Feeding fact to fiction

I'm here in beautiful High Point, just outside of Greensboro, NC proper, to research the local 'feel' and visit a few of the museums and parks in the area. I wanted to make sure I wasn't goofing up on, well, I had no idea where I needed help, so came to make sure I wasn't misrepresenting anything or anyone, living or dead.

I left the gate at Ted Stevens International Airport in the wee hours on Sunday October 28, 2012 with all the monitors providing news updates about the impending tsunami approaching the Sitka area and arrived twelve hours later (finally) at Greensboro Airport with their bright boxes warning about Hurricane Sandy and her cousins, the winter storms from Canada, who would be arriving in a couple of days. Coast to coast chaos: what a time to travel!

For right now, the power is still on, a cool, wet wind is blowing outside, and I am snuggled under a deep comforter here at The Inn at Greensboro Airport, blogging after fine tuning my itinerary for my fact checking tour. I had to switch the order of a few investigative sites because I didn't want to travel west to the mountains on Tuesday. Snow is expected and, although I have lots of experience with driving on that cold and slippery 'stuff,' I'm not too sure about everyone else. I'll spend Tuesday inside the many museums in the area, safe, warm, and dry.

Feeding fact to fiction: My first book, NAKED IN THE WINTER WIND, starts on October 30, 2012. I wrote the story four years ago and postdated it. I needed at least two of my characters to have solar-powered cell phones. They didn't have them (that I could find) in 2008. Guess what? They have them now. Although they aren't common in the US, they are available elsewhere and are in the hands of two of my lovely ladies of fiction. So, since it has already taken so long to get this story into digital readers, I decided to wait a couple more months and make everything factual. The weather reports: they'll be in there. Anything else that happens here in Greensboro, up until Halloween night, will be, too.

Oh, and the picture below is totally random. I'm not using my own computer, but did have a picture of a couple of wild and crazy teenagers (my daughter is the one who can't decide on a hair color) getting ready for Zombie Fest.

I'm hoping the next book will be out in a month or so. I just have to get my editor to make his suggestions and then it's out there on Amazon (e-book version will come first)

Adios!
Dani Haviland, author
The Fairies Saga
www.danihaviland.com