Hitting the Road

My WIP, Things Found in the Morning (but if you you’ve read my blog long enough, you know that title will change), is set in South Dakota. Why? Well, I needed a certain climate, certain adoption laws, a certain sized county with a certain amount of law enforcement, and a certain demographic. So, after completing all my research, South Dakota was the winner.

Now, my first novel, Home Another Way, is set in a small mountain town in upstate New York. I live in upstate New York. I know people who grew up in small mountain towns like Jonah, people whose homes really did have dirt floors, and no indoor plumbing, and who kept their bathtubs on the front lawn and carried them into the kitchen on bath day because their houses were too small to keep them inside all the time. To get an idea of how Jonah looked, I spent a day driving around the back mountain roads, snapping photos of ramshackle buildings. Setting research was easy-peasy.

I know nothing about South Dakota, other than what I’ve read on the Internet. I know authors write about places they’ve never been all the time, but because of my writing style – I use quite a bit of sensory descriptions – I think it’s important for me to have firsthand knowledge of the sights, sounds, and smells of my chosen setting. Plus, I have this annoying penchant for accuracy.

So, I’m heading to the Mount Rushmore State.

Since, as I discovered during my research, SD is one of the only states without Amtrak, and Greyhound takes 43 hours (I’m certainly not bringing a 7-year-old on a nearly two-day bus ride), and it costs $860 per person to fly to Pierre, I’m going on a literal road trip. My father (semi-retired and always up for an adventure), Jacob, and I are driving to South Dakota next month. We’re sticking an air mattress in the back of the van; I’ll sleep while my father drives, my father will sleep while I’ll drive, and we’ll get there in 24 hours.

Sounds like fun, huh?

I’ll certainly be blogging along the way.