Location Magic

Oh, la la! Sometimes a location setting for a fictional work leads us down a path we never knew we were on. I’ve already shared about finding Glenaag Castle in Scotland. Now, I’ve found new and exciting information about a location I had imagined for my Avery Victoria Fable series. Love the internet! Love the magic!

In Book Four, titled, ‘The Woman Who Remembered’ our heroine is in London, working with the Logan family to see if she can restore their business.

It JUST SO HAPPENS that I selected Holland Park in London for their townhouse location and decided that their fictional family business (Logan Press, a mostly defunct publishing company) was/is in old London.

Yesterday I was working on details, like describing how to get to Old London from Holland Park. (Thank you Google Maps). Once I saw the route, which is only six miles long and 37 minutes to drive (in 2020), I expanded to see what streets and buildings are around the area.

Are you ready? I found Theobalds Road! My heart skipped a beat because my last name before I married was Theobald! OMG! Imagine such an unusual name showing up while you’re studying details about a location you’re writing about. Has that even happened to you? Isn’t it magical?

I felt a little dizzy and lightheaded as if I was sort of transported to a different world. What I get is that it’s encouraging, when one is writing works of fiction, to get a little ‘buzz’ as if to say, you’re on the right path. Keep going!

Please share any similar experiences with me. vivian@vivianprobst.com

Happy International Women's Day!

It’s International Women’s Day and around the world, people are celebrating. I want to do more than celebrate—I want to change how we perceive women and their roles. If you agree that it’s time for an upgrade, read on.

One simple way to achieve that is by changing spelling of a few words in English. Did you know English is now our world’s most popular language? Everyone is learning to speak it. At the same time, English is hard on those of us who aren’t men. In fact, we can’t even speak of ourselves without using ‘man’ words.

Think about it: woman, women, female, she, her, lady…can you see how attached our words are to men? Did you know that most other languages use completely different words for ‘man’ and ‘woman’? I think English ought to do the same thing, don’t you?

My current fictional series, The Avery Victoria Spencer Fables, is written in both English and an inclusive form of English I’m calling WEnglish™.

Hey, we’ve had the right to vote for over 100 years now. Isn’t it time we had a few words of our own to describe ourselves?

If you’d like to see how my team is fixing English to be kinder to our gender, check out my website, vivianprobst.com, and click on the WEnglish™ tab.

Vivian Probst

P.S. Book Four of the Avery Victoria Spencer Fables is in the edit phase. Could it be the last one? Or is there more to come? Stay tuned at vivianprobst.com.

Next blog: Choosing a novel location for a novel series.