My current novels / novel project are, as I mentioned a couple posts ago, set in Upstate New York. It’s a fictional town called Tibbs. But, you know. Tibbs is my hometown :)
I’m still debating one element, however: time of year. Originally, I planned to set all three novels in the summertime. I like the idea of compressing Marion Flarey’s adventures into a relatively short time period. You want to subject your protag to nerve-wracking problems. Having them hit her quickly, one after another, helps to keep the pressure high.
But another reason for keeping everything in the summer is that in Upstate New York, summer is the time when “nature,” in its biological form, is most intrusive and in-your-face. In the winter, nature makes herself known as well, but in terms that are tactile and visual. You feel her cold. Your visual field is smacked continually by that striking palette of blacks and whites and grays.
Summertime is different. Summertime is heat and mud and sweat and bugs and plants. You go outside and living things touch you, crawl on you. And the creatures are all having babies. Laying eggs and spinning cocoons and building nests and feeding fledglings.
It feels like that’s the world where I want my Marion Flarey to live. Green and tangled and damp. A perpetual summer, in fact …
We’ll see. There is still time for me to change my mind :)
In the meantime:
Two critter stories from this summer in Upstate New York
Both from when I was back there visiting this summer.
First: my daughter and I went for a walk around dusk, and a deer crossed the road in front of us, followed by a fawn.
The fawn saw us.
It peered at us.
It started to walk toward us.
That’s not an unusual thing. They are curious, they haven’t learned to be afraid, yet. But it was a magical moment. We stood there, watching the fawn as it stepped closer and closer, trying to figure out what sort of creature we were.
Then it suddenly felt fear and ran into the brush along the road, mewling for its mother.
On another walk, we found a katydid on the pavement.
I picked it up for a photo op, and moved it off the road.
I don’t know what kind it is — there are many different kinds — maybe a Fork-tailed Bush Katydid?
If you can ID please do!
