Friday, 15 June 2012

The Origin of an Idea: Ute Carbone

Today I have a guest on my blog. Ute Carbone. She is a fabulous writer who's work I really enjoy. So sit back, relax and enjoy ...

Where The P-Town Queen came from
Hint: it wasn’t the stork
Since I began book writing and story creating it seems that the question I get asked most often is, “Where do your ideas come from?”. Here’s the thing. It’s magic. You wake up one morning and the sun is shining and the birds are twittering. There’s this little voice in your head saying “Write! Write! WRITE!” And you sit down at the keyboard and the words tip tap out like  a babbling brook.

Okay, I’m lying. The truth is something much more mundane and a lot less exciting. Stories and ideas are everywhere. If I get very lucky, a couple of ideas will begin to tango in my mind and a story will unfold.

Here’s how The P-Town Queen was conceived:

It started with me noodling around. Most stories start this way for me. I’ll write an opening line or two, apropos to nothing at all. Maybe I’ll expand the line into a paragraph. Or, as in was the case with P-Town, I’ll write a short scene using an idea that’s popping around in my head.
Sometimes the idea takes shape and I get all excited. More often than not, the idea melts away like an ice cream cone on a ninety degree day and I shove it into a folder I have called “maybe later.” Which really ought to be called the never ever file, but I’m an optimist and I hate closing the door on anything. Which explains why I still have cassette tapes buried in a box in my closet, but I digress.

Anyway, The P-Town Queen began as an idea. A man (the hero) was running from something terrible. Something like a mob hit. He goes to Provincetown, (because I’d recently visited Provincetown) to hide out and start a new life. Since I’d just been on a whale watch, I figured he’d apply for a job as an oceanographer because he knew nothing about the sea except how to make shrimp scampi. And he needed an alias, so he calls himself “Parker Bench” because he’s homeless and has been spending a lot of time on a park bench.
Since you can’t write about Provincetown without at least a nod to its vibrant gay community, my hero decides to pretend he’s gay. Because he’s not. In fact, he can’t imagine anyone would ever think he was.

I wanted to write a romantic comedy, so I needed a heroine. Enter Nikki, shark researcher extraordinaire who has made some bad decisions and is trying to get her standing in the research community back.
Provincetown also has a small enclave of close knit traditional Portuguese American fishing families and-Viola!- Nikki’s family is born.

So there you have it. The beginnings of The P-Town Queen. As to the rest, well. You’ll just have to get a copy of the book and read for yourself!
P-town Blurb
Nikki Silva feels like she’s blown up her life even as her brothers tease her about blowing up a boat called the Mona Lisa. Divorced, funding for her shark research cut off, she’s moved back to Provincetown to live with her father in her childhood home. Nikki hopes to regain herself. She’s written a grant proposal for the newly formed Massachusetts Bay Commission to fund a study that will get her back to the sort of research she loves. The commission is run by her ex-husband Ned, who would rather have a migraine than give money to his ex-wife.
Marco Tornetti wants to turn a hole-in-the-wall Newark spaghetti joint into a trendy bistro. His silent partner, Fat Phil Lagosa, wants to use the place to solicit questionable business deals.  When Fat Phil accuses Marco of a double cross and has him taken for a ride by one of his hit men, Marco knows he’s in too deep.
Marco escapes the hit man and takes the first bus out of the Tri-state area, a bus chartered by the Greater Teaneck Gay Men’s Choir and headed for Provincetown. Marco figures that Phil would never look for him in Provincetown‘s gay community. But when he meets Nikki and falls hard for her, he finds that pretending to be gay isn’t as easy as it would seem.
You can purchase  The P-Town Queen at:

Thanks for visiting with us Ute. I'm looking forward to reading your upcoming books. Keep writing.
Hugs
Katie

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for having me over, Katie!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for stopping by Ute. Always pleased to host a talented writer like you.

      Hugs
      Katie

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Thank you for visiting my blog. Hope you enjoyed your stay.
Hugs
Katie