A Writer Afoot

The REAL Scent of Hours shop!

While watching television recently with Christopher Robin, we saw a commercial for a Manitou Springs perfume shop called Salus.  It looked clean and elegant, and most surprising of all, it offered patrons the chance to make their own perfumes and add the fragrances to a wide variety of bath and body products. 

CR and I looked at each other with our mouths open.  "It's The Scent of Hours!"

Which is, for those in the know, the name of the perfumery in Madame Mirabou's School of Love (now also available for the Kindle, I just noticed!)  which is the story of a woman who is searching for her place in life after a divorce. Her way of relating to the world has always been through scent, and each chapter begins with a recipe from her perfume journal. The shop she eventually opens is in Manitou Springs called the Scent of Hours. 

Last Saturday, CR and I wandered over to Adam's Cafe for lunch, and I remembered the ad. We stopped in, and it is gorgeous, well appointed and clean.  A lovely place to go play, if you are in the area (or visiting), especially with a friend or sister or mother. I think I could spend a couple of days mixing scents and creating my own signature scent! 

What's funny is that I had never heard of such a shop, and it did not exist when I wrote the book.  Now there is.  You can visit in person, or on the Internet.  Tell her I sent you. 

PS.  I'll be talking about the book with Eloisa James at the Barnes and Noble Review site one week from today, January 24.  Please stop by if you can.  This is a great new thing they're doing, and wouldn't we all love to see it be successful? 

Pueblo signing, tomorrow (Friday)

I'll be at the Barnes and Noble in Pueblo tomorrow, for anyone who might want to come down and visit.  I'll have plenty of titles--for you or for Christmas presents, or just come down and chat.

Barnes and Noble
Pueblo
Friday, Nov 30
12-2 pm

Soundtrack for the new book

I have been fretting that my process is annoyingly different every time, and as this book is brewing, I've torn out pictures from magazines, but haven't felt even the slightest desire to brainstorm with a collage. (Yet.)

Then, yesterday in the mail, I had a package from my ex, who sent me his copy of Sonny & Brownie because I couldn't find this one, and remembered he had it, so I asked if he'd copy it for me.  He couldn't get copies made for some reason or another (well, I do know why--a little late to computers, this one, and the process flummoxes him).   

Oh, seeing that cover.....! I rushed upstairs and put it into the computer to copy and blasted "God and Man," which is one of the best songs EVER.   I played it five times in a row, swaying and singing along and letting those voices echo in my chest.  Once it was safely copied, I moved a copy into the soundtrack file for the new book, which so far looks like this:

Are You Alright? Lucinda Williams
Still I Long For your Kiss, Lucinda Williams
God and Man, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee
The Wind, Cat Stevens
My Lover's Gone, Dido
Not Alone, Patty Griffin
What a Dream I Had, Simon and Garfunkel (which is not the name of the song, but I'm lazy and don't feel like looking it up)
Every Morning, Keb Mo
Let Him Fly, Patty Griffin
Moses, Patty Griffin
Home, Marc Broussard

Now, it might seem an odd list, but often it is as much about the tone of the music and the emotions it stirs up as it is about genre or artist or even tone.  This is a pretty bluesy list, but there are some other things, too, and it is not yet complete, and I'm listening to tons of music, listening and listening as I do other things.  Wash clothes, drive around town.  New things, old things, I don't care.  I know a song is right when one of the characters starts to move around. 

This is morning, it occurred to me that this is just a different way to collage.  I'm listening to this collage instead of looking at it.  That has often happened in the past, too.  Every book-child has its own requirements.

Looking at that list, is there something you think might add some nice flavor?  Do you do soundtracks or collages?  Just curious.

Night of Fire

In honor of the Italian sojourn, a couple of books that came up during conversations there.  The first is one of my favorites of my own books, NIGHT OF FIRE.  This is the review it was given by Romantic Times magazine:

Though widowed Cassandra St. Ives has vowed never to love again. She has been involved in a spirited correspondence with an Italian, Count Basilio Montevarchi.

Both believe the other to be middle-aged and therefore safe. So when Basilio invites Cassandra to visit his home in Tuscany she gladly accepts.

Though both are astonished to discover the other is far from old, the real surprise, however, is their immediate and heated attraction. Theyre just what each other needed, bringing out the best in one another and rekindling a joy in life they had both forgotten.

But Basilio is engaged and honor-bound to go through with the marriage to an unhappy Analise while a distraught Cassandra returns home. Basilio and Analise come to England where Analise confides to Cassandra that her desire to become a nun has kept her chaste.

How they all extricate themselves from this tangled triangle is what makes NIGHT OF FIRE such a fascinating read. Intelligent, sophisticated and with a high degree of always smoldering sensuality, where youre just waiting for their passion to erupt, this is the take me away book of the season. VERY SENSUAL (Dec., 380 pp., $5.99)

Kathe Robin

This is the absolutely abysmal cover it came out with:

This is the sort of cover it should have had:

You can only order out of print copies of it (though I have plans afoot on this front), but you can find some here.

I'll talk about the other one, NO PLACE LIKE HOME, another day.  Also Italian, but modern and American-Italian, though I swear places in Pueblo could just be transported right to Naples. I swear it.

MIRANDA'S REVENGE, by Ruth Wind

MIRANDA'S REVENGE
by Ruth Wind
Silhouette Romantic Suspense

ORDER NOW

For those of you who enjoy Ruth's romances, the third and final installment of the Sisters of the Mountain trilogy for Silhouette Romantic Suspense should be on the shelves any minute.

Book Description
With a murder trial looming, Miranda Rousseau had one chance to clear her sister's name. But tall, sexy James Marquez was quickly becoming much more than a private investigator. Miranda had hired him for the case, but every time she felt his dark eyes on her, she wanted him on her.

 

James was consumed with the passionate redhead, yet he had no place in her big-city life. He had a murder to solve and secrets to keep—secrets Miranda would never forgive. With so much at stake, could he let himself be seduced by a future he could never have? 

Read an excerpt

Romantic Times gave this book 4-1/2 stars and a Top Pick for the month of September. The previous two books are Juliet's Law and Desi's Rescue.

Barbara Samuel website back up

I've sorted out my hosting issues and the barbarasamuel.com website is back up.   I had a surprising amount of email about this--thank you all for checking in so regularly.

A couple of notes before rushing away

I'm headed out to the annual madness of the National RWA conference tomorrow morning.   I'll bring pictures back.  If anyone is in the Dallas area, the annual literacy signing is Weds night, 5pm, at the Hyatt hotel downtown. 

A couple of notes before I go:
--Yes, I know the main website (barbarasamuel.com) is down.  I'm a space case and have had NO time to fix the issue, but I seriously hated the hosting company and want to change.  Typepad has spoiled me.  I'll get all the material up again when I have time after all these deadlines and travel.  Truth is, much as we try, creative sorts are not always detail oriented.  You want me to write.  You want me to show up prepared to teach.  And I can talk all day.  Details of web stuff---sometimes not so together.

--I saw LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE over the weekend and it's fabulous.  If, like me, you thought it was going to be a total downer filmed in weird color schemes about people you'd avoid if they were your neighbors, well, you're wrong.  Rich and funny and layered and sick, just like real families.  Imagine!   What I loved most is how good I felt about myself at the end of it--there's a sense of tenderness toward our very flawed human selves that made me feel okay, just as I am.  The little girl is worth the price of admission, and I am more and more a fan of Steve Carrell.

--The novella goes in the mail this afternoon.  Luckily, I gathered clothes and shoes for Santa Barbara, so I just have to repeat pack.  Which was really just a repeat pack of the various weekends I've been spending elsewhere.  If you are the kind of person who keeps track of clothes, be warned that I am wearing my favorite black tank and ever-so-packable turquoise skirt.  Again.  And my fragile 40's-style blouse with the chemise with jeans, because I think it looks cool and I really am not a fan of business attire for myself.  Also the beaded shoes I found on a rack for $10 that are so Arabian nights my inner six year old goes nuts every time we put them on.

Hey, if you're going, and you see me, please hello.  Also remember, I'm quite nearsighted, so if I don't have my glasses on, trust me, I cannot see your face.  Come close and say hi. 

Traveling books...and writer

In the mail a couple of days ago, I received a copy of a new French translation of A Piece of Heaven which is the second French translation I've had on this book.  The first went to Canada, along with a couple of other really beautiful editions of other books.  This one seems to be a France edition.  Very nice.

Thrilled to report that some of my books will finally be reprinted in Spanish. A Barcelona publisher has purchased the world rights to three of my Ballantine titles.  I'm beyond delighted, seriously. 

Madame Mirabou's School of Love was published not long ago in Italy as Il profumo delle ore. It also happens that there is a Women's Fiction Conference in Matera, Italy, and CR and I decided to go.  I'll be teaching along with some other excellent writers.  Maybe you'd fancy writer's camp in an exotic and lovely spot, hmmm?  Check out the website for more info.  It's honestly not terribly expensive for such a huge trip and the accommodations look particularly charming.

Also coming up:

Valley Forge Romance Writers
Philadelphia
May 5

And a week long stint at the Santa Barbara Writer's Conference.

Into the great wide open....

Elena has packed her bags and headed out into the world.  I'm left here in my office, packing up the mess she left behind.  Weird that all those months and months of scribbling and mapping and brainstorming should result in this box of drafts (four, more or less) and files and notebooks, large and small. 

I noticed that I need a new journal, too.  This one is getting a little overstuffed.  Lately, my little notebooks have been moleskines, so I tried some larger ones for journals.  Found myself strangely resistant until I cut out a great photo of a woman in a kayak.

There's my big brain post.   The brain, she's gone.  Also, the knee, which I somehow twisted.  More on that later.

Now the terror sets in

Now the terror sets in.  Rewriting.  Time to move from artist mind to critical mind.

It always stuns me slightly, to reach the end, as if each book is a somehow eternal project.   Here I am, the journey nearly done.  There is the collage (which I still love as a creation unto itself) and all the Clairefontaine notebooks with my scrawling handwriting and the files ripped out magazine pages with recipes and tidbits and photos of things that somehow spoke to the vision of the book. 

There are the stacks of books (eleven of which are overdue at the library right now) including Danse Macabre, Stephen King's masterpiece on the appeal of horror; Best Food Writing, 2003; Spice, the history of a temptation by Jack Turner; The Apprentice by Jacques Pepin.  There are dozens and dozens of websites bookmarked on my favorites list, including an entire category of food blogs.   I have Story out on my desk, bristling with colored tags, and The Artist's Way to give me courage.  There are poster size post-its struck to my door and walls.

And there is that stack of pages that have to make sense and have flow and magic and verve.  Pages that must be true to themselves and their own story, no matter what I thought I was doing before I started and as I wrote. 

Now my job is to be merciless and egoless.  I must serve the work, which is so much harder than I ever think it will be.  Each one is different.  Each serves a different purpose, and I am only a conduit.  I often imagine that the books exist on the other side of a very high wall, and my job is to draw it over that wall a fiber at a time and reweave the whole in this reality.  How well I do it depends entirely on how willing I am to serve the work, how clear I am in doing that.

Much work to do.  I started today.  That's a lot.