Writing outside your comfort zone by Gerald Costlow

Writing outside of your comfort zone.

I have a passion for writing.  Every writer I know has a passion for writing, or we wouldn’t be driven to doing such a crazy thing.  And most writers I know have one particular type of story they’re interested in writing.  I’m no different.  I love sword-and-sorcery type fantasy and my imagination is filled with dragons and elves and witches and above all, magic.  That’s my comfort zone.  My first published novel, The Weaving, was a straight-up witches and demons and wizards and kings battling type of thing.

But that’s not all I’m interested in.  I like the thrill of stepping out of my comfort zone once in a while.  I love trying out new styles and genres.  After all, a story is about the people, not the setting.  My writing is character driven, so once I develop the characters and drop them into a setting they always come alive and adapt. 

 Lately, certain Western imprints have caught my eye and I got the crazy idea to write a story set in the old West.  I’ve never written a Western before.  I suppose I didn’t think I knew enough about life on the frontier.  For example: where, exactly, do I set my story?  The “wild west” covered about a third of the country at various times.  Texas and Nebraska were both the frontier but were as different then as now.  I do not and have never lived west of Ohio except for a few miserable weeks of Air Force basic training in San Antonio one summer.  The cows I grew up with on the farm were milked, not wrangled.  What do I know about daily life on a ranch?

Then my writer side stepped up and slapped me for being so dense.  I’ve never lived in a castle or worn a sword, either, but that didn’t stop me from writing a story that took place in a castle.  I didn’t grow up in the West, but I knew the cowboy myth as well as any child who grew up in the golden age of Westerns.  I spent many hours immersed in Bonanza and Cheyenne and a dozen more series on our television, not to mention the movies.

So the child in me woke up, strapped on the six-shooters and headed out West.  The result is this, my first but certainly not last Western Romance.  I sent it in to Rebecca Vickery and Becca liked it well enough to publish.  So along with my Appalachia Romance series, I just might start a series of stories set in the mythical town of Wilcox, Nebraska.

So if you're a writer, have you decided to step outside of your comfort zone before?

"A Wicked Past" by Gerald Costlow, published by Rebecca Vickery

Nancy Darling is enduring a Nebraska winter alone in her isolated farm. Two men, each trying to escape a wicked past, are in a race to find hidden Confederate gold.  When they arrive one Christmas, will she find the fallen angel she's dreamed of or face a devil in disguise?

        

Where to purchase the book [only 99 cents at these locations]:

Amazon.com

Smashwords