Lisa Dale: Here Comes The Bird...

Hi all!

It’s been a whirlwind kind of a week. My new book, Slow Dancing on Price’s Pier, has hit the shelves everywhere—and I’ve been so so so lucky.

It’s been selected as a Barnes & Noble book of the month, as well as BookPage Magazine’s romance of the month. Can’t really ask for better than that!

The second chance love story of my hero and heroine, Garret and Thea, really seems to be resonating with people—and that’s exactly what I hope for as a writer!

In the meantime, I’m already starting a new project and also trying to get my wedding invitations out.

Actually, I thought I was going crazy—that perhaps all this wedding stuff had once and for all gone to my head!

As I was sitting in my bed this morning writing (what can I say, I do all my best writing in bed), I swore I heard a little bird singing, da-dum-da-dummmm (which is an interspecies musical transliteration of “here comes the bride”).

At first, I just shook it off. I figured I’d misheard. Or that it was a fluke. I mean—the wedding plans really have been keeping me very busy.

But the bird kept singing…here comes the bride, all dressed in white!

I thought—no way.

So, like any good professional writer, I decided, “screw this scene. It’s much more important to find out if that bird really is singing ‘here comes the bride’ than it is keeping writing!”

So I popped on to Google, and discovered something so neat I had to share it.

First, I’m not crazy. J Not about this anyway. It turns out there is a bird that sounds like it sings “here comes the bride,” which is also known as Beethoven’s Fifth.

The white-throated sparrow sings the first few notes of Beethoven’s Fifth! Here is a link so you can hear it! The bird in this recording is a little off key and more trilly, but the one outside my bedroom this morning was spot on with Beethoven.

http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/White-throated_Sparrow/sounds

And maybe what’s more fascinating is this: Apparently Beethoven is said to have been inspired by birdsong to some extent. A little bird’s perfect fourths might have inspired Beethoven’s Fifth!

It felt so strange to think of that famous composer sitting in his study, listening intently to a little bird, and perhaps finding something inspiring in it—just like I was, though in a different way.

Anyway, eventually I got back to work. It doesn’t take much to distract me when I’m writing (that’s why I write with the curtains down, the shades closed, in a room with no “work stuff” around me, etc.). But the little guy singing outside my window was a good distraction.

So that about does it for me. I’m about to go to Michaels, then get ready for the book signing I’m doing tomorrow for Slow Dancing, then it’s back to invitations!

FYI—I’m hosting a contest for readers who check out Slow Dancing on Price’s Pier. The first 32 people to post a review on a book-related web site will get on my VIP list and receive a free thank-you-for-sharing-your-thoughts gift from me. So if you do read Slow Dancing, be sure to send me the link to your review (lisa dale books at gmail dot (.) com)!

All the best,

Lisa Dale