Google books: It’s very useful for finding old, out of print books (that are free!). Also, you can search for keywords, etc, in the text to see if it’s worth reading or even worth buying.

The Colindale Newspaper Library: This is a trek—an hour outside of London, you need a pass, you must check your baggage, and you must be quiet. But it’s awesome. I read actual newspapers from the early 1800’s. They come in giant bound volumes to flip carefully through. It’s just an amazing feeling to touch and smell and read those 200+ year-old papers.

Museums: Especially one’s with gift shops. I LOVE the Regency rooms at the National Portrait Gallery in London.

Amazon: All sorts of good, unusual books delivered.

Colonial Williamsburg: Recreate the days of yore experience! CW is a quaint, fascinating and fun experience. I don’t know of any other place where you can immerse yourself in another world like that. It’s something about the lack of electricity, I think (except for the cash registers in the cute little shops!).

The best experience of all, for me as a writer, was dinner with my family in the tavern at CW. Though it was still a bit light outside, it was rather dark inside. We dined by candlelight. Someone played an old fiddle. We ordered meat pies with venison, and other game meats–an authentic colonial recipe. Footsteps sound different on those old floors.

You could so just imagine a hero and heroine discretely dining in a dark corner, listening to the music, looking out at the last of daylight …

©2010 Maya Rodale Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Here’s a little snippet: My upcoming book is A GROOM OF ONE’S OWN —that’s groom as in husband, not stable boy, as one friend clarified to my amusement–and it’s the first book in my Writing Girl romance series. Inspired by the old adage “write what you know” I decided my new batch of heroines would be writers. They’re not novelists, because that’s such a solitary, time-consuming activity. No, these writings girls are newspaper reporters in the Regency Era—so it’s fast paced, it’s scandalous, and it gets them out and engaged with London in a way our heroines usually are not.

Read the rest here. You know you want to!

©2010 Maya Rodale Blog. All Rights Reserved.

OMG–I almost forgot! The Season and Avon are giving out FIVE FREE COPIES of A Groom Of One’s Own. This is your big to chance to get your copy before this author and her mother!

©2010 Maya Rodale Blog. All Rights Reserved.

1. Room service coffee delivered. Good morning!
2. Writing in bed while drinking coffee. This is the way to write romance!
3. Lady Jane’s Salon, Columbus edition! Readers Delilah Marvelle, Linnea Sinclair and Sabrina Jeffries were terrific.
4. Dinner at Ted’s Montana Grill with my date, People Magazine. Since Writing Girl Book #2 is about a gossip columnist, this counts as research.
5. Spending the night in bed with McDreamy (remember him?) by flipping between Grey’s Anatomy reruns on Lifetime and Sweet Home Alabama on Oxygen.I have definitely needed downtime like this.
6. The Giant Book Fair! This was my first booksigning where I met many folks who already read my books–and I sold many new books, too! I met some facebook friends in real life and…
7. I met my RT reviewer and learned how many stars A Groom Of One’s Own is getting…
8. And the Kentucky Derby–go Calvin!
9. Finishing my book, on time. Phew!

©2010 Maya Rodale Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Another major event this weekend? Try 3 more big events! I’m off to the Romantic Times Convention in Columbus, Ohio. I’ll be hosting a workshop with my Lady Jane co-founders on how you can start your own reading series (tip #1: don’t go it alone!). Then I’ll be signing copies of The Rogue And The Rival and coverflats of A Groom Of One’s Own at the giant book fair on Saturday from 11:00-2:00. On Saturday night it’s Lady Jane’s Salon’s Salon, live from Ohio! Our special guest readers: Linnea Sinclair, Delilah Marvelle and Sabrina Jeffries. Oh, and there will be champagne, thank goodness!

And on Sunday, I shall rest. I may even curl up with a romance novel (just not one of mine).

©2010 Maya Rodale Blog. All Rights Reserved.