The Wyoming in My Prose

The wind teaches pacing. The sky teaches scale. Out here, every mile is a beat, every storm a plot twist. My romances carry road dust and starlight because love, like weather, changes the landscape.

The wind teaches pacing

I learned to cut sentences like gusts, quick, clean, then gone. And when the highway eases into an old song, I let a paragraph take the long way home. Breath is a kind of punctuation. Silence is a beat. If you can feel the pause before a touch, you can feel the touch before it lands.

The sky teaches scale

Big sky wants wide shots and long arcs. Lovers need room to be small, then brave, then big enough to take up the page. I write with horizon lines in mind, pull back for awe, push close for heat. The heart feels larger under an open sky; that’s not a metaphor, that’s weather.

Road dust and starlight

The scent of crushed sage. The gravel’s hush when you roll to a stop. A dashboard glow that makes freckles into constellations. I use a single vivid detail per scene, one to taste, one to hear, one to keep. Too many souvenirs, and the moment loses its hands.

Storms as plot twists (and ethics)

A storm is delicious because it threatens. Desire is delicious because it promises. Between them is consent, clear, agreed, negotiated, even when the thunder is close. I love a feral kiss, but it stays kind. We play with risk, not harm; we come back warm.

The long afterglow

Sometimes the best scene is the one after the water glass, the laugh, the soft profanity of relief. Aftercare is a craft move and an ethic. It turns heat into trust, and trust into something you can drive on for miles.

Five craft notes from the back-roads

• Let setting do verbs. The wind hurries; the night leans; the gravel listens.

• Mirror terrain with syntax. Switch from short choppy lines (switchbacks) to long flowing ones (prairie).

• Pick one sensory anchor per scene. Don’t collect them all; choose the one that lingers.

• Use sky for subtext. Wide space lets quiet confessions land.

• Write the aftermath. The morning, the message, the second look in the rearview.