted when Etopia Press accepted it.

This is a cowboy romance, with M/M/F relationship.  For a Brit to write about cowboys it poses quite a challenge – we don’t have cowboys or ranches in Britain (although I do live on a farm).  However, when it was pointed out to me that people who write sci-fi stories rarely go into space, and those who write about vampires don’t usually get to meet any, I realized that it was just possible that I could do this, with some help – and a lot of research!  I sincerely hope that I have managed to make the story plausible and the setting authentic and hope that my American readers will forgive any anomalies. 

Apart from being my first book with Etopia, and my first Cowboy Romance,  ‘Ménage on Moone Mountain’ is also my first M/M/F story.  I really wanted to stretch myself as a new author.  I did write a ménage relationship in ‘Ménage of the Siren’ and also as a secondary element in ‘Sacrifices of the Siren’, but they were both M/F/M relationships.  I love writing ménage stories and intend to write more of them if readers enjoy them.

I had written an M/M relationship in ‘Secrets of the Siren’ and enjoyed making Travis and Kent bi-sexual for MoMM.  I wanted Travis and Kent to both be dominant men, which was fun when they were together before Brooke became their third.  They both had to vie for their position as most dominant, unlike the relationship of the pirates in ‘Secrets of the Siren’, where there was definitely one more submissive and one more dominant character.

My newest book, ‘Dallas at Midnight’ is with Siren Publishing.  This is a M/F Cowboy Romance, which I actually wrote at the request of a reader. This is the first of a different series, ‘Midnight in Montana’ where people are more conventional.  There will be a ménage in this series, but in Midnight this would be unusual, whereas on Moone Mountain it is considered perfectly normal.

I know where I’d rather live.

All books are available at Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk or Bookstrand

Thank you, Bella. That was terrific. Good luck with writing cowboy! Next month is Susan Laine talking about writing steampunk!