One day in December of 2015, a writer friend of mine said to a group of us, "We should all write a short story and put them together in a single book." or something to that effect. I was struck by that idea.
Characters and a plot simmered in my head for a month, and when we all met again in January of 2016, I asked if she was serious. And can you believe it!? She'd forgotten all about it. A conversation was had anyhow, and the six of us tossed around ideas, themes, and tie-ins.
What we came up with were two free books, each with five short romance stories, with a central matchmaker lady tying them all together in the town of Ten Rigs, Texas. The first book would be published in time for Christmas of 2016 and the second published in time for Valentine's Day 2017. After that, each author would write single romances with the Miss Marva Matchmaker helping the citizens of her town find true love and we'd all publish them on the same day.
Unfortunately, while everyone loved the idea, the reality of it was something else. With six active writers at various stages of career and life, the project, though loved by all, wasn't meant to be. I was the lone author standing. They handed Ten Rigs and Miss Maple to me and told me to run with it.
So I did.
I changed the matchmaker tie-in to a small town continuity motif, and the Miss Maple Matchmaker series became the Ten Rigs Texas Tales instead.
The first book, For the Love of Scott, retains the matchmaker theme because I'd written the story at the beginning of all our plotting and planning, but when all was said and done, there didn't really seem to be much need to remove it. Several subsequent books feature Miss Maple,but not all, and at least one member of each romantic couple is either be a Ten Rigs native or will come to reside in our dear little town.
Thanks so much for stopping by Ten Rigs ~
As they say here in Texas : Welcome in, y'all!
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