New Beginnings

by Jennie Bentley/Bente Gallagher

So it's August. Back at the beginning of June, it seemed like it would never really come. Just like when I was a kid, and summer vacation stretched out in front of me forever. Or so it seemed.

But all good things must come to an end, right? And in just over a week, it's time for school to start again. The kids aren't much looking forward to it, but I am. I mean, I love them and all... but they're wreaking havoc with my writing schedule. I have to deliver DIY-5, FLIPPING OUT! to my editor by September 1st, and with two kids underfoot all summer, it hasn't been easy finishing the manuscript.

As a child, I always looked forward to the beginning of school. I looked forward to summer vacation, too, but by August, I was ready to see my friends and get back to a regular schedule and have normal life start up again.

To some people, New Years Eve is the beginning of the year. That's the time to make resolutions and changes.

To me, autumn has always been about new beginnings. New friends, new crushes, new teachers, new school every few years...

If we haven't picked a suggested and optional topic for the month of August yet, I'd like to propose that one. New beginnings. And if nobody minds, I'll start.

Two very exciting new things coming up for me a little later this fall: we're trying to buy a condo in Florida - just about five miles from the wonderful Nancy Haddock, whom I adore - and if things work out, we're thinking of possibly making a move down there in the next six months or so. With kids and school and DH's work and other considerations, it's all still very much up in the air, but we're thinking and talking  and praying hard. We've moved ten or twelve times in the past fifteen years, but all within Nashville; this would be the first city-to-city move since we left New York back in the early 1990s. It's scary, but exciting too.

The other new thing is a switch in focus for my writing. After I deliver DIY-5 to my editor on September 1, I'm once again contract-less. I have at least one, maybe two books to write for the Savannah Martin series, to finish the story arc, but I write those on my own time and ship them to the publisher when they're done. Book 2 is under contract and will be released next summer. Book 3 is finished, and will be coming in 2012, assuming the publisher likes it and wants to keep the series going. I'm ahead of the game by at least a year there. So between September 1 and the release of DIY-4, Mortar and Murder, in January, I plan to write something new. Something different. Something exciting.

To kickstart my new direction, I'm taking an online class right now in writing romantic suspense, and the first weekend of October, I'll be driving up to Columbus, Ohio, for the Central Ohio Fiction Writers Conference, Write from the Heart, to listen to people like Suzanne Brockmann and our buddy CJ Lyons talk about writing romantic thrillers. 

(CJ just won a Daphne award this past weekend, by the way. In case some of you hadn't heard. Be sure to congratulate her.)

So that's my big news, and my new beginning. Feel free to take the rest of the month to talk about yours.

Till next time!
xoxo

Location, Location, Location!

by Jennie Bentley

As you read this, I’m on my way to sunny Saint Augustine, one of my favorite places in the whole world.

Saint Augustine is the oldest town in the US, founded in August 1565, forty-two years before Jamestown and fifty-five years before the pilgrims settled on Plymouth Rock. There’s so much history there—from the first free community of ex-slaves in the country, Fort Mose, and the Castillo de San Marco, to the Fountain of Youth and the Spanish Quarter. And that’s without even mentioning the ghosts. Or the beaches. Or the birds and dolphins and manatees. Or alligators.

I’ve always thought it would make a great setting for a series of books. I even went so far as to pitch a ghost story/mystery idea to my agent once. She picked another idea she wanted me to work on instead, but I haven’t forgotten about it. While I’m waiting for the time to be right, I’m enjoying Nancy Haddock’s vampire series, set in Saint Augustine. If you haven’t yet tried La Vida Vampire and the sequel, Last Vampire Standing, get thee to a bookshop. I intend to get Nancy to autograph me a copy while I’m on vacation, since she lives there.

Setting has always been a very important part of a book to me, both books I like to read and books I write. My favorite books aren’t set just anywhere, they’re set somewhere specific. If the locale changed, the book wouldn’t be the same. That’s the way it ought to be, I think. The setting becomes almost like a character, playing its own part in the story.

I’m partial to ‘real’ settings, with ‘real’ history attached to them. In the first book I wrote, A Cutthroat Business, the setting is East Nashville. I live here, and I wanted to write about what I know. I changed some of the street names, since I don’t want anyone to come knocking on my door to complain, but I know exactly where things are. Savannah’s apartment is on the corner of Fifth and Main, and I know what she’s looking at when she looks out her window in the morning. The decrepit house in the book—the one where the body is found—is based on this one, called the Ambrose House, in Historic East End. (I’ve been looking at for long enough to know what it looked like before someone sunk a million dollars into fixing it up. It's an events venue, and if it weren't so danged expensive, I might just have my release party there...)

Waterfield, Maine, on the other hand—the setting for the DIY-books—is a fictional place. It’s located about 45 minutes up the road from Portland, on the coast, but it doesn’t exist. It’s more a conglomerate of every small town I’ve ever seen, with the landscape I grew up with. Dark pine trees and white birches, a craggy coast dotted with rocky islands, and a Main Street made up of turn-of-the-last-century Victorian commercial buildings. Waterfield’s history is the history of downeast Maine, and if Waterfield was located somewhere else, the series would be different.

While I enjoy reading about ‘real’ settings, though, some of the best locales out there are the fantasy kind. And I mean that literally. The Harry Potter books, with their alternate universe, away from prying muggle eyes. Tamora Pierce’s Pebbled Sea and the countries surrounding it, steeped in ambient magic. Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan saga, taking place on planets like Barrayar and Komarr and Beta Colony and Jackson’s Whole. Or if sci-fi doesn’t count—the earth is mentioned once or twice, so it’s not technically fantasy, I guess—Lois McMaster Bujold’s Chalion series. Terry Pratchett’s Discworld. (Flat, carried on the backs of four elephants standing on the shell of a giant turtle, inhabited by dwarves and trolls, vampires and werewolves. And people. Strange people.)

So what about you? Do you care about setting? If you write, do you make setting an integral part of your work, or could your book be set anywhere and not really miss much by it? (That’s just fine, and works well for some types of books.) As a reader, does it matter to you where the book is set, or is one place pretty much like another? Do you have a favorite locale? Or a favorite author you think nails the setting for his/her books?

I’ll only be around in the morning today, so play nicely amongst yourselves, please, but I’ll check back over the weekend, in case there are any questions I have to answer.

Till next time!

It Bites

by Guest Blogger Nancy Haddock

No, I’m not talking about vampires. Not even about werewolves, or the hickey fiend I dated in college a bazillion years ago.

I’m referring to something else entirely. Something I loathe. Something I despise. Something I abhor.

What could Nancy with-the-laughing-face-Pollyanna-Positive-Spin Haddock hate that much?

Packing.

Yes, I said packing. And I must do it soon in order to attend the annual RWA conference. (Cue the creepy music and see me shudder.)

My packing issues have nothing to do with the new airline rules (though those bite, too). It’s not even that I don’t know how to pack, or know how to make packing easier. I do know how. I’ve read and followed the advice of every how-to-pack article that’s come to my notice for - lo! - these many years of attending conferences. In fact, I read yet another fabulous article by Marcia James on the subject just recently.

Nope, knowing how to pack efficiently isn’t the problem. The trouble is, I hate packing at all.

Oh, I start with the best of intentions. I even begin the task armed with lists and some measure of confidence. I assemble items, check them off my lists, and then, knee deep in clothing and toiletries, I panic. Am I bringing too much, too little, clothing too warm, clothing too hot?

For years I’ve fantasized about packing only my favorite hairbrush and flying off with nary a carryon in hand. At my destination, I’d go shopping for shampoo, makeup, clothing and accessories. Then, before leaving to return home, I give everything but my favorite brush and the clothes on my back to charity. Let me tell you, I’ve got this fantasy embellished to Disney proportions complete with cute wildlife as my singing and dancing backup.

My alternate fantasy is that I’m Samantha Stevens, and with a twitch of my nose, I either (1) conjure outfits from the ethers, or (2) teleport home to change.

But, alas, the fantasies dissolve when I remember two things. I’m not Samantha, and I hate to clothes shop even more than I hate to pack.

Can I be the only woman in RWA who thinks schlepping from store to store, from tiny cubicle to tiny cubicle, undressing and re-dressing for hours at a time is a drag? Say it isn’t so!

Now that you’d listened to me grouse about shopping and packing, you might ask why I put myself through the angst. Is attending the RWA or any conference worth the effort?

Well, yes. Seeing friends, attending fabulous workshops, networking, doing the whole writer-bonding thing is a high. This year will be even more special for me because I’ll be signing my debut book, La Vida Vampire, at the "Readers for Life" Literacy Autographing, and at the Berkley signing event. Wow, my first time to be on the author side of those long rows of tables! That alone is worth facing the dreaded suitcase.

I think.

So tell, me, do you dread packing? Hate to shop? Suffer from suitcase stress? Share your stories – and dish on how you deal with your travel issues! All tips are welcome!

And, if you want to travel to the beach without ever packing, come visit my web site and click on the Beach Party page for a little virtual fun in the sun!

My sincere thanks to Annette for inviting me to guest blog with the fab Working Stiffs. Y’all rock, and I’m honored to have been a temp here!

Nancy Haddock’s debut book, La Vida Vampire, launched a new series from Berkley, and was released in April 2008 to rave reviews, including a 4 1/2 star Top Pick from Romantic Times BookReviews magazine. Though this book is her first published work, Nancy has written articles, comedy sketches, screenplays, children’s picture books, poetry, and has tried her hand in a number of genres.

For this tale of paranormal romantic mystery, Nancy drew on her long experience with things-that-go-bump by day and night, and on the historic wealth of St. Augustine, Florida, the Nation’s Oldest City. She lives with her husband a blissful block from the beach, and is a dedicated resident-tourist who never gets tired of exploring the sights of her new hometown.