With ‘Swift & Saddled’ Lyla Sage opens Rebel Blue Ranch to a broader audience

The following interview contains minor spoilers for ‘Swift & Saddled.’

'Save a horse, write a cowboy.' That may not be the saying, but when it comes to Lyla Sage and her Rebel Blue Ranch series, it applies. When Lyla first penned and published her debut novel, she never imagined the tornado it would bring to her life. Not even a year has passed since Done & Dusted was originally released on Kindle Unlimited, and now Sage finds herself and her beloved story traditionally published by The Dial Press with a freshly-inked sequel now on bookshelves and two additional installments waiting in the wings. To quote the author herself, if Done & Dusted proved she could write a novel, Swift & Saddled showed her she could do it better. In the second installment of the Rebel Blue Ranch series, Sage doubles down on the heart, sunshine and spice that her readers loved about the first. Through the avenue of Wes and Ada, she opens her fictional town in Wyoming to a wider audience by inviting an outsider into her pages.

At the behest of Weston Ryder, Ada Hart, a hard-headed and soft-souled interior designer, comes to Meadowlark to assist with rejuvenating the Rebel Blue guest ranch. She's not due to meet her new boss until the morning after her arrival, and without many other options, finds herself at the Devil's Boot, the town's resident dive bar. When a handsome cowboy saunters through the door, she notes the instant and intense chemistry between them. Eventually, the unshakable pull of his eyes causes Ada to pull him into a heated makeout session in the saloon's shadows. What harm could it do? She's likely never to see him again. However, the mystery man is, in fact, Wes, the sunshine-personified and people-pleasing middle child of the Ryder clan. As the two get to know each other rebuilding 'Baby Blue,' their instant spark grows into a true connection, leaving the cowboy and the city girl to weigh the things they're chasing in life with the people worth staying for.

While preparing to return to Rebel Blue, Lyla Sage chatted with The FMC about writing her sophomore novel, going from Indie to Traditional publishing, why she holds Wes and Ada so close to her heart, and more.

First, I need to say the biggest congratulations ever on Swift & Saddled. I am so obsessed, which is the biggest of compliments, because I never thought I would love a cowboy, real or fictional, and now I’m ready to organize a girls' trip to Wyoming.

Thank you! I recommend it! I will say, as somebody who grew up around a lot of cowboys, the fictional ones are definitely better, but that’s the case with pretty much all men. [laughter]

That's just men in general. What do you love about the Western genre?

Western as a whole, whether you're looking at romance or at a traditional Western, has this sense of adventure that comes with it, this sense of atmosphere. It's a genre that–no matter what sub-category you're tapping into is–cinematic. The setting becomes a character in itself with the big blue skies, the mountains, the trees and the way that the wind sounds when it blows through it all. When you’re reading or watching, it becomes this full experience. At the core of the Wild West is this idea of authenticity and fearlessness, which lends itself really great to romance novels and what makes the genre as a whole the perfect escape.

What would you say is a good cowboy romance starter pack?

That's such a good question. Obviously, I think Done & Dusted is excellent for a good cowboy starter pack. [laughter] If you're interested in movies, The Longest Ride is a great one or Hannah Montana: The Movie. There are so many great options. You can watch Yellowstone. You can listen to Beyonce. Western is no longer this niche interest. It's blowing up. It's growing. Personally, I think my best starter pack is a nice classic country album–like a Waylon Jennings album or Red Headed Stranger, which is an album by Willie Nelson, a whiskey cocktail, some ambient lighting and Done & Dusted.

That sounds like a great night. I love a cocktail and a good book. For all intents and purposes, you had almost overnight success with Done & Dusted, and I know you’ve said in previous interviews that you have always wanted to be a writer, but what made you actually start laying down the stories of Rebel Blue?

I've been writing for a long time. What triggered Done & Dusted was yet another rejection from an agent. I was querying agents with a different novel for about a year and a half before I wrote Done & Dusted. I was feeling really stagnant. I had just graduated from grad school. I didn't know what I wanted to do. So, I decided that the next time I got a rejection, I would move on and try something new. I got a rejection very soon after I made that decision, and soon after, while watching Friday Night Lights, I was extremely inspired by the small town and Tim Riggins and what he would look like as a functioning adult. I started writing Done & Dusted almost immediately. I wrote it obsessively. I had a blast doing it. It was just me in my room writing a story that I was passionate about and that I loved. After I finished about 50% of it, I thought that I had something special and decided to learn more about indie publishing and figure out how to release this book myself. The whole process was fantastic and wonderful. I'm so grateful for the internet for teaching me how to do it and for the indie authors out there who shared their knowledge with me. It was a beautiful thing. I've never felt more joy and more excitement than I felt when I was writing Done & Dusted. It was truly a joyous and incredible experience because I was doing it only for me with the hopes that maybe 100 people would read it. It became something that's so much bigger than myself, and it's a beautiful thing to be a part of.

It really goes to show that things happen the way that they're supposed to happen.

Absolutely.

Doing these interviews is so hard because, as someone who loves reading, I want to talk about all my favorite bits, but I can’t. But we are going to talk about Wes and Ada. We have to. I love them both to pieces. I love the way they love each other. When you began writing this book–or really when you begin any book– how do you craft your couples?

My stories are extremely character-driven, so I have to know my characters extremely well. To be honest, they come to my brain pretty flushed out. Wes, Ada, Emmy, Luke, Gus, Teddy, and everybody else feel so real to me. When I think about Wes and Ada, I think about their backstories and their goals. I’m thinking about their arcs, where I want them to end up, and how they get there, and then I figure out how they both contribute to pushing one another toward the relationship, but also toward their goals. I like thinking about couples in my romance novels, not as people who just end up together but as people who continue down parallel paths and accomplish their own ends and their own means while also getting the opportunity to fall in love and have something ordinarily extraordinary. When it comes to compatibility, I'm one of those people who maps out everybody's star charts. [laughter] In Swift & Saddled, specifically, Ada is pretty reserved and shy, so I balanced her with Wes, who tends to put other people first. So, in turn, Ada needed to be willing to put him first. Where one character might need a little push or a little support, how can the other character swoop in and help?

Now I need to know. What are Wes & Ada’s star signs?

Ada is a Taurus. She's very stubborn. She’s very hard-headed. She’s my girl. Wes is a Pisces. He's very emotional. He’s aware. He's in tune. He cares deeply about the people around him and his relationships with them.

Where did the idea for the plot of Swift & Saddled come from?

That's another good question. I love dude ranches. They are the most fun thing on the planet. I’ve had a lot of experiences at them. From the very beginning, when I was first thinking about Rebel Blue as a functioning and working cattle ranch, I knew that I wanted a guest ranch to be incorporated somehow. I thought that that would be an excellent plot point, especially for somebody like Wes, who sits right in the middle of the three siblings and feels like he doesn't have anything of his own. The idea and the plot for this book was the fact that both Wes and Ada feel they don't have anything or they aren't stable. What gives them footing is this guest ranch that they can create together.

I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to see a fictional building as badly as I want to see the inside of Baby Blue. The way you described it seems so cozy and wonderful.

Thank you.

Which character’s voice was easier to find?

Both of them are so easy. I guess Ada is a little bit difficult because Ada and Lyla from five years ago have a lot in common. So sometimes it was hard to write in her voice and reflect on where I've been, where I'm at and where I'm going. Ada forces me to look inward a little bit more than I'm comfortable with, so sometimes, it is a little bit harder to write in her voice. But the voices of all three of the Ryder siblings–Emmy, Gus and Wes–have been super easy for me to write in. So far the hardest person to write in probably has been Ada, but it still wasn’t hard or challenging. It was just deeply personal. Again, I write character-driven novels, so it's really important for me to know my characters, and if I don't feel like I'm doing their voice justice, I have to go back. I know them really well before I get started and I think that helps with their voices.

Speaking of Ada’s voice being personal, you’ve been very open and honest on social media about your writing process and how personal it often is for you. With the pressure you felt to make Swift & Saddled a story that was as well-loved as Done & Dusted and the struggle it was to make it through your sophomore manuscript, do you feel prouder, in the way, of this book?

Definitely. I think Done & Dusted proved to me that I could do it. Swift & Saddled proved to me that I could do it better. The whole adventure has been sort of difficult in a way. My life changed so much in such a short period of time. Even though a lot of the attention that was on me for Done & Dusted was positive, it's still extremely weird to have that light shining on you when it's never been there before. All of a sudden, the book that you wrote in your room and the characters that you came up with by yourself are loved by many. They're not just loved by you anymore. While that created a really exciting moment to create something that people love, it also created a lot of pressure.

Totally.

With Swift & Saddled particularly, even though this is the order that I've always planned in my head, there were a lot of people out there who were expecting the second book to be Gus and Teddy. So then, I felt like I was already disappointing people just because of Wes and Ada’s existence. That added another amount of pressure because I love them. I think that they're fantastic. There's no other book that I would have wanted to be my second book. But when there was this tornado that was happening in my brain and in my life, and I was just trying to get a handle on everything, It was really scary to write a sophomore novel. It's really scary not only to do it once but also to do it twice on purpose. Ultimately, Wes and Ada became something that was extremely true to me. I'm fiercely protective of them. I hold them so close to my heart because they became this place of refuge when I was really overwhelmed by the attention. That's why they're soft and sweet and comforting and vulnerable. They became all of these things that I needed in order to survive what was happening in my life at the time– which was amazing! It's so freakin cool. But things can be extremely cool and insanely overwhelming.

That is very true. You had announced Swift & Saddled before you got picked up traditionally. Had you written any of it before you released Done & Dusted?

I had written about 50% of Swift & Saddled when I announced it. Well, once you get through a draft and you delete everything, that first 50% that I had written before, Done and Dusted, came out probably turned out to be like 30% or something like that, but I had written a good chunk of it. If I hadn't gotten picked up, it was supposed to come out in October. Done and Dusted (Indie Version) came out in June, so I had written a decent portion of it. It was very interesting to see how the process changed once Done & Dusted came out. Before, I was writing Swift & Saddled in a very similar way to how I wrote Done & Dusted. I wasn’t sure if anyone was going to read it, but I was having a good time. I love these characters. I love this place that I've created in my mind as a refuge. Then Done & Dusted comes out, and I'm like, “Oh my god. Well, a lot of people are probably gonna read this, and a lot of people are excited about it.” It added some pressure, but it also provided a lot of opportunities to reflect and make sure that I was writing the story that I wanted to write.

What did you find the biggest differences were in the manuscript–to–publication process going from Indie to Traditional?

I have to turn in my manuscripts a lot earlier now in relation to the publication date. I'm not going to say things move slower because I am still knocking these out in a pretty good amount of time; for instance, book three comes out next November. That manuscript is like done and dusted. [laughter] That pun is never gonna get old. My writing process has changed every single time. I have a way that I start all of my books, but I don't necessarily have a way that I finish them. That has changed every time depending on the characters that I'm writing and how things are going for me. But Lost & Lassoed, book three, was the first time that I did traditional publishing from start to finish. I wrote it for traditional publishing. I got it developmentally edited by my traditional editor at The Dial Press and got it copy-edited. With Swift & Saddled, I still sent it to beta readers and to the editor who did Done & Dusted before I sent it to my editor at The Dial Press as well. Swift & Saddled was an amalgamation of both of the processes. It was my transitional piece. I love both of them. I literally have the best editor in the world at The Dial Press. Her name's Emma. She's fantastic. I'm so excited and grateful that she chooses to lend her talents to my stories. She's absolutely phenomenal. She helped with Swift & Saddled, she’s all the way in Lost & Lassoed, and she’ll be there for book four.

You’re currently working on book 4. More than one book a year is an absolutely insane timeline. What helps you stay motivated and inspired?

So many things. I guess I'm lucky right now. I hope this is the case for every book that I write, but I'm so deeply enamored by Rebel Blue Ranch. I love this place. I love these stories, and I purposefully saved the one I'm the most looking forward to for last, which is the one that I'm writing right now. That was a strategic move on my part to help with this insane schedule. Sometimes I'm like, “Who decided this?” I did. I did it. [laughter] I've got no one to blame but myself. I'm having the best time. There are definitely still times when I fall into a rut, and I don't know what to do. When that happens, I go outside. I look at the big Western scenery that I can see out my window. I listen to music. I love to read thrillers while I'm drafting because they're so different from what I'm writing, so I love to read those or horror, sometimes a biography. It doesn't matter what I'm reading. I generally feel inspired by it all. I don't like to read romances while I’m drafting romance because everything gets a little bit too jumbled. I just feel really lucky that I get to do it, so even when I get tired, I'm not tired of doing it. It's a rewarding thing. I love it. I love Rebel Blue.

For Swift & Saddled release, you’ll be going on a book tour! What are you looking forward to most?

Oh my god. So many things. I'm so looking forward to being able to meet readers in person. I've been waiting for this for so long. I can't wait to see so many people who have been around since the indie days of Done & Dusted. There are people who ARC read the indie version of Done & Dusted who told me they’re coming to the Chicago stop. These people have stuck with me for so long, and they just continue to show up and stand out for Rebel Blue. I'm also so excited to meet some of my friends in real life. I get to have in-person conversations with Hannah Bonam-Young, who's another romance author and B.K. Borison is someone I've loved and adored for years. She's somebody I consider a friend, and I get to give her a big ol’ hug in New York City. I get to meet my publishing team in New York– my editor, my publicity gals, the marketing guys and all the wonderful people at The Dial Press who make my books possible on these crazy timelines. I just can't wait to spend time with them and see them. Ultimately, a book tour is a dream. I've had a lot of dreams come true and it never gets old. I'm just so excited to get out there.

Lastly, which FMC archetype do you identify with?

I would say The Misfit. They are usually people who roll with the punches and go with the flow. That is my area. I wish I was The Warrior, but that's just not me. If the apocalypse comes, I’m dead. [laughter]