404. Cowboy Romcoms and Real Six Packs with Carly Bloom

[music]

Sarah Wendell: Hello there, and welcome to episode number 404 – and if you’re like me and you remember StrongBad, you hear nothing but “Four oh four!” in your head right now. Sorry about that. I’m Sarah Wendell from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, and with me today is Carly Bloom. We are going to talk about writing cowboy rom-coms, about small communities that include really annoying people, and the reality of ranch life: no one walks around with their shirt open and their abs hanging out. You believe that? I cannot believe that. We also take a non-spoiler-y dive into her latest book, Cowboy Come Home, so if you’re looking for your next read, this book might make you very happy. We also talk a little bit about her homemade book cover for Cowboy Come Home, and I’ve linked to it in the show notes if you’d like to see it. It’s hilarious. You can find that at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast.

This episode is brought to you by In To Her by J. A. Huss, available now at audible.com. And I have a sample of it at the end. It’s a very spicy audiobook, so you get a very spicy sample at the end of this episode. Woohoo! In To Her is an erotic ménage with a lot of heat and a lot of angst from New York Times and USA Today bestselling author J. A. Huss. Huss has been on the New York Times bestseller list and on the USA Today bestseller list, and five of her books have been optioned for TV by MGM Television, plus two of her books have been nominated for voice awards too. In In To Her, hit men AJ and Logan are professional monsters, and they spend a sexy night stranded with their mark Yvette. That was not in the plan, but one night changes everything, and soon they find themselves plotting a way out of the job and out of the mob. AJ, Logan, and Yvette are brought to life by Savannah Peachwood, Teddy Hamilton, and Tad Branson, and reviews are extremely positive! Wendy on Amazon says, “If you haven’t read anything from JA Huss yet, this is a perfect book to start with…lots of sexy, lots of angst, lots of keeping the reader guessing.” You can find the audiobook available now; buy In To Her by J. A. Huss on audible.com. And remember, at the end of the episode I have a spicy, spicy sample for you!

I also have compliments in this episode, which makes me extremely happy!

First, to Ashley B.: You are the human personification of the feeling you get when you take the deepest breath and exhale every stressful cobweb floating around your brain space. That is how you make people feel.

And to Cleo M.: Your smile and that thing you do with your hands when you laugh make people feel seen, feel safe, and sometimes feel uncommonly happy.

If you would like a compliment or you would like information about how to support this here show, have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches. [Thump] Monthly pledges start at a dollar, Wilbur is jumping around my office, and you’re making every episode accessible to everyone with each pledge, which is deeply appreciated. Have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches, and hello and excellent baked-good wishes to you, my Patreon community!

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I will have information at the end of the podcast about where you can find Carly Bloom; I will have a really, really bad joke, because that’s how we roll here; and of course, all of the books we talk about will be linked in the show notes at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast.

But for now, let’s do this podcast episode right here! Four oh four! On with my conversation with Carly Bloom.

[music]

Carly Bloom: Hi, I’m Carly Bloom, and I write the Once Upon a Time in Texas series, and, which is cowboy rom-coms, so I like to say my rom-coms wear ten-gallon hats.

Sarah: Nice tagline!

Carly: Thank you!

Sarah: I did like your recent homemade book cover with the six pack of beer.

Carly: [Laughs]

Sarah: That was inspired.

Carly: Yes, it was! And it was inspired because I had zero cooperation here on our ranch. I asked every man if they would help me recreate the book cover, but nobody –

Sarah: Right.

Carly: – would cooperate with that, so I had to go for literal interpretation with an actual six pack, so.

Sarah: So you live on a ranch, and are you telling me that the cowboys do not walk around with waxed, shiny, six-pack abs, shirts open, and, and hair perfectly coiffed and very, very, very smooth on the chest? You’re, you’re telling me that’s not the reality that you deal with on the day-to-day basis?

Carly: There is no waxing going on here –

Sarah: Ahh!

Carly: – and –

Sarah: See! All of my fantasies are crushed now!

Carly: I know! I hate to be the person who did that for you, but –

Sarah: That’s okay; I need to know the truth.

Carly: – my husband doesn’t even wear a, a cowboy hat. He –

Sarah: What?!

Carly: – yeah.

Sarah: How is that allowed?!

Carly: It’s, it’s not! He’s doing it wrong. I tell him all the time he’s doing it wrong. I show him exhibit A, which is my book cover. He wears, he does wear boots, and, and often he wears them with cargo shorts and a Red Hot Chili Peppers t-shirt, so.

Sarah: That’s a completely different book cover.

Carly: It’s a completely different book cover! Somebody’s –

Sarah: I don’t –

Carly: – doing it right; somebody’s doing it wrong. That’s all I’m saying.

Sarah: I do not quite understand how he missed that memo. I mean, you are in Texas, correct?

Carly: We are. We are in south Texas, yes.

Sarah: Sooo, no one’s walking around with a waxed six pack? Like, of, of –

Carly: No.

Sarah: – ab-, abdominal muscles, not like they put wax on a six pack of beer. I mean –

Carly: [Laughs]

Sarah: – if you need to wax your beer, that’s fine; you, you do what you do, you need to do. I, I’m so just dis-, disheartened –

Carly: Yeah, I’m, I’m sorry.

Sarah: – that, that, that your, your community isn’t supporting you in this way!

Carly: I’m sorry to be the bearer of such bad news, and people who haven’t seen that homemade book cover have no idea what we’re talking about. [Laughs]

Sarah: I will link to it; fear not!

[Laughter]

Sarah: So your latest book is Cowboy Come Home. Congratulations –

Carly: Thank you!

Sarah: – on its release, by the way, during, during the quarantimes, which is just when you want to release a book.

Carly: Yes.

Sarah: It, it is a whole mix of contemporary genres, ‘cause you, you mention that your, your cowboys are rom-coms. Can you tell me about your book and what led you into this story?

Carly: Well, the book is about – and it, it is a rom-com, but it’s also got some pretty deep, deep layers. A, a recent reviewer started out by saying, wow, there’s a lot going on here, and I was just –

[Laughter]

Carly: – hoo! That’s one of those that can go either way, but it went, it went in a good way. But it’s about a, a wandering cowboy. He, he doesn’t stay in one place; he goes from ranch to ranch to ranch; and he is called back to a big ranch in the Texas hill country to help, to help a rancher who he really admires whose ranch is in trouble, and he had a relationship prior with the rancher’s daughter, who is Claire Kowalski.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Carly: So he, he comes back with a really strong goal of keeping his pants on for six weeks; he can do it for just six weeks. I – [laughs] – spoiler alert: Ford does not keep his pants on, but he has a cat.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Carly: He has a cat instead of a cow dog, and Claire’s dad, who’s, who’s the, the rancher he works for, refers to the cat as that other four-legged situation. Cowboys don’t usually have cats. Anyway, the, the inspiration for the book, actually there’s a, a real town in the Texas hill country that I love. This is a place that we often go, and we rent a little house on the river, and it’s just beautiful, and in my mind, my fictional town looks very much like this town, and they had a catastrophic flood –

Sarah: Mm-hmm?

Carly: – a few years ago, and so Cowboy Come Home starts out with a flood, and so the town is going through a rebuilding phase, which they really come together to, to rebuild the town and save the library that, that was damaged, and it’s based on watching this other little town in real life rebuild after that happened. And it gives a great meet-cute, because Claire has envisioned all the ways that she’s going to run into Ford now that he’s back, and she’s envisioned doing all the things that we think about doing when we see that guy that we’ve been thinking about?

Sarah: Mm-hmm?

Carly: And the thing she hadn’t prepared for was being saved in a flash flood, and that’s, that’s how, that’s how it starts out: he saves her.

Sarah: One of the things I noticed with these characters in the book is that sex is not the problem for them.

Carly: No, it’s not.

Sarah: I mean, they’re trying not to have sex.

Carly: Yes, yes. They’re trying –

Sarah: They have –

Carly: – not to have sex.

Sarah: – really horny pants.

Carly: Yeah.

Sarah: But the thing that is, the things that are hard for them are the little intimacies, like playing Scrabble or watching a movie or kissing on the cheek is, like, a really big deal for them, and those are really hard, difficult things for them to achieve, because they’re not, there’s all of these things standing in the way of their having a relationship, plus horny pants.

Carly: Correct. And I think it’s because those, those little things are the moments that you’re actually vulnerable to real feelings –

Sarah: Yeah.

Carly: – outside of physical feelings. So if you just really want to be with someone because you like playing Scrabble with them, which isn’t because you like Scrabble, ‘cause you really like being with someone, that, that’s opening yourself up to actual feelings of connection that if the other party doesn’t reciprocate those feelings of connection, that’s real loss, and so yeah, they have a harder time trying to deny those feelings than they do their sexual attraction for each other. Which they, they use kind of as a crutch to deny the real feelings, because they both have them, and they’ve both been hurt by them.

Sarah: And that vulnerability is, it’s scary for both of them, both to be vulnerable and to actually witness the other person’s vulnerability. Like, each of them is used to seeing the other in a different light than how they sort of slowly reveal themselves to be, if that makes sense.

Carly: Yeah! Yeah, that’s exactly, that’s exactly it. You never know what – we can’t be in each other’s heads, and so we just have to judge from what is spoken and, and what we see and hear, but that’s the cool thing about, about writing, and of course for the reader too, is that we do get to be in their heads. So the reader knows always what’s really going on, what they’re really thinking, and you’re just rooting for it to come out. You know, you’re just like, let that come out the mouth! Let that come out the mouth! [Laughs] But none of us do that, and, and so it’s kind of cool to be able to really see and feel the vulnerability of a character and then watch how, how it plays out and what they say and do and how much, how much is actually missed. So I love, I love bringing readers into the heads of my characters, and I think –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Carly: – that’s, that’s what makes my heroes feel vulnerable, because that comes up all the time, that I write vulnerable heroes, and for a long time I didn’t really understand what that meant because I didn’t feel like – I mean, everybody’s heroes are vulnerable; that’s, writers exploit that! That’s what we do! And so I didn’t understand how mine appeared somehow more vulnerable, but I really think it’s because I’m just in their headspace so much, and they’re really –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Carly: – self-aware of their vulnerabilities, so they’re thinking about them a lot. I don’t know; maybe – [laughs] – maybe that’s based on a little bit of my own obsessive voice in my head, but that –

[Laughter]

Carly: – y o-, my endless overthinking, but, but I think that is what makes them vulnerable is that we’re just always in their headspace, and we know what their, what their real thoughts are versus what they’re saying or how they’re behaving in ways to try and cover them up.

Sarah: Yeah, one thing I liked about Ford was that he was emotionally aware and also emotionally aware of what he was doing with his emotions, which was to not deal with them.

Carly: [Laughs] He’s got –

Sarah: Like, I am feeling a feeling! And he, he doesn’t take it out on other people; he doesn’t get mad; he doesn’t get angry or, or react with rage that he’s feeling vulnerable. He’s like, I am having a feel!

Carly: Yeah.

Sarah: I will now mount my horse and ride out into the country and do some really difficult labor to deal with this feel, ‘cause that’s how I deal. He’s not immature about it, but his coping mechanisms are no longer working because with Claire he’s got way too many feels to manage, and there’s not enough fence to repair to deal with all those feels.

Carly: Correct. And, and his biggest problem is that he doesn’t want to connect with his emotions, and the result of that is that he’s endlessly connected to his emotions.

Sarah: Yup!

[Laughter]

Carly: So –

Sarah: I’m going to try really hard not to think about pink elephants! Oh, damn!

Carly: That’s exact-, that’s exactly, exactly how he is, yeah. You can tell I’ve been in therapy, so.

[Laughter]

Carly: That’s for sure it, yeah.

Sarah: So with the, with the scenes with Claire and Ford where they have these little intimate moments and they’re like, oh crap, you’re a person. You’re not just this person for whom I am horny; you have this whole other set of, of layers and interesting pieces. Were those scenes really fun to write?

Carly: Yes, they were fun to write, and I like, I like the give and take. I, I really like the part where they take turns stopping things. Every time things start to get out of hand, one of them takes a turn to put an end to it? And then, of course, they forget whose turn it is. But one thing I like, and, and I realize now that I’ve done this in all of my books: there’s always a point where the hero looks at the woman, and it could be, like, when they’re about to kiss, or it could be, like, when they’re having fun, or something has just happened, and for that moment, he actually sees her, like –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Carly: – as she is, the parts of her that she wants to be seen, and then there’s an acknowledgement by her of being seen, like, oh my God, he sees me. He sees the things that I am, that I’m strong, that I’m independent, that I’m smart; like, really, really sees their strength. I will always have the man really see her strength and then have that, that relief that, that she’s been heard and she’s been seen, because I think, for women, a lot of times we don’t feel heard and seen, so for me? That’s, like, a huge turn-on.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Carly: And, to be seen and heard. And so I always –

Sarah: And recognized. Yeah.

Carly: Yeah, to be recognized. I think in Big Bad Cowboy, I think that’s actually the term that Travis uses; he says, I recognize you, and I think with Ford he says, I, I see you. And I just, I love that moment, and I’ll always have that moment, and I’ll, I also don’t like, I, I, you know, you were talking about how Ford deals with his emotions without being a jerk to anybody.

Sarah: Mm-hmm?

Carly: Yeah, I, I will not write a guy who we have to redeem that sort of thing? They’re just, they actually are good at heart, and that’s, that’s just it. It’s not, it’s nobody’s responsibility to change them? I won’t ever write, like, a bad character and then she’s got to change him? It’s not, that’s not our responsibility. That’s not on us women. So, so I just don’t, I just don’t do that. I won’t, I will always have them deal with their emotions in ways that aren’t harmful –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Carly: – to other people.

Sarah: Which is, I think, very important, because romances especially deal so intimately with the intricacies and the nuances of emotion –

Carly: Yeah.

Sarah: – that you have to be able to deal with them as an adult in order to earn a valid and satisfying relationship at the end of the book. Like, that’s part of the job of the book, to convince the reader that these people can handle things.

Carly: Right, right. And I just feel like nobody can do anything that’s, that’s not going to be redeemable, because –

Sarah: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Carly: – ‘cause then I’m going to write an ending where she walks out the door! I started this series right when #MeToo was really, you know, ramping up –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Carly: – and so it’s just really aware of, of the motivation of the heroes and how they reacted and how they spoke, but even more importantly, how they thought. Like, like, they think highly of women.

Sarah: Mm-hmm. And one of the things that happens in the book is that Claire has to come to terms with the fact that her family ranch, which is a sizable operation, is in danger, and it’s never a question of, can I do this job? It’s, do I have all the necessary skills?

Carly: Right, and does she want to do the job?

Sarah: Yeah. Does she want to take on this work? And none of the other characters question her ability or her competence because she’s female.

Carly: Right.

Sarah: They question, are you sure this is what you really want, because that ties you to this place permanently for home and job, and living where you work is challenging if you want to go see other parts of the universe. Like, that’s really hard. It’s never a question of, oh, well, she’s a girl, so she can’t do it.

Carly: Right. I won’t write that. I won’t –

Sarah: No.

Carly: – write that. And I won’t have my, my male characters having those thoughts, because to me, those are thoughts that I can’t redeem. And I feel like, you know, this is my world; I’m in charge?

Sarah: [Laughs]

Carly: So –

Sarah: If you’re going to be in charge of a world, you’re going to make it the way you like!

Carly: Look, I’m writing this man. I’m making him, and he is going to turn out the way that I think all men should be, The End. So, yeah.

Sarah: Okay! So do you have a favorite scene in this book?

Carly: I do have a favorite scene, and it’s, I think my favorite scene is after they all get kicked out of Tony’s honky-tonk and –

Sarah: [Laughs] For fighting!

Carly: For fighting, and, and not just the guys who fought, but, but everybody associated with them: pregnant ladies, librarians, and beauty queens, all out. Kicked out.

Sarah: Yep!

Carly: And they go back to a friend’s house, and they are just socializing and mingling with their friends, who are starting to see them as a couple before they acknowledge that they’re a couple, and everybody else –

Sarah: Yeah.

Carly: – has seen the writing on the wall, and I just love, I love my community that I built. I love all those characters so much, and they’re, they’re super, super supportive of their friends. And –

Sarah: Yes!

Carly: – and I like to write dialogue, so if you get me a scene where there was, like, a lot of people talking and lots of conversations happening, that’s like, that’s my happy, happy place, so I like those scenes.

Sarah: One of my favorite scenes, and I won’t get into the details ‘cause it’s very, very late in the book, is the conversation about making a plate.

Carly: [Laughs]

Sarah: That was, that was easily one of my favorites, but I’m, I’m glad you mentioned the big community, ‘cause one of my notes was that you have a really large group of characters in this book and in the previous book. All of them have powerful personalities; they are all distinct. Was, was that, was that a challenge? I mean, like, what do your character notes look like? Do you have a guiding theme for each person that sort of influences their, their dialogue? How do you keep them all distinct?

Carly: I don’t have, like, a written guide, but that’s a really idea, good idea. I probably, probably should.

[Laughter]

Carly: You know, I’m, I’m an extrovert. I’m a people person. I have five kids, and I –

Sarah: That’s a lot of humans in your house.

Carly: – I live in the same small town that I grew up in. The, the ranch that we live on belongs to my husband’s family. We live in the house that his dad and uncle built, you know, with their own two hands. So I think when you stay in one place a while, you get a really big community built up of people you know well that you’ve known your whole life, and so that’s normal for me, and –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Carly: – I think that, that this group of people in my book, you know, they’re not, they’re not necessarily based on real people, like you can’t say Bubba is based on this person, but he’s definitely a conglomeration of people I know in real life. All of them are. For me, they’re, they’re real people, and I know them like I know my own family, and I don’t have a hard time keeping them, keeping them straight.

Sarah: One of the things I also thought was interesting within the community is that there are people who are not particularly nice? But you deal with them anyway, because there aren’t that many people, and you, you, you can’t really leave anyone out.

Carly: [Laughs] Exactly!

Sarah: You’re not going anywhere. There’s, there’s only a handful of you, so, and you have to tolerate and put up with the people who are annoying or judgmental or snide, and you just got to roll with them!

Carly: Exactly! And you know what, that’s, that absolutely is how it is in a, in a small town. You can’t avoid that person in the grocery store.

Sarah: Nope.

Carly: You’re going to see ‘em, so you’d better watch out what you say to them on Facebook, because tomorrow can be really, really awkward in the produce aisle. But yeah, and I –

Sarah: And you have to know who you can gossip with, too, ‘cause you can’t talk shit –

Carly: Oh, absolutely.

Sarah: – easily at all.

Carly: And I, I assume you’re talking about Anna, and Anna –

Sarah: Mm-hmm!

Carly: – Anna is, yeah, she’s, I like to think of her as the Nellie Oleson of this series?

Sarah: [Laughs] That’s a really good analogy. That fits!

Carly: And, and they all, everybody, everybody in, on Little House on the Prairie had to deal with Nellie. It’s not like you could go somewhere and she wasn’t going to be there. So, and, and, you know, I would love to write a book for Anna someday, because I just love redeeming a really prickly heroine, and she really needs to be put in her place, and that could be really, really fun. But even Anna is a good guy at heart. Like, if you remember in Big Bad Cowboy, you know, she had her moment. She has her moments; she’s not all bad.

Sarah: And she will move considerable amounts of effort to make something happen that is for the community, even as she will outwardly pretend like she doesn’t care. You don’t do that much work if you don’t care at all.

Carly: She does get a lot of attention for it, though, Sarah, so.

Sarah: That is true, that is true.

Carly: [Laughs]

Sarah: And she’s good at it! Like, they’re all like, we can’t stand her, she’s annoying, but she’s really good at this, so we’ll get out of the way.

Carly: Yeah, yeah.

Sarah: Now, it says in your bio that you are descended from ranch foremen, and you mentioned that your family, you know, built some of the buildings that are on your, on your property. What is a ranch foreman’s job like?

Carly: Well, my grandfather and my uncle were ranch foremen for really big ranches. My mom was born on a ranch outside of El Paso, and the ranch was so huge and so far away from anything that she didn’t go to school. They had a governess who lived on the ranch that taught her and other kids of workers who, who were on the ranch. But –

Sarah: Wow!

Carly: – so she went, she didn’t start school until her dad retired and they moved to Uvalde, Texas, and when she was in high school, and that’s the first time she had ever, like, actually been to a school.

So the job of a foreman is basically to manage, to manage the ranch. You’ve got a ranch owner, who’s usually the, the so-called manager or the big boss, but the foreman manages what needs to be done. He makes sure that there’s a crew to do it. If they’re replacing fence lines, you know, he’ll be in charge of that. He knows when the cattle need to be moved. So he’s just like, he’s basically the supervisor of all the ranch hands, of all the cowboys.

Sarah: And that’s a massive undertaking.

Carly: For a big ranch, it is. You know, our ranch is very, very small. It used to be a peanut farm, and they don’t raise crops here anymore; now we just have, have cattle. And it’s more the size of Happy Trails in Big Bad Cowboy than it is –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Carly: – the twelve-thousand-acre ranch in, in Cowboy Come Home. But, like, out in west Texas, the ranches are huge; I mean, tens of thousands of acres, because you need so much land just to support one, you know, one cow. So the ranches are huge, and so it can be a really big, a really big job.

Sarah: That is a massive job, and it’s, and it’s a very serious job. Like, it’s, it – I, I grew up in cities and in places where there’s, you know, a lot of, a lot of services and a lot of people, and I have a lot of respect for people who live in places where if you’re stupid, the land will kill you.

Carly: Yeah. [Laughs] Exactly.

Sarah: And, and the ranch foreman has to be aware of all the ways in which the land is trying to kill them.

Carly: Right, right.

Sarah: And the animals too, ‘cause they, they often get ornery.

Carly: Right. And, and, and Texas, you know, water, everything is water, so you, the cattle, where they’re going to be and where the crops are going to be, everything is about the weather and water to keep, to keep them watered. So that’s why cattle are often moved around from one spot to the other, depending on where the water is and where the crops are growing.

Sarah: That’s a big deal!

Carly: Yeah, that’s a big deal. That’s a big deal.

Sarah: Your bio also notes that you – well, I have vegetarian and vegan. Living on a ranch.

Carly: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: And, and you’re in quarantine.

Carly: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: What’s up with that?

Carly: Well, my earliest childhood memory was of being on a pier fishing with my dad, and he had a, a stringer of fish, and they were alive, you know, in the water? And I –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Carly: – I just remember being so sad and crying, and I kept trying to get him to set them free, and he wouldn’t, and so when he wasn’t looking I did it?

Sarah: Oh no! [Laughs]

Carly: And my dad hardly ever got mad at me, and that’s probably why I actually remember that memory so clearly is because he did get really, really mad. So I, I, you know, I have a, a huge heart for suffering and things like that, so I’ve never been a super comfortable meat eater?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Carly: So vegetarian was easy, but going vegan was harder. You know, I gave up all dairy products, eggs, all of that –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Carly: – and I did that for, I did that for quite some time, so when, when the first book in the series came out, I was, like, full-blown, holier-than-thou, better-than-everybody vegan, absolutely, and I fell off the wagon about a year ago in regard to cheese.

Sarah: I was going to say, it was cheese, wasn’t it?

Carly: It was absolutely cheese, which, you know, I’ve read something about how cheese, like, releases the same hormones as, like, drugs, as, like, crack, and that’s true. So –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Carly: – I, right now, during quarantine, is not the time for Carly to try and give up cheese. It’s just not. And I even, you know, we’re having to do strange things to get groceries right now, and I, I, I went to, like, a restaurant supply to get something that I needed, and I ordered casually, like, a little bag of cheese, ‘cause I thought, well, the kids’ll use it for quesadillas or whatever. It’s like, it’s like a dog food bag size of shredded cheese?

Sarah: [Laughs] Oh yes!

Carly: And so I just feel like, you know, this is not the time to waste that, Sarah, so.

Sarah: No, you cannot, you cannot waste things. Nope!

Carly: Yeah. And I’ve been getting, I, I went to, you know, toilet paper, toilet paper issue. We did get bidets. I had the foresight, when I saw how all this was going to go down, I ordered some bidets from Amazon. I understand you can’t even get ‘em now, but anyway.

Sarah: No, they’re hard to find!

Carly: Yeah. You still, a girl still needs some toilet paper, right? So I recently, over the weekend, bought toilet paper at a Mexican food restaurant, and – [laughs] –

Sarah: As, as you do.

Carly: As you do – and when the lady brought it out to my car, she took one look at me and she said, Mama, you need a margarita? [Laughs]

Sarah: Yes! Yes, I do! [Laughs]

Carly: I’m like, what gave me away? The fact that I’m buying toilet paper at a Mexican food restaurant? Yes, I need, I could use a margarita. [Laughs] But these are strange, strange times.

Sarah: They are very strange. Now, you mentioned that you live on a smaller ranch, but I imagine it’s much larger than most people’s properties. What do you do on your ranch? What are you, do you farm, do you grow, do you cattle? Do you have all of these things?

Carly: It’s cattle; we have cattle. And it’s, it’s a little under a hundred and fifty acres? But it used to be a lot bigger.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Carly: My father-in-law’s, my husband’s one of six kids, and they all live around here too, so –

Sarah: Right.

Carly: – like, all the adjacent property used to be part of this place, and so, like, from, from our property I can see two of his sisters’ houses. I mean, they’re far away. It’s not like neighbor –

Sarah: Right.

Carly: – you can see them. Two of his sisters’ houses, his nephew’s house, his niece’s house. His aunt and uncle are across the way. So it’s like one big, huge chunk of land on the San Antonio River that is – close to the river, not on it anymore – that belongs to his family. And we have three bodies of water here on the property, including a pretty big pond. We just got my, my son just had his sixteenth birthday, and we got him a kayak, so –

Sarah: Oh, what a cool gift! Happy birthday to him!

Carly: Yeah. He’s actually living his best life. He’s a huge introvert. Everybody was like, oh, poor Jasper is having to have his birthday during quarantine. I’m like, he’s loving it. This is, his favorite party ever was a non-party. But anyway, every evening, I go down to our lower pond with him, which, you know, you can drive or you can walk, but we drive ‘cause we’re, we’re dragging his kayak, and he kayaks, and I – and fishes; he fishes while he’s kayaking – and I just sit there, and you know, I’m, I’m so grateful to have that right now, and I’m really, really, really aware of the people who don’t –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Carly: – and who might need that feeling of getting out and feeling normal? Because, you know, when you’re down there, there’s, there’s nothing going on. There’s no virus –

Sarah: Yep.

Carly: – there’s no quarantine. The, the cows don’t know it. The, the frogs that start croaking don’t know it. The fish don’t know it. Bats, got a lot of bats out here – everything just feels so crazy normal –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Carly: – for, like, that hour, and I have that every evening with him, and I’m, I don’t know what I’d do if I, if I didn’t have that.

Sarah: Yep. For me, it’s, it’s walking my dogs every day.

Carly: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: And I mean, I live in a pretty populated area – I’m right outside DC in Maryland – but I can slow down, I can take a walk. There are not a lot of people walking, and when we do come across each other, we all go through these weird paths to be, stay six feet apart.

Carly: Yeah.

Sarah: But the dogs don’t care! The dogs are like, oh, hey, it’s walk time. This is great! Let’s go do the thing! And it happens every day, and while the days can sort of blend together, for them, it’s like, oh, it’s walk time. Let’s go see the world on pee on half of it. Sounds great; let’s do it.

Carly: [Laughs]

Sarah: And that little bit of normal is very reassuring; I know just what you mean.

Carly: Yeah, it is. It is. And then it’s jarring when you come out of it.

Sarah: Yes, when you surface again, it’s like, oh! Whoa!

Carly: Yeah, yeah. That, that’s how I feel every morning when I wake up.

Sarah: Yes!

Carly: Every, every single morning when I wake up, and I, I’m unaware that I do this, but my husband says the first word out of my mouth is the F word every morning, like, before I –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Carly: – before I even open my eyes –

Sarah: Oh fuck!

Carly: – I start with that, and then – yes – and then the next thing we do is argue over what day it is. That’s our, that’s our routine now.

Sarah: [Laughs] It’s the seventy-fifth of –

Carly: That’s our routine. Yeah.

Sarah: It’s the seventy-fifth of Aprimajune, and –

Carly: [Laughs]

Sarah: – it’s Wenthurfriday.

Carly: That’s it!

Sarah: We’re just going to make up days of the week. [Laughs]

Carly: That’s what day it is, absolutely.

Sarah: Yep! [Laughs]

Carly: Yeah. Like, how, how do you know? And then when I realize I have something scheduled on that day and you just panic. Wait, but was it yesterday? Did I miss it? And – yeah.

Sarah: Oh. Estelle, your publicist, emailed me and said, here, here’s some, here’s some suggested talking points for your conversation tomorrow, and I was like, oh, this is great! Thank you! Um, I have it for two days from now, on Thursday? She’s like, yeah, okay, it’s fine; I just don’t know what day it is. I’m like, but are you sure?

Carly: [Laughs]

Sarah: ‘Cause I also don’t know what day it is, and we could be talking about the wrong month entirely; I would not know. Like, not at all. [Laughs]

Carly: You know, okay, that’s a weird thing that I’m experiencing too, where I don’t know what month it is!

Sarah: Nope! No idea. Everything’s running together?

Carly: ‘Cause we don’t have our, we don’t have our, our little cues that usually tell us it’s so obviously this month, because this is –

Sarah: Mm-hmm!

Carly: – happening. None of those things are happening! I don’t, I’m like, I know, I’m like, I know it’s not winter. Like, that’s the best I can do!

Sarah: [Laughs] I know it’s spring, because pollen is, like, covering my car, and my car’s no longer blue; it’s green.

Carly: Yeah, yeah. We, we have that going on too. And I don’t –

Sarah: Is it bluebell season there, or is that already past?

Carly: It’s past, and, and it’s bluebonnets. That’s –

Sarah: Bluebonnet; I beg your pardon. Bluebells are something else.

Carly: But yeah, and we did not have any this year on the ranch, and that is the first time I can remember that ever happening. Other, other spots in Texas have, have had some beautiful showings, but we usually have one field that’s about twenty-five acres that will be –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Carly: – like, solid, solid, and, you know, we didn’t have that this year because we had a, a really brief early warm spell that followed some rain, and so they all got super excited, and they, they came up, and then it got cold again.

Sarah: Ugh!

Carly: So nature faked ‘em out this year.

Sarah: Yeaahh, well, maybe by next spring we’ll know what day it is and what month it is and you’ll see them again! [Laughs]

Carly: Yeah, it’s almost like they don’t know either, right? Like –

Sarah: No!

Carly: – they just don’t know what’s going on. Yeah.

Sarah: Who the hell knows?

Carly: Who knows?

Sarah: Now, I was told by Estelle that I specifically needed to ask you about writing awkward sex scenes.

Carly: [Laughs] Thanks, Estelle!

Sarah: [Laughs]

Carly: I do love an awkward sex scene. I –

Sarah: Sex is super awkward! [Laughs]

Carly: Well, and the thing is, you know, I mean, there’s only so many places you can put that thing. It’s not like I’m going to –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Carly: – it’s not like I’m going to invent a new sex, right? So.

Sarah: [Laughs more]

Carly: So, and, and it’s really actually hard to describe sex. I know, I, it’s, it’s a, it’s a, I –

Sarah: Oh, good sex is very difficult to write.

Carly: Yeah. I don’t, I don’t think I’m necessarily all that, that great at that, and so, so again, my char-, you’re going to be in their, my character’s heads, and our heads are, like, really weird places to be during sex. I just write funny ones, and, and something is always going to happen, because, you know, you know, everybody’s going to have mindblowing orgasms – more than one, possibly –

Sarah: Right, yep.

Carly: – and I just feel like we need to bring some levity in to, like, help people suspend their disbelief in that regard, because, you know, we all –

Sarah: Yeah!

Carly: – we, we – [laughs] – so, so I always have something awkward happen, and, and then show, show the, the, the thoughts and feelings of, of the people in, in response to that. Like, I don’t want to read about perfect people with no insecurities having sex, ‘cause it just fills me with rage, so –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Carly: – so, so whenever, you know, in, in Cowboy Come Home, you know, Claire gets her, her jeans stuck halfway down. They get stuck on her thighs, and then she ends up hanging over the side of a loft bed with her pants halfway down, and she’s stuck, and Ford gives himself a freaking concussion banging his head –

Sarah: I was going to say, there was some concussive sex in this book.

Carly: There was some head injuries, yes, and – so I always have stuff like that, and, and in Big Bad Cowboy, you know, Travis does that little striptease, but the whole time he’s, like, really worried about looking stupid. So – and then of course we have the cat interfering. Oscar causes a lot of problems there early, early on.

Sarah: Well, that’s what cats do.

Carly: Yeah. But I feel like if, if a sex scene can’t be used to, again, show vulnerability and help us connect with the characters and ways that, that they share our anxieties and our neuroses, you know –

Sarah: Yeah.

Carly: – then I, then I feel like, what’s it there for? Because, again, we all know, we all know what happens. You can’t just have it happen because it’s time –

Sarah: Right.

Carly: – because you’re at this point in the book. You have to do something to really, I hope, engage the reader, to where they’re really just loving these people, and they can, they can laugh at them and with them during the most intimate, vulnerable moments. So I think that’s why, that’s why I just like to put a little bit of awkward in there.

Sarah: [Laughs] It sounds like you really think about what is happening on a sort of meta level in a romance as you’re writing it. What is this scene doing? What are these characters doing as they walk through this scene? What, what is actually happening? It sound like you put a lot of thought into the larger narrative of the stories that you’re writing. And do you do that with your reading as well?

Carly: Not so much with my reading, no. I feel like – I do do it with my writing. I hardcore, like, every scene, I’m like, what, what is happening? What is this for? Everything that’s happening in this scene, what is it for, because I’m trying to get these two people to this place, and how is this, how is this helping that? So, so writing is really, for me? You know, I keep seeing people right now saying, oh, it’s my escape; I can’t wait to get back to my manuscript. It’s my escape from, from real life –

Sarah: Mm-hmm?

Carly: – right now, and for me, it’s not. It’s work; it’s a, a lot of, it’s a lot of work, and I have the attention span of a gnat right now. Like, I have no –

Sarah: Yep.

Carly: – no ability to focus. [Clears throat] Excuse me. So it’s a lot of work, and I do put a lot of thought into every single scene. When I read, thank God, no, I don’t. I just, I’m just like everybody else: it’s pure escapism. You tell me something’s happening, I’m going to believe it. [Laughs] And so I don’t really read that way. And I guess when the book’s good, you don’t really notice any of that or pay attention to it anyway. You should be totally lost in it –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Carly: – when you’re reading.

Sarah: I know that you just said that writing is difficult, which it really is. Are you working on a book right now?

Carly: I am working on a book right now, and it’s due really, really soon, and –

Sarah: You’ve got this! You could do it! You’ve got it!

Carly: That’s probably why I wake up with the F word every morning, but –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Carly: – that’s part of it. But, yeah, so I am writing a book right now. It’s the third book in the series, and the heroine is Alice, the librarian. Beau Montgomery is the hero, one of the Montgomery twins.

Sarah: Oh, yay!

Carly: Yeah, yeah.

Sarah: I was hoping they would get a happy ending. They, they seem like very decent dudes.

Carly: Yeah, they, they are. They’re the best guys. And Alice used to babysit them, so I’m having fun with that. Yeah, she’s a little bit older than Beau, and she used to be their babysitter. It got down to all the babysitters in town quit because the twins were so horrible, and they got down to one thirteen-year-old obnoxious know-it-all named Alice, and –

Sarah: Yep!

Carly: – Beau has been secretly pining for Alice all this time, so.

Sarah: Ahhh, the wonderful scent of pining fresh hero.

Carly: Yes, yes.

Sarah: One of my favorites.

Carly: Yeah.

Sarah: And, and when you’re in a town that small, you, you may indeed end up dating your babysitter; that’s just how it is!

Carly: That is how it is! As long as you’re not blood related beyond maybe your great-aunt, it’s all good.

Sarah: So what are you reading? Or what have you read that you would want to tell people about?

Carly: Well, right now, at this moment, I have a huge list of books that are just clawing at me and scratching at me? But I’m, I’m trying to stay away from my Kindle until I hit my, my deadline? But of course I can’t totally, and I just, I read, I just read Rebekah Weatherspoon’s cowboy romance. I just finished that one. I actually took that one on vacation with me before this whole lockdown started.

And I just started The Bride Test, and I finished Pippa Grant’s Liar, Liar – I can’t, there’s more to that title – Liar, Liar, I want to say Pants on Fire – Hearts on Fire! Liar, Liar, Hearts on Fire.

Sarah: Oh, well played; my brain can’t do that. [Laughs]

Carly: Yeah. [Laughs] Her titles are so clever, like Hot Heir, but it’s H-E-I-R. Like, she’s always so clever with her titles. And, and she’s just funny.

So those are what I’ve been reading, and I’ve got so many that I want to read. I just, I just bought The Happy Ever After Playlist, and I can’t wait to start it, ‘cause I loved The Friend Zone. And as soon as I turn this book in, I’m just going to lock myself away and read for a week.

Sarah: Oh, that sounds wonderful.

Carly: ‘Cause that’s the weird thing about writing. I think most of us start writing because we’re such huge readers and we just love to read so much, and then when you’re, when you’re really working on deadline, it’s really hard, and it’s hard, it’s hard for, for, for me, like, it’s, it’s time. You know, I have five kids, plus I’m trying to write a book, so finding time to read is hard, but more than that, too, like, I don’t like to have my voice affected while I’m writing –

Sarah: Yeah.

Carly: – and I get totally lost in books, like totally lost. I become, I become the book, and so, so it’s hard for me to snap out of, like, Pippa’s book to then jump back into Carly’s book and not drag a little bit of Pippa with me, you know? So, so when I get down to the wire, to the nitty-gritty, like I am right now, where I’m just writing all day every day, it’s, it’s more than just not having time. Like, I’m trying to resist the call because I don’t, I need to stay in my own imaginary world right – [laughs] – right now.

Sarah: I get it. I totally understand that.

Carly: Yeah. But I always, I like funny books. I’m always going to read books where, where there’s humor involved.

Sarah: Yeah, that makes sense.

Carly: I don’t care so much about subgenre. Like, I don’t care if it’s sports; I don’t care if it’s cowboys; I don’t care if it’s, you know, Navy SEALs, billionaire. I, I just like character-driven stories, so as long as, as I relate to the characters, I don’t care what the setting is.

[music]

Sarah: And that brings us to the end of this week’s episode. Thank you for inviting me to hang out with you. You can find Carly Bloom on her website at carlybloombooks.com and on Twitter @carlybloombooks. I will have a link to the –

Wilbur: Meow!

Sarah: – homemade book cover, which Wilbur, as you can hear, supports mightily, in the show notes at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast.

And if you would like to get in touch with me – perhaps your cat would like to talk to my cat, who’s talking to me right now – you can email me at [email protected], or you can leave me a message and tell me a bad joke at 1-201-371-3272. I love hearing from you, so please don’t be shy, and email me any time.

Now, I always end with a bad joke, but before I end with the bad joke, I want to remind you that this episode is brought to you by In To Her by J. A. Huss, available now at audible.com. And I have a sample of this book after this part, which is called the outro, which, if you’ve been listening to the podcast for a while you know is totally a real word, despite what my husband says. Although he agrees now, because Scrabble says so. Not me! Scrabble. Anyway. In To Her is an erotic ménage with a lot of heat and a lot of angst from New York Times and USA Today bestselling author J. A. Huss. Hit men AJ and Logan are professional monsters, and spending a sexy night stranded with their mark Yvette was not in the plan, but one night changes everything, and they soon find themselves plotting a way out of the job and out of the mob. You will hear in this sample that AJ, Logan, and Yvette are brought to life by Savannah Peachwood, Teddy Hamilton, and Tad Branson, and reviews online are extremely positive, so you get a free sample. You can find the audiobook now; buy In To Her at J. A. Huss on audible.com. And stay tuned after the talky part here, ‘cause I have a sample of this here audiobook.

I always end with a bad joke. Are you ready for the bad joke? It’s really bad. Really, really bad! Okay, you ready? [Clears throat]

What do you call two monkeys who share an Amazon Prime account?

What do you call two monkeys who share an Amazon Prime account?

Prime mates!

[Laughs] Boo! So dumb. I love it! You know, if you want to send me your bad jokes, I love having them, because this is my favorite thing to do each week.

So on behalf of everyone here, including Wilbur, who’s jumping around my office while I try to record – thanks a lot, buddy – we wish you the very best of reading. Have a great weekend, stay safe, and stay surrounded by all the best baked goods, and thank you again for inviting me to hang out with you for a little while. I hope this episode has taken your mind off things that are very concerning.

Smart Podcast, Trashy Books is part of the Frolic Podcast Network. You can find more outstanding podcasts to subscribe to at frolic.media/podcasts.

And remember, stay tuned. I have an audiobook sample just for you. But you might want to put on headphones: it’s a little spicy.

[sweet music]

[sample of In To Her by J. A. Huss]