Patricia McLinn – Mad About Wyoming

USA Today best selling author Patricia McLinn turned from the macho world of the sports journalism to romance – and then to mysteries. She’s published close to 50 novels in half a dozen different series and has still got so many ideas for new books she doesn’t have time to write them all. Hi there, I’m your host Jenny Wheeler and today Patricia talks about the magic of Wyoming – where two of her most recent series are set – and how the writing scene has changed since she got started. Six things you’ll learn from this Joys of Binge Reading episode: How sports journalism led to romance novels Why she transitioned from trad to indie author Why she fell in love with Wyoming Her new podcast – Authors Love Readers The writers she most admires And what she’d do differently if she was starting over Where to find Patricia McLinn Website: http://www.patriciamclinn.com/ Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/PatriciaMcLinn/ Twitter: @PatriciaMcLinn Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.nz/patriciamclinn/ What follows is a “near as” transcript of our conversation, not word for word but pretty close to it, with links to important mentions. Jenny: But now, here’s Patricia. .  Hello there Patricia and welcome to the show, it’s great to have you with us. Patricia: Well thank you so much for inviting me, it’s great to get to visit New Zealand even by audio! Jenny: Beginning at the beginning – you were a sports writer who turned her hand to romance – is that right? Those two worlds seems aeons apart – so how did that happen?  Was there a “Once Upon A Time” catalyst that got you started…? Patricia McLinn Patricia: I was always interested in writing fiction. From the time I was a little kid and I discovered that people were behind the books, you know, the books didn’t just appear! I thought that was fascinating and I wanted to do it. My parents thought something a little more practical might be a good idea to fall back on. So not wanting to be too practical, I got a degree- my undergraduate degree is actually in English Composition – and  nobody wants to hire an English Composition graduate! So then I added a journalism degree, and as I say not being entirely practical, I went into sport because I’ve always loved sports. I thought, this will be fun. It was, it was great fun for a long time. The first newspaper I was writing for, I was the first female sportswriter they’d had there – they’d had a female before but she didn’t know anything about sport. So I was the first one who was actually really covering sports. It was so much fun. I got assigned a lot of sports that had not had coverage before, so the people loved me, because all of a sudden they were showing up in the paper. Plus all the additional sports too, it was quite the experience. Then the novels always kept nagging at me, and pulling at me. It was a very roundabout road to get to the point where I was writing and really hoping to do stories. By that time, I had gone to another newspaper where I’d worked at as an Assistant Sports Editor, and then I was recruited to the Washington Post. So I’m at the Washington Post, and I was trying to write on the side. I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to write – I did write a book which I look back on now, and it had just about every genre in it except for horror. I had sports, romance, history, international intrigue – I threw everything into it. I sent it off to agents and editors, and I did everything wrong. Caught Dead in Wyoming Book One I had one rejection letter from an editor, which –  in my sorrow and various moods – I’ve lost. But it started with “it is clear you know nothing about the publishing industry”. But then she hit what she liked, and one of the things she said was that I had over-plotted for my characters, and I needed stronger characters and I should look at romance. Because without good characters, you did not have a story. I had never really read romance, so I started reading these books and it was an “Aha!’ moment because what it told me was what really drew me to romance; the relationships, and the people, and what makes people tick, and how they interact. One of my fondest moments when my first romance novel came out, was when I had a book signing. Many of the guys from the sports department came, and then we were all back at work that night. They were reading through the book, and they had no idea! So it was really fun shaking them up. Jenny: That first series was classic romance – a Weddings series I think . . . but in more recent times you’ve moved into mystery – what led to that change? Patricia: No actually, my first romance was a book called Hoops. The protagonist- he’s a college basketball coach and she is the team’s academic advisor, the team that has just gone from one level to the highest level in college basketball in the US- NCAA Division One. So there’s a lot of conflict of where they each think they’re going, whether they’re doing the right thing for the players- but sometimes those things come into conflict. Jenny: I can see why your sports colleagues would have enjoyed that one! Patricia: Yes! Jenny: You have now moved onto more classic romance amongst other things- you’e got a mind boggling – at least five different series that you still seem to be keeping alive. Most recently, that’s included mystery. How did that transition happen, from romance to mystery? Left Hanging – Wyoming Book Two Patricia: I was always interested in writing mystery because my friend Miriam introduced me to mysteries right out of college. We had finished a masters program in Journalism, and we were buddies throughout the program. I had never read them. I’d read more of the classics, and she introduced me to those and I just loved them. The kind of classic Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, some of the mysteries by Georgette Heyer, I love those too. A lot of them included humour along with the mysteries. Just the way things happened, I went into the romance first, but mystery was kind of always calling to me. The other issue for me was that I am a pantser- if you’re listeners know the difference between plotters and pantsers,  I write out of sequence and I don’t start at the beginning and work to the end. I kind of write what I know, when I know it and put it together. I thought, I can’t do a mystery that way. Finally I found the recognition that I wasn’t writing a mystery by thinking I couldn’t write a mystery. So at least if I used my out of sequence method, I would be closer to trying then I was by not doing anything. So I just started diving in, and started writing that one. Jenny: Yes, I imagine it is a little more difficult to do mysteries when the pantser method is as you say – you don’t necessarily plot it out ahead of time, you just write and hope that you’re going to follow some sort of logical line by the character development, aren’t you? Patricia: Yes, and you have to do a lot of editing when you write out sequence. You need to go back and make sure that those pieces fit together. But I think journalism editing really helps there, because I had done so many things where I would take pieces of wire stories and mould them together for the newspaper I was working for. So I was kind of used to taking bits and pieces and turning it into a whole. That’s my excuse anyhow- it’s just the way my brain works! Jenny: It’s a little bit like a patchwork quilt! Patricia: Yes, it is. Very much so! Jenny: You’ve got two series going strong right now, The contemporary romance series – Wyoming Wildflowers – and a contemporary mystery series Caught in Wyoming. What is the attraction of Wyoming? Wyoming Wildflowers – Romance series Patricia: I had a free airline ticket, and I had suffered horribly for this free airline ticket! It was one of those things where they asked for free volunteers, and I should have been in the next plane an hour later, but instead it ended up being a 14 hour saga. It was just awful. I decided that I was going to fly to some place I had never been to before, where I didn’t think it was likely that writing conferences would take me there. And that was really expensive to fly to! I may as well get the maximum out of my free airline ticket! It came down to Wyoming. I flew into Sheridan, Wyoming because the rental cars were cheaper there. I just kind of drove across the northern part of the state from Sheridan, over the Big Horn Mountains, through the Big Horn Basin, into Cody, Wyoming, and then into Yellowstone Park which is amazing, and looped up into Southern Montana and came back. I was fascinated. I grew up in Illinois, and had spent a lot of time in North Carolina – and then the DC area which is West Virginia and the Blue Edge Mountains. Wyoming scene I knew that this was really my first introduction to the Rocky Mountains, and it was just so different, and so fascinating and the people I encountered were wonderful- a lot of really dry humour and I was just smitten! So I had a romance story idea that I saw as I drove by  – of a cowboy in a hat, the clothes, the whole thing. He’s standing at the gate into a ranch, and on the other side of the gate there’s a woman in a business suit. There was just that moment- you could see their body language and there was a whole lot going on there! It just kept coming back into my head- who were they? And then spinning the story from that. No longer “who were they?” but “who could they be?”, and what could be going on? That became my first book set in Wyoming, called Not a Family Man. Jenny: Fantastic. Is that part of the series? I haven’t come across that one I must admit. Patricia: It was initially a stand alone book, and then what I’ve done with some of my stand alone books from my backlist is I’ve blended them into ongoing series. So they become kind of the backstory to a new book. So that is the backstory to the book of the Forgotten Prince. Jenny: You are traditionally published, aren’t you? Patricia: I was. I’m now 100% Indie as of July 2015. Jenny: Just talking about the way romance has changed over that time- what are you seeing, and how is it affecting your work? Patricia: Well when I was traditionally published, I was always told I was pushing the envelope. In all honesty, I was not trying, I was just writing the stories I was interested in. I was like, what envelope? Where? What? I don’t know what you’re talking about! So I never felt I was particularly the mainstream of romance. With the emergence of the Indie model being possible for authors, there’s so much diversity in romance now that I think you could want to read any kind of story, and you can find it out there. I tend not to follow the trends, and I think there are a lot of trends that arise and then they drop very quickly. I’m not interested in that – I just like to know the characters, and what their lives are like, and what makes them tick. That tends to not be as prevalent, to be able to explore that in the shorter and trendier books. So I think what was the big change from where traditional publishing dominated to where the Indie comes out is that you do have this great diversity. No matter what you like to read, you can find something somewhere within the romance umbrella. And romance readers themselves have probably been the most diverse readers of any genre. They are more willing to go outside the genre and experiment then probably any other group of genre readers. Now they’re getting to do it even more! Jenny:   Now you’ve added a Podcast to your accomplishments – Authors Love Readers – where you delve into the stories behind the stories . . . It sounds like you get to interview a lot of your old writing friends? Victoria Thompson, Anne Gracie . . .  Why start a podcast? Authors Love Readers Podcast Patricia: I was very interested in it, because there are a lot of podcasts out there about the business of writing. I listened to a lot of them and I’m a fan of a lot of them. I also wanted this counterbalancing voice to be out there. When writers get together to talk about some of the things that we talk about with the craft. What really sparked it was a conversation with some readers last year in 2017, when they were saying how wonderful it was to meet writers in person and be able to get to know them as people, and to ask them questions. And I thought, I talk to readers all the time! I love asking questions. So that sparked the idea to be the designated questioner and gather some of my writer buddies, and we would talk about how stories come to be- what’s the best and worst part, how you create a story and how a story can take off on you. All these kind of behind the scenes elements. Jenny: Yes, I felt much the same really. Although the marketing podcasts are very good for people who are writing, they’ve got no interest for readers. Patricia: Yes, absolutely not. Moving  to a more general focus, away from specific books to your wider career Jenny: Is there one thing you’ve done in your writing career more than any other that’s been the secret to your success? Patricia: Part of me wants to say – what success? I have endured and respected my process, and I have made decisions based more on the writing then on business or career. This has hurt me in the business and career aspect at times, but has let me stick around for a while because I’m still enjoying the writing, and the stories come to me. I keep on keeping on, and have been around a long enough time and stuck around for good things to happen in the business and career side. The other aspect I think of is that I always go back to the characters. Maybe it’s because it is what is important to me. I am particularly delighted when a reviewer says the people are like people they could know, and would want to know. There’s a quote by the actress Jessica Tandy. She said that she always wanted to write movies or be in movies that when people came out of the theatre, they were glad to be a member of the human race. And those are the kind of books I want to write – and hope I do write- and that I want to read. Jenny: Yes, that’s lovely. I can see where the small town community aspect of a lot of your work comes from. People really get to know each other – they’re not being overwhelmed by a big city and the personal relationships, even having to get along with people that normally in a big city, would be able to totally avoid. That’s all part of human life isn’t it! Patricia: I will also say, as you mentioned in the Wedding series- the initial books take part mostly in Chicago and Washington DC. Those books take part in the big city, but they’re still a community. There’s connections, and some of them are family but they’re not all. There’s a community of friends, and to me that is vital. Jenny: If you were going to take your readers on a magical mystery literary tour, where would you trip advise them to go? Patricia: Probably to Sherman, Wyoming. People who know Wyoming well will recognise where I’ve located Sherman. So they’d have to have a really good imagination! But I do that a lot. My second romance is called A New World, and it’s set in Gloucester, Massachusetts in my dad’s hometown. I added a beach in there, which if you could do it, you could make a lot of money. I’d like to have the surroundings of the real world, and then the elbow room of fictional within that. You know what, I cannot decide what to do with them. I think Gloucester, but then I think Wyoming! And then I think Washington DC at Christmas, that could be really cool! Or Chicago, I love the Chicago area. I want to take them everywhere!   Turning to Patricia as reader Jenny: The series is called “The Joys of Binge Reading” because I see it as providing inspiration for people who like to read series . . . .So – turning to your taste in fiction – who do you “binge read”  ? Patricia: I mentioned some of those mysteries that introduced me to mysteries. One of the hard things when you become a writer is reading. You lose some of that joy, because you see the professionalism behind it. You’re watching the mechanisms, you can’t help but see how they’re doing what they’re doing. So what I have found is that I have certain “comfort reads”. I can go back to books before I became a writer, and re enter that readership world. So I go back and I reread  Ngaio Marsh, and the Georgette Heyer- both her romances and her mysteries. Rex Stout- I read a lot. I’m looking at my bookshelf right now! Josephine Tey, I like her’s a lot. I consume books in all formats- hardback and kindle. I have an audiobook going in the car and usually one or two hardcover or print books, and one or two E books because I read on an iPad mini and on my phone. It’s all based on where I am, what I’m doing, what mood I’m in and where I’m going at the time. Josephine Tey – a favorite author   Circling back to the beginning Jenny: At this stage in your career, if you were doing it all again, what would you change – if anything? Patricia: I would believe in myself more, and not think I had to do things the way other people did. That may be a fallacy though, because when I started there weren’t too many ways to do it. You had to get through the agents and editors to get published and to reach the readers. So I did what I had to do. I’ll tell you, I know one thing! I would not kick myself as much, it is a really lousy exercise program! I have found often that the things I kick myself for at various stages later on turned out to have benefits! So you just never know, so you make the best decisions you can with the information you have at the time, and you move on. Jenny: And tell me, what might be one of those examples of something you thought at the time maybe wasn’t such a good thing and it turned out to be a hidden blessing? Patricia: I stayed with Harlequin – back then it was Silhouette. I felt I stayed longer then I should have. By gum I was going to succeed there. I was going to make it work! It was a difficult time. My books never sold well enough for them to give me latitude and some freedom. They never sold poorly enough that they cut me loose, so I was determined to succeed, and kept trying and trying. It was pretty miserable. I’m not sure it was fun for them either. I kick myself afterwards for not leaving sooner. Many of the books that I wrote during that period then became the backbone of my backlist when I became Indie. It gave me the jumpstart and the flexibility to build that career and bud that presence as an Indie author. So, you never know. You do the best you can, and keep writing. Jenny: What is next for Patricia as writer? Any projects under development? Patricia: I have many projects under development! And if you’re talking about in the back of my head, oh my goodness! There will be another book in the Caught Dead Wyoming series in 2018, it’s aiming for August and it’s called Open. Then there’s a book after that- I don’t know the title yet – but I know some about the story, another Caught Dead book I really want to do. See the one not next, but after that is always the most enticing! I’m also going to release a book called Proof of Innocence, and this is a little darker then the Caught Dead series. It’s something that has been nagging at me for a long time and it will have a follow up book called the Price of Innocence. But Proof will be out in 2018. Price probably 2019. And then there’s a whole new mystery series, and I’m not sure of the series name of that. But it will be a little lighter than the Caught Dead in Wyoming series, and probably set in Kentucky. And then there’s a romance I want to write that’s connected to two of my current series- Bardville Wyoming and A Place Called Home. Those two are trilogies, and the characters from those two sets of books meet in this new book. I’m not quite sure of the title of that one. Then I want to do a Christmas mystery novella, and another novella for my Wyoming Wildflowers series. Then there’s this eight book historical romance series about the history of Wyoming. Jenny: So how fast do you produce? Patricia: Not fast enough! More new ideas are always coming in then I can clear out, so it’s becoming a back log. Jenny: Where can readers find you on line? Patricia: Readers can go to www.patriciamclinn.com. There is a printable booklist on the website, so if you look under “Books” that’s an option in the dropdown menu. My wonderful assistant Kay keeps that up to date. I’m on Facebook as Patricia McLinn, Twitter as Patricia McLinn, Pinterest as Patricia McLinn. If you see me on social media too often, yell at me and tell me to get back to work! Jenny: Well look it’s been wonderful talking to you today, thank you so much for your wisdom and entertainment. Patricia: Thank you very much for letting me visit New Zealand for a little bit this afternoon! It’s been a delight.   Thanks To Our Technical Support: The Joys of Binge Reading podcast is put together with wonderful technical help from Dan Cotton at DC Audio Services. Dan is an experienced sound and video engineer who’s ready and available to help you with your next project… Seek him out at [email protected] or Phone + 64 – 21979539. He’s fast, takes pride in getting it right, and lovely to work with. Our voice overs are done by Abe Raffills, and Abe’s another gem. He got 20 years of experience on both sides of the camera/microphone as a cameraman/director and also voice artist and television presenter. Abe’s vocal delivery is both light hearted and warm and he is super easy to work with no matter the job. You’ll find him at [email protected]