Thursday, April 22, 2010

Eating My Way Around the World


I've set myself a goal, and it involves travel and food, two of my very favorite things. I want to not put a pin in every country I can find on the Trip Advisor map, I want to eat there, too.

I haven't done too badly so far. According to that Trip Advisor map, so far I've made it to 450 places in 15 countries. But I tend to focus more on the space on the Trip Advisor that does not have pins on it and wondering when I can rectify that. I spend the time between trips talking about the last one and planning the next one.

Which is where you come in. No, you don't have to call Travelocity for me. But I'm a writer. I write about things that interest me. So I've decided that every Wednesday, I'm going to dedicate my blog to traveling, and it will be under the subheading "Eating My Way Around the World." Because, of course, that's what I'm attempting to do, and I'd love to invite you along....well, via blog, anyway.

Because I've done so much traveling when not blogging, I'll share both the trips I'm taking now and the ones I've already taken. I'll share tips I've figured out myself(like not wearing ballcaps, white tennis shoes and sunglasses to foreign countries--they call that the American Uniform), and some I've collected from other people. And, of course, how my travel impacts my writing, because it always does. Travel is my idea of advanced education.

So fasten your seatbelts and come along. I can't wait to get started.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Everything Changes



I've been trying to figure out how to introduce this newest stage in my career. Oh, I've talked about the idea for my new book. I've shared the early progress of selling the book. And then, I know, I dropped the ball. I'll tell you something I found out a few years ago. I have ADD. I seem to be the last to know. What that means is that I finally have to admit that no matter how hard I try, I have an exceedingly difficult time organizing myself. There are simply patches of time when I can only do one thing. There are other times, like now, when I'm happy as a clam doing eighteen things at once. I'm blogging again. I'm starting to tweet. I'm planning trips.I'm writing three different books. But for the last two years, I've been much too quiet on the blogging front. That is because I've been consumed by writing the first two books of my new series. I'll talk a lot about those later. Now, I'd like to simply reintroduce myself.

I am Eileen Dreyer. I write historical romance.

My suspense readers might be surprised. I'm actually a bit surprised myself. I thought I'd be publishing my historicals under my romance pseudonym, Kathleen Korbel. I'm very proud of Kathleen(yes, I speak of her in third person). She is responsible for all my publishing awards, and my place in the RWA Hall of Fame. But, you see, Eileen is responsible for my RWA Honor Roll, which is what happens when you reach the New York Times Bestselling list. And I did that with the book I wrote with Jenny Cruise and Anne Stuart, THE UNFORTUNATE MISS FORTUNES. The decision was the publisher's, and, as I've said before, if you think I'm going to pass up a chance to work with those two women just because I preferred to use another name, you don't know much about me.

Well, the thing about making the New York Times list, is that it's a powerful thing(I plan on having it engraved on my tombstone. HERE LIES NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR, EILEEN DREYER). And poor Kathleen had never made it. So when my new publisher, Grand Central, decided which of my names would better sell a book, Eileen it was. And so it is that my newest book, BARELY A LADY, which makes its debut this July, is by Eileen Dreyer.

I don't want any of my readers to be confused. It's one of the reasons I've always used two names. The types of books each of my evil twins has written has been very different, from emotional relationship books to serial killers on the loose. And I don't want my suspense readers to think they're getting a book about serial killers when they see my name on the cover. On the other hand, one look at the cover should tell them. It doesn't exactly say 'serial killer.'

So I hope you'll hang in there with me. I can't tell you how much I'm enjoying this new path in my career. I love history. I love trying to fit a strong woman into a historical context. And, okay, I put nefarious spies in the series, so I can still kill people. I just do it with dueling pistols instead of mac 10s.

This does not mean I am finished writing suspense. It means I'm not doing it this year. Who knows what next year will bring? Because if there is one thing that doesn't change, it is that everything changes.