Please join me in welcoming today’s guest author. Heather Blanton shares her writing journey.
Hi, Heather. Please tell us how long you have been writing.
Since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. I have been trying my hand at writing since I was five. I dictated the first story I ever wrote to my momma and she typed it up. To this day I’m still annoyed by a few of her editorial changes to that masterpiece about a ghost and some teenagers in a dune buggy.
Why did you choose to write in your particular field or genre?
I thought the sun rose and set on my daddy. When he was young, he worked as a cowboy in Florida, what we call a Cracker. Cowboys down there used to use whips to drive the cattle. Daddy could also quick draw and blow a hole through a quarter. He taught me to shoot about the same time I started writing and I showed a talent for it (at least the shooting). So, you could say I was “roped” into the genre.
What are some of the references you used while researching your book?
For A Promise in Defiance, I needed to research frontier and circuit riding preachers. Newspaper archives are always fun, but when I stumbled on a book called Pistol Packin’ Preachers: Circuit Riders of Texas by Barbara Barton, I knew I had hit pay dirt. This book was a gold mine of quirky, flawed, uneducated, quick-drawing, fist-fightin’ men who faced bullets and arrows to share God’s Word. It was invaluable to me.
What did you enjoy most about writing this book?
I kill a main character. Wow, we writers are evil. I just said that with such glee. Hmmm. Well, getting past that vaguely disturbing realization, I will say the death scene is poignant and powerful and drives home the theme of this book, which is: choices have consequences, even for the redeemed.
What are your plans for future projects?
I wrote a script for my first book, A Lady in Defiance. It has been viewed by some producers in Hollywood. Because it has conjured some interest, I am working with award-winning scriptwriter Zena Dell Lowe tweaking it. Brian Bird, a partner at Believe Pictures, wants to see it, and Hollywood producer Mark Headly is extremely interested in the possibility of producing the story. But lots of hoops, lots of hoops yet. I’d say the project is moving in the right direction, for sure. I am also planning on releasing book 2 in the Love and War in Johnson County series, as of yet unnamed. And I’ll also be releasing two novellas for Christmas, one in a trilogy from Rivulet Publishing!
Meet Heather
Heather Blanton is the independent bestselling author of several Christian Westerns, including the Romance in the Rockies series, which has sold over 40,000 copies. Intrigued by the concept of three good sisters stranded in a lawless Colorado mining town, a few notable Hollywood producers have requested the script for her first book in that series, A Lady in Defiance.
Heather’s writing is gritty and realistic, garnering comparisons of her books to AMC’s “Hell on Wheels” series, as well as the legendary Francine Rivers book, Redeeming Love. She has walked parts of the Oregon Trail, ridden horses through the Rockies, climbed to the top of Independence Rock, and even held an outlaw’s note in her hand!
Connect with Heather
Purchase A Promise in Defiance
What an interesting interview! I’d love to get to know Heather, and her books sound awesome. I hope her screenplay sells and we can see the story on the big screen–or even the little screen!
Thank you, Patricia! I’d love to have you join me on facebook. And, yes, I hope my screenplay sells too! 🙂
Great interview, Heather & Johnnie. Wow! 40,000 copies sold. Congratulations, Heather. You’re a new author to me. I’ll have to check it out.
Hey, Janet. I sure would appreciate your business! LOL. And that number is a lot to me, but it’s chicken scratch to others. Everythig is relative, but I am grateful and blessed!
Awesome interview! Thanks for sharing.
Thank you, Diane!
Thanks for the great interview. I learned even more details about my favorite author and her newest book. Heather’s skill as a writer is amazing. She draws me into each of her books in way that makes me believe these people are real; and as a result, I deeply care for all the characters in her stories. Her fans and I are praying her book series, A Romance in the Rockies, will become a TV series or several TV movies. We desperately need as many great faith based series on TV as possible to show our hurting world that even when everything around us looks bleak, the Lord is in control and working in the lives of those who turn to Him, no matter their sins.
Connie, I am humble by your compliments. I truly appreciate your prayers, too. Nothing happens without them!