BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU ASK FOR

 

You have to be careful what you ask for.  I have talked about writing Isabella Bird's story for over a decade. I visited Estes Park and hiked in the Rockies in 2017, to get a better feel for the region. My essay, Riding in the Hoof prints of Isabella Bird, won the Traveler’s Tales Solas Award. I have long admired this plucky English Woman whose travel books were best sellers in the late 1800’s.

 I didn’t feel I had time to commit to a novel until the year of the virus. I got the time, whether I wanted it or not. Presently, I am deep into my novel Embrace of the Wild, a fictionalized account of Lady Isabella Bird’s tour of the Rocky Mountains in 1874. I hope to have the first rough draft completed by mid-September. Like my two other novels, it is a destination piece that takes you a place you can’t get to any other way. I’ve enjoyed being in the Rockies while it was still virgin territory. I hope you will find this journey as exciting as I have.

I will come up for air soon, but for now I am focused on finishing a first draft that I can share with beta readers. Then off to my editor for the acid test. I am striving to have it in publishable format by years end.

By then we should have a vaccine and I can get back onthe freedom trail!

Adventure travel writer, Linda Ballou, has rafted, kayaked and horseback ridden through pristine wilderness areas around the globe. The most memorable of these journeys are chronicled in her book Lost Angel Walkabout.  In Lost Angel in Paradise she shares 32-of her favorite daytrips along the coast of California. In her latest effort Get Great Trips for Free she provides a roadmap for travel writing success.  Learn more about her travels at www.LostAngelAdventures.com