Trish Wylie - Preparing For Culture Shock

I'll admit I'm a bit of a home bird at heart. Now don't get me wrong, I've both worked on 'tour' and had fun traveling but it was rarely too far from home - a short flight or a boat trip away at most. Except for two trips I took abroad with friends - but *still * not that far away in the greater scheme of things...

This summer I'm taking the plunge and doing the Conferences. And to be honest, I'm both excited AND a little worried about that. Why to the latter you may wonder? Well - the first thing is going to be a bad case of Culture Shock I feel...

Let's look at home shall we? Teeny tiny green island with a mostly rural population - places we call cities most people would call towns - places we call towns most people would call villages and the villages... well... I'm not sure they're called anything outside of Ireland - neighbours maybe???

First stop on my trip? New York, New York. (I'd heard you had to do it twice like that?) The city that probably houses more people than the entire island I live on! Now as much as I love where I live I've never actually contemplated what it would be like having every single resident in the one place at the one time and we're still a little behind the game when it comes to building anything quite as high as some of those buildings look. And let's face it - if I get lost it's not like I can phone my family to come get me. Though it's good to know if anything happened to me that Gary Sinise would be there to solve the mystery (yes - I do watch CSI:NY) But then there's so many things I want to see and do. And that's very exciting!

Then it'll be off to Dallas for the conference. (we'll not even begin to talk about the temperature in Dallas that month, okay? Suffice to say if anyone steps in a puddle of water it'll be me - cos I'll have melted!) So like a good girl I went online to check out the hotel. Now as part of my eight month tour of Ireland a few years ago I stayed in every sort of hotel and B&B going - the excellent, the good, the bad - and well, one's that horror movies could be filmed in quite frankly... So I felt I was a little ahead of the game for this one - Ha!

Not so much. 'Cos the last hotel I stayed in was this lovely one in Dublin - isn't it cute? And the one I'll be staying in in Dallas? Well - I'm fairly sure it's never once been called *cute*. I mean, it's like, huuugggeee - practically a city on it's own! Will there be maps? How many hours should I allow for finding my way to where I'm supposed to be? And it has how many restaurants? I'm just thankful that with so many other conference-attendees I stand a good chance of meeting someone else who might be lost and then we can both go looking for Sawyer together...(yes I watch that one too...) And knowing my hatred of all things higher than is safe thanks to a little thing called gravity, I just betcha I end up way way way up in the sky where I'll never ever be able to ever look out the window. Oh - and one of my earliest film experiences - The Towering Inferno - nuff said...

Then there's the literacy signing. Now, despite the fact I first sold four odd years ago, I've never actually done a book signing before. It's something that just isn't done over here unless you're mega-famous or Bill Clinton while here on a golfing tour. So I was a little nervous about that before I even made the mistake of looking up pics online of what it was like... And dear heaven - HOW MANY PEOPLE GO TO THAT??? And in the ONE ROOM??? Are you KIDDING ME???

Where I live I'm not used to a crowd - in fact Christmas Shopping is my worst nightmare. But then I don't know what's the worst scenario - lots of people saying Hi or NO-ONE saying Hi... on reflection I'm going with the latter - cos at least no-one will be arguing over the last action-figure on the shelf on Christmas Eve kinda thing, right? And I also have the firm knowledge that Romance Writers and the Romance Writing Community is the friendliest bunch of people out there! That part I have absolutely no worries about...

But still - it's gonna be one heck of a dose of culture shock! Anyone want to come say Hi to me when I'm there to make me feel better??? Have any tips that might help me sleep at night???

The one consolation is I'll have one of my favourite books to sign while I'm there - and with one of my favourite titles! Bride Of The Emerald Isle is a little taste of home sprinkled liberally with the romantic magic of Valentia Island, off the coast of Co. Kerry, and it was a lovely lovely book to write... with a good dose of Matthew McFadyen's Pride & Prejudice film scene in the first chapter as inspiration... (and RT just gave it four and a half stars so I'm well chuffed!)

Keelin O’Donnell had always been a morning person. But today was testing her love of the a.m. to its limits…
She paused, looked back down the road, and sighed. The house had to be somewhere near by now, surely? Did people still die on the ‘moors’?
There was the sound of barking nearby.
“Great,” She scowled as she looked towards the source of the sound, “Now I’m going to be eaten by wild dogs. The Hound of the Baskerville’s lives.”
The barking sounded closer again. Not so much of a rabid dog sound as an excited yapping; which made her feel vaguely better, so her blue eyes searched what she could see of the surrounding countryside. With the last of the early morning mist clearing she could finally see more than the outline of the old stone walls on either side of her. Now there were fields, swirling with a hint of mist in pockets where the ground was still wet with morning dew.
She could hear the sea in the background, could smell it in the air. But even with the reassuring, steady rhythm of waves hitting rocks, she still felt like the last person left on earth. Until her peripheral vision caught sight of a shadow looming through a pocket of mist.
The dogs sounded closer too, one of them appearing at the shadows feet. And then a voice called one of them, followed by a whistle. So Keelin knew the figure was male. A man walking straight towards her- practically dreamlike- like some kind of early morning ghost.
The mist swirled again in pockets at his feet, the sun came out and caught in a glint off his dark hair. And Keelin stood transfixed as he got closer and looked straight at her.

He was sensational.