Write What You Know

By Dawn Marie Hamilton

Write what you know. How many times have you heard that bit of advice?

I write Scottish inspired fantasy and paranormal romance. Knowledge of Scottish history is easily acquired by reading. Time travel, magic, fae creatures and shapeshifting vampires—not exactly subjects learned during a lengthy corporate career. Research helps, but imagination plays a larger role in creating fantasy and paranormal elements.

How do you persuade readers to suspend long-held beliefs and accept the fantastical?

It's all in the worldbuilding…and the details. The details are where real life is inserted.

Having been a County Cooperative Extension master gardener, I know a wee bit about gardening. Gardens are where magic happens in our busy world of today. So I incorporate gardens into my stories. Sometimes in a large way, where the characters are gardeners. Other times in a small way by incorporating gardens into the setting.

At the cottage, Laurie offered them a nightcap, pouring each a glass of port. They wandered into the garden to enjoy the beautiful evening.

"Do you feel the magic in the air?" Caitrina asked.

Douglas peered at the moonlit sky and chuckled. "Aye, lass. Strong magic."

An uneasy sensation crept through Laurie as she glanced around.

Caitrina grasped her hand. "Come. I want to show you the foxglove we planted. They flowered."

Walking with Caitrina to the back gate, Laurie sensed something strange. She frowned when she smelled a familiar exotic fragrance on Caitrina. "What the hell?"

A tinkling sound confirmed her fear.

The gate swung open.

He [her dream lover] stood just beyond the garden gate.

Her pulse raced. Yanking her hand away from Caitrina, she stepped back in panic.

Caitrina pushed her forward through the gate. Terror forced the air from Laurie's lungs.

Nothing held her back, no barrier. She fell forward over a precipice into a swirling fog, down...down...down through a tunnel. The walls spun and she plunged downward, faster and faster, toward a blinding, bright light that continued to move out of reach.

Sucked through an opening into the white brilliance, she choked on the scream in her throat, cringing against the intense noise assaulting her ears.

She spun, or everything around her was spinning, she wasn't sure which. Her sensitized skin tingled as if touched by an electric charge. Then, the bright, white light exploded into a million fragments of brilliant color, a dazzling kaleidoscope, and she was falling again.

Down...down...down, the speed of her descent increased. Water flowed below her, a stream. She plummeted toward it. Bracing herself, she thought she'd crash into the rushing water, only to propel across it. She hit the ground hard and saw nothing more. 

…excerpt from Just Beyond the Garden Gate, an unedited Garden Gate manuscript.

The Summer Doldrums

For once, I can say that I am not suffering from the summer doldrums. Normally, by this time of year, I’m sweating and unhappy, suffering from heat and the prospect of another long, hot, dry month ahead.


But this year, I’m actually pretty happy.

Oh, I still have heat rash and chigger bites all over my legs. And it’s hot as blazes outside. But I’ve got a new Regency romance, The Bricklayer’s Helper, coming out on August 6, 2010, and my first paranormal romance, Vampire Protector, coming out in November, and for once, I’m pretty jazzed. And then there is The Necklace, a “prequel” to The Bricklayer’s Helper and I Bid One American, which should also come out soon, although I don’t have a release date yet.

Part of my joy can be attributed to the lovely letter I got from an editor at Five Star/Gale. They publish hard cover books for distribution to libraries and have always been one of my publishing dreams. So, this lovely editor indicated that she loved my book, Whacked!, a contemporary mystery. I’ve always wanted to write mysteries and Five Star was one of my “dream publishers” along with St. Martin’s Press.

While I’m perfectly aware that there is “many a slip ‘twixt cup and lip” I’m cautiously optimistic. If I didn’t just jinx it.

Even if I do discover that Five Star ultimately doesn’t publish Whacked!, I’m happy to be where I am, today. While I don’t have huge numbers of published books, I have 2 Regency romances as well as a couple of short stories and a novella published and that is more than I ever dreamed possible.

Not to mention that on this long, strange journey, I’ve also gotten into gardening, particularly rose gardening with Old Garden Roses that were hybridized prior to 1900. Who knew that one day I’d have over 100 Old Garden Roses growing outside my backdoor, and that the first novel I would ever gt published would be a Regency with a heroine who grows roses smuggled from France (Smuggled Rose).

Now, if I could just work my other hobby, bird watching, into a novel, I’d be way ahead of the game. Despite popular conceptions of birdwatchers as elderly and vague-minded folks, I met my husband bird watching. Getting up at dawn to walk through the woods and listen to the birds sing themselves awake is a lot more romantic than you might imagine.

My husband and I ran a bird banding station for a number of years as well, and were fortunate enough to band birds such as this gorgeous Hooded Warbler. The experience was awesome, and I'll always be grateful to him for allowing me to assist.

So, if you have a hobby or interest that isn’t exactly “mainstream” my advice is to pursue it at every opportunity. It can lead you onto new roads that will take you to destinations you never dreamed possible.