Travels with Camille

Please welcome, um, my friend to my blog today. You'll have to decide what to call today's guest. I usually call her Camille, but if you leave a comment WITH your email address you might win a copy of Ada's new book!

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As you can see, I love the name of Kaye's blog.  In fact, since I've been following Travels with Kaye, I've stolen quite a few ideas, like her Anti-Bucket list and other writing tips. Thanks for hosting me today anyway, Kaye!

As a writer, my travels have increased tremendously. For one thing, I've gone to conferences and book signings in places I'd never have visited otherwise, like Carmel, Indiana, where there's a wonderful dollhouse museum; and Winona, Minnesota, where a great indie bookstore had our names on a marquee and a reserved parking space in front. Oh, and an unnamed town near our southern border, where they told us not to leave the hotel alone after dark. But even that was interesting. Not so much the stolen luggage in a square state in the Midwest, but statistics tells me it had to happen at least once.

I've also traveled the alphabet through several different names. I guess Camille Minichino isn't long enough to support three series. So I made the trip to new IDs: Margaret Grace for the Miniature Mysteries and Ada Madison for the Academic Mysteries. I've submitted a proposal for a fourth series and can't wait to see to where in the alphabet I travel for that pen name.

For several novels, I've had to travel through time and research earlier centuries. One of my favorite trips was back to Galesburg, Illinois, 1858, to the Lincoln-Douglas debates. I was writing scenes where citizens of my fictional town of Lincoln Point, California (for the Miniature Mysteries) reenacted the debate, and I ended up reading the texts of all of the long debates, plus several other Lincoln books.

I never would have guessed the format for the Lincoln-Douglas debates: one candidate spoke for 60 minutes, then the other candidate spoke for 90 minutes, and then the first candidate was allowed a 30-minute rebuttal. A little different from our sound-bit political debates?

But my best travels are to people, with professions and hobbies wildly different from my own. Talking to people with passions outside my wheelhouse is a great pleasure and a never-ending source of information.

I've spent time with experts on a gun range and hours in a trailer that houses medevac pilots  and nurses. I've talked to race car drivers and equestrians. I've read veterinary magazines and watched tap-dancing videos. One source gave me his set of books on mortuary science and a cop gave me a entire "murder book."

For my latest release, "The Probability of Murder," I had to travel to stores that sell lottery tickets and got to meet the clerks who deal in such purchases. Eye-opening! And a character was born.

Whether they've been of the Please-Place-Your-Shoes-in-the-Tray kind, or the CyberCloud kind, I couldn't write without my travels.

***Tell us about your best or worst travel experience and win a chance for a copy of "The Probability of Murder" by A-is-for Ada Madison.

 Camille Minichino is a retired physicist turned writer.

As Camille Minichino, she's the author of the Periodic Table Mysteries. As Margaret Grace, she writes the Miniature Mysteries, based on her lifelong hobby. As Ada Madison, she writes an academic series, the Professor Sophie Knowles series.

Soon, every aspect of her life will be a mystery series. 

Camille has also published articles for popular magazines and teaches science and writing workshops in and around the Bay Area.Publish Post

Visit Camille (and all the others) at http://www.minichino.com/.