I love meeting new author friends online, and recently Naomi Rawlings became one of those friends! It started with virtually meeting Bethany House’s “other debut Melissa”–Melissa Jagears, whose first novel released last fall. We joked about being the two new Melissas in the BHP publishing family. Through Melissa, I came into contact with her critique partner, Naomi.

Naomi writes historical fiction and one of the first things that stood out to me about her books is that some are set during the French Revolution. Unusual for CBA fiction, but a super cool time and place to set a book, don’t you think? Her latest book zips a little ways forward in history, though, and takes place in Wyoming. I was thrilled to get to chat with Melissa about her settings, time periods and more in today’s Q&A. Enjoy and be sure to check out her books!

Melissa: Your book that releases this month (January) is a western historical romance set in Wyoming. But you also have books set during the French Revolution, right? How different was it switching settings and time periods?

At first switching settings was a little hard and confusing, but by this point, I’m rather used to it. I have three French novels either published or soon to be published, and one with an American setting. But I’ve also written a second American novel that I haven’t pursued publishing yet, and I’ve got plans to write a third American setting in 2014. I’m all over the place in terms of historical settings, and part of me enjoys that. I feel like it keeps the details of the different periods fresher and more interesting in my mind.

2) And I have to ask, why the French Revolution? It’s an incredibly interesting time in European history but not necessarily something we see a lot of in today’s historical fiction. What landed you there? 

I didn’t know any better! When I started my debut novel, Sanctuary for a Lady, I had no idea about making novels salable or attractive for publishers, or that certain settings and time periods sold better than others. I just had a story in my heart that I loved and wanted to tell.

Like you, I found the time period interesting, not because of the blood and gore, but because of the plight of the French people and what they were trying to do—find liberty after centuries of tyranny. Yet somehow, that quest for liberty went terribly wrong while the similar plight of the colonists during the American Revolution went right. (Note from Melissa: That is incredibly interesting…)

Once I finished Sanctuary for a Lady and started entering contests and pursuing publishers, I kept hearing, “Your writing and storytelling is solid, but you’ll never, ever sell a book set in the French Revolution.” I laugh at that now, since I obviously did sell that book and have two other French stories coming within the year, but in the interim, when getting my story published seemed absolutely hopeless, I started The Wyoming Heir.

My goal with The Wyoming Heir was to write a novel with a setting that no publisher would turn down, so I put a spin on the classic cowboy-meets-socialite story. I brought my countrified cowboy east instead of having the citified socialite go west. Once my French novels sold, I’d fallen enough in love with my cowboy that I wanted to finish telling his story.

3) If you could hang out for a day or two in any point in history, when and where would you go? And who would you like to meet? 

Well, I should probably say something about sitting in on the French Revolution, but honestly, so much of that was bloody and violent. It’s okay to write about it from the safety of my computer desk, but to live it? No thank you. I’d pick Philadelphia on July 2^nd and July 4^th, 1776. Those were the days the Declaration of Independence was signed and then read publicly, and I would have wanted to be present for both. 

4) A lot of the readers of this blog are fellow writers, so of course, I have to ask one of my favorite questions (or maybe I just ask it because I want to figure out how other people keep it together!) How do you balance writing and all the rest of life? 

Ha! Balance is such a nice, calm, organized sounding word. In truth, my life looks like nothing that resembles calm and order. I’ve become a rather good juggler—at least three balls spinning at all times. However, I do have a few helpful principles.

1. Write at the same time every day—this gets both you and your family comfortable with the pattern of your writing.
2. Carve out some regular writing-only time. For me, it’s one day a week where my husband stays home with the kids. For my crit partner, Melissa Jagears, it’s one weekend a month where her husband has off and she stays overnight at a hotel. For others, the details might look different, but as writing morphs from a hobby to a business, you will come to rely on this writing-only time.
3. Be flexible. This might seem like it conflicts with the first two principles, but it really doesn’t. Sometimes, like over Christmas, writing will get put on hold, and sometimes, like when you’re at the end of a story and you just have to finish, the house might not get cleaned and you might be eating pizza six nights a week. Either way, learn to roll with the ebb and flow of life and writing. Be as consistent as possible for everyday writing, but don’t be afraid to modify your schedule as needed. 

5) And since it’s still New Year-ish, do you have any fun New Years Resolutions you want to share? 

My New Year’s resolution is to trust God more. This has been a really tough year for my family personally, and a lot of it centers on my oldest son and a chronic disease he’s fighting. Going into 2013, we had no idea what was in store for us in terms of doctors’ appointments, medical bills, and major changes to our diet and even our lifestyle. Through all the changes, it’s been easy to lose focus on God and what matters most and simple to focus on our own struggles. God has a bigger plan than what I can see or understand at the moment, and so I’m working on trusting Him.

I also have an out-of-the-box novel I want to write (though I think my agent is a little afraid). It would be great to have that done by the end of 2014 as well.

*****

A mother of two young boys, Naomi Rawlings spends her days picking up, cleaning, playing and, of course, writing. Her husband pastors a small church in Michigan’s rugged Upper Peninsula, where her family shares its ten wooded acres with black bears, wolves, coyotes, deer and bald eagles. Naomi and her family live only three miles from Lake Superior, where the scenery is beautiful and they average 200 inches of snow per winter. To learn more about Naomi and her novels, visit her website at www.NaomRawlings.com.

About the The Wyoming Heir:

Given a choice, Luke Hayes wouldn’t ever leave his Wyoming ranch. Yet when his estranged grandfather dies, leaving him everything, he’ll travel to Valley Falls, New York—but only to collect his sister and his inheritance. He won’t be roped into saving a floundering girls’ school, no matter what mathematics teacher Elizabeth Wells says.

Elizabeth has defied social convention and her own family for the sake of her beloved Hayes Academy. Luke is pure rancher, from the tip of his Stetson to the scuff on his boots, yet he’s also becoming her unlikely ally. Only he can help save her job and school…but how much will she lose when the time comes for him to leave?

Okay, readers, fun question time: If you could spend a day either a) in France during the revolution (but don’t worry, you could be in Paris or something as opposed to the battlefield) OR b) out on a ranch in Wyoming in the late 1800s, which would you choose?

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