Cold Call Friday with Mary Connealy!

Welcome Mary, to your “Cold Call” interview!!  For those of you who don’t know what the “Cold Call” feature is, at the beginning of the month I have a poll, the winning author you then get to interview!! Mary Connealy won this month’s vote and I am thrilled to present her here with YOUR questions. Without any further ado, heeeerrrre’s Mary!

                What is your favorite funny movie?

                While You Were Sleeping. Best Romantic comedy movie EVER—just possible best MOVIE ever. If you haven't watched it you MUST DO SO. Sandra Bullock, Bill Pullman, every scene, every word is absolutely charming.

                What’s your favorite book you’ve written and why?

                 I think writing Sharpshooter in Petticoats was the most fun I ever had. I just loved pulling all those characters together out of my other books and have them all come together at the end.

                How many hours a day do you spend writing?

                Two, three, four, five. I write a thousand words a day, seven days a week. I don't pay that much attention to time.

                If you could jump into a fictional romance with one of your book’s heroes, which hero would it be?

                You know, Casey, this seems kinda WRONG. Like I'm cheating on my husband. What's worse, YOU TOLD ME TO. Shame on you. I've got to say Red Dawson. He is the perfect man. All other men should change to be exactly like him immediately. A character in a book needs conflict, they need spiritual growth, they need quirks and flaws.

                (a-hem, Mary that wasn’t ME asking that. Blame SHERRINDA! )

                Red doesn't have too many of these. But Cassie was just so vulnerable in that book I felt like she HAD to have Red's rock steady strength in order for her to grow into the woman God meant her to be. He had red hair and he could lose his temper, but even that he had pretty well under control. Ah, Red. Such a sweetie.

                What is the funniest, strangest or coolest interview question you’ve ever been asked?

                This is really hard. Which one of your readers suggested this question? Whoever it is, needs a time out, right now.

                (Casey again: RENEE! (steelergirl))

                 I'm having a mental breakdown trying to think of something. I think Lena Nelson Dooley asks questions like: If you were an animal, what animal would it be. (ans. Deer looking into the headlights of an oncoming semi) Or maybe: If you were a tree would you rather be chopped up or fed through a buzz saw. You know, kinda strange yet intriguing….I might've made that last question up.

                What made you fall in love with and want to write about cowboys?

                When I got my first book published I had twenty finished books on my computer. In those twenty books was almost everything. Mostly all romance, but within those parameters, suspense, sweet, western, gothic. There came a point in my writing life where I just started thinking: "Look, no one is going to publish this stuff, I may as well entertain myself." So I wrote whatever appealed to me and the historical westerns hit. Then Barbour Publishing bought one and it sold well and they asked for another one and said, "What else have you got like this?"

                I've sold ten of those twenty books now. Mostly all romantic comedy with cowboys. But the thread that runs consistently through all the work, even the suspense, is comedy. I think of myself as a writer of romantic comedy more than westerns. But maybe the westerns hit because I really loved doing them. I just love slapping a Stetson on a man's head and giving him a drawl. I love thinking of how strong women needed to be to survive in the frontier west. So maybe the fun of that comes through in a special way. Add to that, my husband is a rancher and I'm a lifelong country girl myself. I can bring a lot of authenticity to the books.

                Places to connect online with you?

http://www.seekerville.blogspot.com/
 http://petticoatsandpistols.com/
http://mconnealy.blogspot.com/
http://www.maryconnealy.com/

** Friday's note: The winner of Love Turns the Tide by Gail Pallota is...Debbie!**