Candice Hughes

Spring has been bursting out over the past few weeks. Every year it reminds me of one of my favorite poems by a favorite poet, Robert Frost, a fellow New Englander.

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leafs a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

In this photo I tried to capture in colors what Frost describes.

Bookmarked: The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

In New England, we’ve had several spectacular snow storms this year. It makes up for several years running where we were barely dusted by an inch or two the whole season. Those years I heard many complaints about the cold, the snow, shoveling, grumble, grumble. I assumed those were all transplants from parts south or the extreme south west. I feared they might not survive the system shock when we had a real New England winter with a foot of snow whipped into a frenzy by howling winds.

If you get up early enough after one of these bruisers, you will be treated to a fairyland of sugar frosted trees against a bright blue sky. A perfect scene for a novel. I’ll have to think on that….

For now, here’s a photo- New England in winter.

The past week or two have been peak foliage colors here in New England. Fall is a magic time of year when tonal greens explode into gold, ruby and pumpkin. It always reminds me of Tolkein and the two trees of Valinor.

Although heavy rains have been washing away the leaves, leaving us to tidy up the faded brown husks that litter the lawn, some color remains.

So all my readers can get a taste of New England fall, I’ve attached a photo.

Frosts Turn New England Foliage to Gold

This summer has gone by at light speed. The past couple months have included frenzied activity editing and polishing novel 2. This week, I released novel 2, hoping that it is ready to take flight. Waiting to see how reviewers will react is always a nail biting moment.

In between bouts of  motherly concern for novel 2, I’ll take some time to decompress from the intense activity. Maybe even take some walks and start thinking about what a novel 3 might look like. I love this time. It’s a time of free fall when almost anything can happen. A time when there are many doors waiting to be opened and it’s so hard to decide which door should be opened because everything is interesting, fresh and exciting.

The end of summer is a perfect time for free fall. Life starts gathering inward to protect itself from the snow and ice of winter. But winter hasn’t come yet. For now, I can still walk outside without a coat and sit on my porch to read. But the days are numbered. That’s alright though because every ending is a beginning.

Bookmarked: Watchman by Ian Rankin

Almost without my noticing, we’ve slipped into the final haze of summer.  August saps motivation. Still, I believe we need August. August is the month when the world slips into a torpor.  Only the insects make sounds, repetitive chirring sounds that mix with the heat and sun. When the air starts turning colder, we wake up refreshed and ready to go.

Of course, if you live in Southern California, you can dismiss all this as ranting New England blather. Seasons are part of what I love about New England. Seasons mark off the passing of time. And it’s hard without seasons to pay attention to something you’d rather ignore, like time. Unless you’re under the age of twenty when time goes too slowly.

Today I’ll sit back in my chair with a cold ice tea, a cloudless blue sky, and crack open a book.  Ah, and it occurred to me that in my conference frenzy I’d stopped listing my reading books. So today I added back “Bookmarked.”

When I’m done reading, it’s back to writing.  What else is there for a writer to do?

This weekend I thoroughly enjoyed myself being an archaeologist for a day. Who ever thought that digging through someone’s trash could be so much fun! After several hundred years, the yuck factor disappears and trash becomes an amazing window into another world. I was lucky enough to get a look into a world almost four-hundred years ago when Native Americans lived throughout New England (and other parts of the United States as well, only they weren’t states then, and you get the picture…).

Archaeologist call the trash pit the midden. In the 1600s, a Native American midden contains things like oyster and clam shells and burned seeds. Our group was lucky to find some European flint. Not bad for a hour or so of digging! Other members of our group investigated an area of the old fort that used to be living space and found glass, beads, and a large piece of flint.

I also learned about a field unknown to me, archeobotany. Since most seeds have been cooked or burned by Native Americans and since seeds lose water and shrivel, it can be hard to identify them. Of course, it’s not easy to find them in the first place since they’re small! But if you’re patient and  have a good eye, seeds show what types of plants people ate or utilized in daily life.

The downside of archaeology is trudging through mud and poison ivy. Of course, there are also mosquitoes, ticks and other insects to dodge (or if unlucky, to suffer from). Overall, I’d say it’s worth getting a bit dirty to watch the past unfold before your eyes.

I’ve spent a lot of my life in New England where my second novel is set but I believe it’s attention to detail that really makes a story come to life. Plus I just plain love research! Yes, I admit to being one of those bizarre people who loves to wander through library stacks inhaling the aroma and running my fingers over the spines until the right book jumps out. (Online catalogue? Those are for people who order off the menu.)

Besides libraries, I like to wander the streets, listen in on conversations, take photos, stare at people and generally be a pest worst than a tourist. I especially enjoy looking at the architecture of buildings (the older the better usually) and antique furnishings.

I was able to do all of the above recently while researching my second novel to be set in a New England coastal town. I won’t say which one yet because the book is still in the early stages.

I will promise that, like my first novel (which I hope all can soon purchase), it will reveal a terrifying world that has sprung from a series of ancient events. It will blend fact and fiction, contemporary lives and history and love as well as hatred. (Sounds so exciting I can’t wait to buy it! Oh, guess I better get writing! And make a few offerings to the Muse. Do you think she likes chocolate?)

I’m deep into drafting my next novel- another medical thriller. This one has fantasy/paranormal elements as well as romantic elements. It’s great fun weaving together all the threads! While I still have a long way to go before it’s ready for anyone to take a peek at, here’s a hint of what to expect:

Hope is a typical New England girl. Driven in her career in archeology and forensics but reserved and private beyond the college walls. Moving back to her ancestal home, she stumbles onto something so evil it barely seems human. Baby girls vanish leaving only bones in rocky earth. Gabe, a police officer and transplanted Southerner, is determined to track down the killer. Can Hope and Gabe solve the mystery and, if they do, will Hope be strong enough to face down her powerful family?