by Malena Lott
(photos by Ree Drummond, The Pioneer Woman)
Book End Babes had the privilege to interview the Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond, a fellow Okie and the new author of The Pioneer Woman Black Heels to Tractor Wheels: A Love Story, which is in bookstores everwhere today.
I hadn’t read her serial romance on her website , so when I received the book for review, it was new to me. The book is fresh and funny, told in the wit her readers have come to know and love, and I dare you not to fall in love with Marlboro Man.
Malena: What’s the secret to your successful marriage?
PW: It helps that we really are together pretty much 24/7. He’s on the ranch and sometimes I go with him or the kids work with him. It’s important to keep up with each other’s business. Sure, have your own friends and activities, but togetherness is important.
Malena: Did you start the blog to deal with the isolation of the ranch?
PW: When my blog started in 2006, we were already ten years into our marriage, and I had sort of surrended to the isolation and found contentment. I found myself in a way, started the blog, it became an avenue of connection to outside world. It allowed me to maintain what I had achieved. the contentment in the countryside. i think about the timing and how funny it is that I had to go through the process to get used to the pace and the schedule and then started homeschooling the kids.
Malena: Did you decide to homeschool because of the distance into town?
PW: My daughter had attended kindergarten in Pawhuska and we were happy with her year in kindergarten, but transportation was pretty grueling. The school bus picked her up at 6:30 a.m. – first on the route – and would bring her home at 4:30. My friend Cindy Kane and I met a group of people in Tulsa and they were all homeschoolers. I had this idea of home schoolers as denim jumpers like a lot of people have. We thought, “Wonder if we could do that?” 24 hours later, we decided to do it. It started out as solution to transportation but it wound up you see unexpected benefits.”
Malena: My 10-year-old daughter is jealous that your kids get to ride horses before they are homeschooled every morning.
PW: (laughs): Tell her that my daughter is jealous that your daughter gets to get up and *not* have to ride horses in the morning!
Malena: Marlboro Man once gave you a John Deere riding mower. Have his gift-giving skills improved since then?
PW: No ranch equipment since then. But that riding mower is still working!
Malena: You and Marlboro Man spent a lot of time watching movies in the book, too. What was your favorite movie of 2010?
PW: Movies are what we do. We have a satellite and probably every movie channel available in the universe. We don’t go to a lot of things for entertainment. For years and years, I’ve watched the Oscars blind, because we only go about twice a year to the theater. I haven’t seen the big movies from last year. We saw the original True Grit with John Wayne, but not the new one.
Malena: What type of movies do you like?
PW: The man I married he has eclectic taste in movies. He likes westerns and having the context of living on the ranch makes the whole thing more entertaining. It’s especially fun to watch a western with a rancher and cowboy and detect inaccuries. We also like the Jane Austen movies, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice. There’s not a genre we don’t watch: action/horror/rom coms.
Malena: What’s the latest on your movie?
PW: The story (Black Heels) was optioned and a statement was released on it, but I don’t stay in contact about the status. It’s still in development. I’m focusing on homeschooling and working on the website and the daily brand.
Malena: On Book End Babes, we celebrate great friends and great reads. What book or books are you reading now?
Ree's current read
PW: My sister is huge reader. She’s always saying, “You’ve got to read this book.” I re-read Sophie’s Choice. I love the book. I like to read non-fiction like David Sedaris and just started The Year of Living Biblically. My friend Cindy gave it to me for my birthday. I love the concept. I tend to read things aren’t long narratives that I can pick up and read when I have pockets of time.
Malena: How often do you get together with your girlfriends and how do you spend time together?
Ree's sister
PW: Cooking at my house. My sister is a built-in best friend and my friend Cindy and I spend a lot of time together. We bake cinnamon rolls and deliver them to friends. And once a year, I have a big cowgirl dinner party and invite the wives of neighboring ranchers and cook things that have nothing to do with cowboy cuisine.
Malena: What’s next for Pioneer Woman, the brand?
PW: We’re not really adding, but I’m in the process of redesigning Tasty Kitchen, the recipe sharing section, making it slicker and easier to use. I’m really always interested most in cooking and sharing recipes and the step-by-step tutorial is my main interest. If there’s anything want to do, I put it through the filter of my life on the ranch so it needs to be web-related things. This is where I want to be always, every day.
Thanks, Ree, and good luck on your book tour. Babes, rrder the book by clicking on the cover in the right sidebar.
1. At what age did you know you wanted to be a writer?
6. What advice do you have for aspiring authors? My advice is to write as much volume as possible. I know a certain author who writes one draft of each of her widely published books. She works each sentence until it’s right and then moves on until she’s finished with her perfect draft. I don’t think most people can write productively that way and in my mind, the only way to become good at writing is to write a ton and then figure out that the true work is in revising the volume of text you’ve created. Everyone’s different, but for me it’s volume of writing that allows a person to become good at it.
