Research Trips

I'm working on my December 2007 release, Texan for the Holidays, and needed to make a research trip to Graham, Texas. That's about two and a half hours from my home near Dallas. I went with my friend and fellow writer, Rebecca Russell, tracing the route of my heroine, Scarlett, who gets lost (now I can really see how!) and ends up in fictional Brody's Crossing. (This will be a new series which begins with Temporarily Texan in July, 2007.) Since I'm planning a series, I created a town based on all the small Texas towns I've visited in the past 30 years, living in Texas. Brody's Crossing is not a county seat, so I gave it a few streets and no town square. However, I wanted the folks downtown to have someplace special to go, so I created a small park next to the building housing the law offices and apartment of hero James Brody. It's the size of a narrow, long lot as you might find in any small downtown area.

The point of this rather long story is that when Rebecca and I went to Graham on our research trip (which also involved antique shopping and the search for the perfect coconut pie, of course!) we found a small park/courtyard on a street around the town square. It's right across from the Young County Courthouse (which I was researching) and, as Rebecca pointed out, right next door to the law offices! I took photos and emailed them to my editor under the caption, "bizarre." Sometimes, reality is really stranger than fiction!

A similar event happened years ago when I was writing for the Kensington Precious Gems line. Back "in the day" before easy Internet research, I relied on the zip code directory online, plus a hard copy of the Texas map to make sure my fictional town of Scottsville didn't really exist in East Texas. I found no listings for the name, so wrote two books set there. To my shock, when driving back from a writer's conference in Shreveport, Louisiana (with Kara Lennox, Judy Christenberry and another writer) we saw a sign in East Texas for Scottsville! Apparently there was an old town which is now just a community center, gas station, and cemetary. They don't have their own zip code. They aren't on most maps. Again, bizarre but true! Perhaps I had seen the sign when driving there before, but honestly, I don't remember.

So, if you find places, people or events in some books that seem familiar or bizarre, please know that we try to make sure we're really writing fiction. Best wishes and happy reading until next time.