Author Confessions: The Catherine Matthews Edition

Ever wonder about which bits of an author's novel are steeped in reality? Author Confessions: The Facts Behind the Fiction is ready to spill the tea.

When I was in school I worked as a bank teller.

When today's guest author Catherine Matthews was in college she drove a forklift, a flatbed, a roller, a push truck, and a bus. And that's before she was a data research director, teacher, high school principal—and, of course, a writer.

Lucky for us readers she has been able to parlay these experiences along with a host of others including working as a ranch hand in Alaska to create a vivid world in her debut novel where the main character must navigate both the rugged wilderness and gender bias in the workplace. (Also, a mystery!)

Meanwhile I can, ahem, count a stack of $20s like nobody's business...

Let's dish on Catherine's book Releasing the Reins: A Novel, her thoughts on "write what you know," and her writing routine (hint: it involves writing at 5 a.m. 365 days a year).

Read to the end to learn how to enter our giveaway for an e-book of her debut.

Author Confessions (AC): Tell us about your novel…

Catherine Matthews (CM): Releasing the Reins: A Novel is about a woman named Bunny O'Kelly who has spent her whole life working on her family's dairy farm. And that's really all she ever wanted to do. Then one day her father announces that he's giving the farm to her brothers and she's being cut out completely. So her whole self-image suddenly comes to a big end. She realizes that they've never really taken her seriously as a member of the family and she storms off to Alaska to become a ranch hand and prove herself. I think on a more fundamental level, she wants to find a place where she can belong and be accepted as her authentic self.

Of course when she gets there things don't turn out quite like she planned. In fact, the rancher does not want her at all—and it's because she's a woman. So she finds herself 1200 miles away from home, basically working for her dad again, and realizes she can't run this time, she has to face it.

This story is about longing to find that place and what we're willing to do and what we're willing to risk to keep it. In this case, she discovers that the daughter of the man she's working for who had died two years before was not in fact killed in an accident. And so figuring out what happened to her and then deciding whether or not to bring it to light is a big part of the story of risking her sense of self and her sense of belonging in this new place.

AC: Do you have any ties to farming or Alaska or is that just what felt right for the story?

CM: Actually, I do. I went to the University of Alaska Fairbanks. I'm a fighting Nanook. My husband is from Alaska. He was born and raised in Skagway and the second time I met him it was while I was working as a ranch hand just north of Fairbanks. I also did a brief stint driving a silage truck for a dairy farm. So I have a little bit of a background. Obviously, I did quite a lot of research too but I think my love of animals and the outdoors—and horses and dogs in particular—really played into it. And my love of Alaska. It's beautiful place.

AC: Did any experiences or events from your life shape the plot?

CM: I worked as a ranch hand so I definitely spent my share of time mucking stalls and bucking bales and all that sort of thing. The story is definitely not an autobiography but there are a couple of little easter eggs that happened. I did get dragged by a horse once which was not fun.

And I think, too, just the whole element of deciding to do work that is not what was sort of traditionally accepted for women of the time. I did those things because I was young and strong and they paid well but I definitely worked in plenty of traditionally male jobs back in the '80s. So I had that whole experience of deciding what kind of woman I wanted to be and not settling for less.

AC: Are any characters—or aspects of characters—based on you or anyone you know?

CM: I always say when you're a writer every character has a little piece of you in them. You just can't help that I think. Bunny is bold and a little bit fiery and that's kind of how I was in my 20s. And Rocky who is very much a villain in the story is kind of like a conglomeration of every guy I ever worked with who gave me a hard time. I just threw it all in there. The characters may have little pieces of people that I've known but I certainly tried to give them depth and balance like we're not all good, we're not all bad.

AC: Why did you write this book and why now?

CM: The why now is just the relevance of the fact that we live in a time that's really trying to define gender and gender expectations. This is not a book about transgendered people but it is a book about the fact that there are a million ways to be a woman and you get to pick what that is, that does not get to be defined for you. And too often we can find ourselves in situations where we feel like it has to be that way.

I think for me it was really exploring all those different ways and not just in Bunny. One of the things that happens with her is that her biases about women come out and she has to confront that. That in her journey to assert who she is and that her way of being is okay and she can live as her authentic self she diminishes other people and, in particular, a character called Carolina. She has to come to terms that she has underestimated her and she has pigeonholed her as the kind of woman she doesn't particularly like.

AC: Do you find yourself drawn repeatedly to the same or similar themes? Why?

CM: I think the overarching theme is of relationships and family secrets and not just biological families but found families. I really like to explore those things. From that perspective, I think some of the themes are very similar.

But I think for each of these books (AC: this is the first in a series), the focus will be very different. The next book will explore one of the men and the difficult relationship he had with his mom and the mystery surrounding her disappearance. He is a twin and I think one of the really rich ways that that can be incorporated is the difference in how each handles this situation that I'm going to throw at them.

AC: What’s your take on the idea of “write what you know”?

CM: I think there are always kernels of things whether it is the place like Alaska or something that is in my heart or maybe a theme, family relationships, whatever. I think that's kind of foundational, but I do think the sort of exciting part of it is the learning and growth and research that you have to do.

I was not a horse trainer but I studied and researched. And, you know, those are the kinds of things that make a story very interesting. I guess I'm maybe in the middle ground of that. I was a teacher and a high school principal and a data research director and I could certainly write about all of those things but I think exploring themes in other settings are very interesting as well.

AC: Any fun facts you'd like to share?

I have actually had a lot of jobs. I put myself through college so I did some very unusual things. When I was at the University of Alaska I drove a forklift, a flatbed, a roller, a push truck, a bus. I did what had to be done. I majored in biology and taught biology, chemistry, physics.

AC: Any thoughts on your writing process?

CM:  I would say the novel took a different path than I thought it was going to take. It started at a different point—and maybe that's what happens when you're a first-time author. But that experience of having to start over and back up really made the story much richer than it might have been.

I originally started with my main character at the dairy farm finding out her life was about to end but I later realized that's really not the start of the story. The start of her story is when she has the courage to leave. This story evolved and I love how it turned out.

I'm super grateful to WFWA (the Women's Fiction Writers Association) and all of the members for the support they gave me. In this process, I ultimately decided to self publish so that was a whole other element of the experience.

Behind the Keyboard: AKA The Top 10 List

1. How long did it take from the book’s beginning to The End? 

I went back and looked and I was really surprised. I started plotting in August of 2018 and the plan was to write it during NaNoWriMo. I've never successfully made it through NaNoWriMo. So I started writing in November.

I finished the first draft in May of 2019. And, of course, just published last June. I was probably through the revisions and querying by 2022. Then in 2023 I decided I needed to make it happen. I actually decided to self publish in June of 2023. I had it out within a year after that. So six years total.

2. How many drafts? 

I would say seven drafts and one last major revision. I went through it a few times. You know, it's your first time.

3. Do you use a daily word count / time period / etc to know when you’re done for the day?

Until June 14 when I retired from my other job and became a full-time writer I wrote every single morning at 5am before work with a group of women from across the country, not necessarily WFWA but a group that author Amy Nathan put together. 365 days a year and then on Saturdays I would write at the WFWA write in so I would start writing at 5 a.m. and finish at noon. And that's how I got this book done.

Now I still do the 5 a.m. thing and then I do the write ins. I don't set a word count. I set a goal for example I want to get this revision done by September first. I want to get the next book plotted and underway, drafted by next January. But no, I don't do a word count. I do more of a schedule.

4. Type or handwrite?

I typed the manuscript but for each of the books I have a handwritten notebook that I start with. That really launches itself into the outline and I always find out by the time I'm done outlining the first 40 pages of the book are done. It just blossoms from there.

5. Plotter or pantser?

I am a plotter for sure. However, I feel like I've developed a flexibility about what the story is telling me so if my plot that I planned six months ago is not making sense because something else happened or got into my head I'm flexible with it. But by my very nature I'm a science major who had a math job. I'm an organizer, you know?

6. Beverage or other pre-writing routine of choice? 

I actually get up at four a.m. I shower and get all ready and then I get my coffee. Another writer and I have a 4:45 call before the 5 o'clock writing. We give each other a pep talk and accountability. Then we start writing at 5. Yeah, it's a thing, and it's bad if we miss it.

7. Do you read outside your genre? If so, what? 

I definitely do. I have a nonfiction book going right now and I just finished a vampire book for a friend that I thought was interesting. I will read just about anything if it's a good story. Women's fiction and mystery are probably my two top genres. I don't like horror because I'm a chicken. I don't mind the odd murder but I really don't want something that is really scary.

8. Most exhilarating aspect of writing? 

I have to say there are two. One is when I am editing or rereading, and I come across a sentence I just love so much. And I think OMG I wrote that. That's a really good sentence.

The other thing is when I get a review and it's somebody who got it. Early on somebody on netgalley wrote that Bunny O'Kelly was a feminist icon and I celebrated for the next 24 hours.

9. Most challenging aspect of writing? 

I am by nature a hunter and writing by nature I think is a gatherer activity. I like to find a problem and then hunt down the solution for the problem and kill the problem and then move on to the next problem. But writing is really a very iterative process and you're collecting information and you're integrating it and I've really had to learn to slow down and realize I'm probably going to create another plot hole when I fix this one and that's okay. It's going to cascade into changes and I'm going to pull things in and then I'm going to clean them off and that has never been my natural style. Probably the most difficult is being okay with the journey being windy and iterative and sometimes without a clear path to the end. You have to just trust it's all going to come together or you do it over and it'll be fine.

10. Favorite resource for writers? 

I would honestly have to say WFWA because I can do a webinar, a workshop, I can go to the toolkit. I can also go on Facebook with whatever insane minute question about some aspect and someone will answer my question and someone will help me out. Someone will wonder if I'm not sitting in a writing date. There's accountability and support and we're all competing to get our books written and yet I've never been in quite this kind of professional environment where people are more than willing to help you be successful. Your book might be competing with mine but I'm still going to help you do what has to be done.

AC: Catherine Matthews, thanks so much for Confessing!

To learn more about Catherine, visit her Linktree to find her website, newsletter, socials, and more.

To enter our drawing to win an e-book of Releasing the Reins: A Novel, drop a comment below by Sunday. And remember, if you enjoy a book then leaving a good review is the best gift you can give an author.

These answers were edited for length and clarity.