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Posts from the ‘Writing Life’ Category

May 5

Love in a Small Town
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Love In A Small Town


Everyday people with ordinary lives fill the pages in a Matlock novel but the tension, emotion, humor, and frustration come through loud and clear. And she shows us in each story how love is a treasure, sometimes throwing in just a touch of magic to remind us of the serendipity in everyday life. ~Amazon review

Mollie and Tommie Lee have been married for twenty-five years. They grew up in Valentine, Oklahoma, and were sweethearts from the get-go. But something is missing in their marriage, and Mollie can’t bear to stay where she doesn’t feel loved. Tommy Lee is confused and hurt and angry when she leaves for the refuge of Aunt Hestie’s empty cottage, but he has complaints of his own. In her unique voice, Curtiss Ann Matlock uncovers the heart of their story—their passion and promise, their hopes and dreams.

Excerpt from Love in a Small Town:

With resignation she began rinsing the dishes in the sink and putting them into the dishwasher. A dark line on one of the plates caught her eye, and she paused, gazing at it. The plate was one of the set her mother had bought for them up at the old TG&Y store in Oklahoma City, when she and Tommy Lee had gotten married. The plates were cream colored, with a black and yellow line and a single spray of yellow daisies around the rim of each plate and cup. There were only three of them left, and the dark line on this one was where it had been broken and glued back together. Staring at that line, Molly counted back the years and thought maybe she should send a letter of testimony to the makers of Super Glue.

She thought, too, how the plate was a reflection of her marriage.

The next instant, she lifted that plate and smacked it on the divider of the white enamel sink.

Sounded like a ball going through a window. Molly scrunched he eyes as tiny pieces of china peppered her face and flew into the air and out across the counter and down on the floor. The bigger pieces clattered into the sink.

Molly was shocked. She stared at the shards.

Goodness! What had she done?

Mortification crept in. It simply wasn’t done, breaking an innocent plate, no matter that it had a glue line. It certainly wasn’t done by Molly Jean Hayes, mother of three grown children, certified public accountant, and upstanding member of both the chamber of commerce and Methodist church. The action was destructive, wasteful…and possibly a little deranged.

But by golly the reckless act felt so darn good that she did it twice more with the two yellow daisy plates remaining in the sink. Lifted the plate and brought it down, felt the impact and the disintegration, and heard all the shattering, then did it again.

There. She supposed she could break a few dishes in her lifetime if she wanted to.

I don’t know how you responded to that passage, but I read it and began to chuckle. Molly and Tommy Lee’s story is one millions of couples have experienced. It is about about learning that love is a choice, one you have to make every day. And that we manage to do it so often is the magic of living.

There is much about my own life in the story of Molly and Tommy Lee, but let me be clear: I have no sisters, only one son, and my mother never gets up for breakfast.

Take a break from the world and enjoy a little Love in a Small Town! 

Blessings
CurtissAnn

Apr 26

The hill on this cover is the hill on the small ranch where we lived in Oklahoma. Yes, that's me.
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The Loves of Ruby Dee

A wonderful antidote to glitz romance. Ruby Dee is so sweet, so loving, so wise, that you know she’ll get it right in the end, and you stay with her all the way to make sure she does. ~Detroit Free Press, on The Loves of Ruby Dee.

From the Author’s Note in The Loves of Ruby Dee:
The stories I write spring from my strong beliefs: in the beauty and endurance of the land and of those who work the land, in horses and pickup trucks and in boots and blue jeans, and in the hope that tomorrow is going to be a better day. I like to mix in a little mischief–maybe a lot of mischief–and add a touch of country blues, such as found in the songs of Mary Chapin Carpenter, Kathy Mattea, John Berry, Don Williams, and Patty Loveless (my favorite singers), to name a few. If you like all those things, you might enjoy this book. If you don’t enjoy this book, find one you can. A good book lets us escape our lives, and gives us heart to live them, too.

I wrote that introduction in 1996, when The Loves of Ruby Dee was first published. I smile at reading it now. Little has changed in my attitude and the things I find valuable in life on earth.

Blessings,
CurtissAnn

Apr 20

Wishes_Were_Horses_400-1
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If Wishes Were Horses

“It was not so much her husband dying in another woman’s bed that had sent her into shock, but his dying at all. Roy had been only thirty-five years old, and while he had been in many a woman’s bed, he had never died on her before.”

With comic invention and warm tenderness, Matlock brings a time and place to life: windswept Oklahoma of the 1950s, prohibition, bush-track horse racing–and a man and woman who discover hope in new beginnings, and the tender promise of love.

If Wishes Were Horses tells the story of Etta Rivers, who is left grief-stricken, humiliated, and pregnant when her husband dies. With creditors taking things right and left, Etta is in danger of losing  the only home she has ever known.

On the day of her husband’s funeral, a new man enters her life – Johnny Bellah, a broken ex-rodeo cowboy with a lame leg, who comes presenting an IOU from Roy. In lieu of payment, which Etta cannot pay, Johnny accepts a room in the barn and the use of the ranch facilities to train horses for customers. It is the beginning of a tentative relationship, one in which Etta and Johnny set out to see if they can train a winning horse, and find themselves helping each other.

*  *  *  *  *

If I have one fault as a writer –and I’m not admitting to any faults, but I might admit to a tendency– it is to be wordy. I think it is a trait of being Southern and fascination with details and what belongs to us. Southerners talk slow, but some of us talk a lot at times.  And I can’t seem to see things without a bit of humor, even the darkest of subjects. I find people just pretty funny. I do a lot of explaining because of this.

I did at one time write genre romances, and I got caught up in the romances that were so popular at the time about cowboys. Only, I knew real cowboys, and let me just say I have never in my life met a real cowboy who would put a woman above his horse. It is always the ‘next’ horse, too, with a cowboy. They’ll have a horse that they are sure is a ‘winner’, and they’ll have it for a year, but come spring, they will already have spied another one that’s better by far. I find this a rather dear trait, actually, a sign of perpetual hope, which is a good way to live.

Knowing all of this, the cowboys in my books are always a little different. Yes, the way I want them to be, but the way they are, too. Isn’t that how each of see the people around us?

~blessings,
CurtissAnn

“You won’t find millionaires or supermodels between the pages of If Wishes Were Horses. Oh no. This is something far more valuable: real romance, between people so genuine they could be our neighbors.” ~ Cathy Sova, The Romance Reader

“There is something magical about this story of second chances, and the power of a woman’s heart.” ~ Ionia Martin, Top 500 Reviewer, Amazon.

You can read more about the writing of If Wishes Were Horses here.

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