Wednesday 31 July 2013

Hot, hot, hot!


One of the reasons I like living in a rain forest is the climate. It's wet. It's cool. Lots of things grow, year round. But sometimes, rarely, we get a stretch of warm weather. And what most people consider warm, I consider hot. I don't like hot.

If I liked hot I might winter in Mexico, or Florida. But I choose to stay put--when I'm not traveling for fun, of course--during the winter here on the west coast of Canada because our winters are mild. And wet.

And that brings me to the subject of writing. Winters in western British Columbia are a perfect time for writing novels. In fact, when I started writing romance a few years ago, my husband suggested that we should spend six months indoors working, and six months outside enjoying the glory of nature.

And I have no problem with the indoor six months. I like writing. But when hot weather arrives, I don't want to be victimized by Mother Nature. I'd rather be hunched over my keyboard. I have to escape the heat, you see.

And, now that I'm drafting my fifth novel, I'll use any excuse I can to go inside and get back to work. Hot weather? It's much cooler in the house. Rain? Best to stay home and keep dry. A windy day? It's calm indoors. And so on....

This year, July has been unusually hot and dry. Consequently, I've been writing a lot. I completed the edits for the second book in my Black Virgin Trilogy--Revenge of the Black Virgin. It will be released by eXtasy Books on August 15th.

Then I finished the third book in the series--Gift of the Black Virgin. While I wait for the edits on that one, I figured I'd just keep writing. After all, the weather is cooperating. So I began a new series, called Tracking Tor. The first book, Mirage, is set deep in the Syrian desert. It seems fitting to take all this heat around me and channel it into my story.

But as soon as our heat wave ends, I'll have to move my characters to the sea shore.