Wine & Women's Fiction: the Perfect Pairing!

Over the past 18 months, I have written—and self-published—a novel about life in Wine Country. It started as a collection of dating stories with a bunch of wine references (because blind dates are better, or at least funnier, when wine is involved). I started referring to these wine-fueled musings as a novel when the page count hit 200 (and I wasn't done yet).

I've always known I would be a novelist. In the Creative Writing program at USC, the lesson plans focused on writing short stories, poetry, essays or journalistic articles. But even after graduating with a B.A. in Creative Writing and getting lots of writing experience (including penning a weekly wine column for the Daily Trojan), I felt unprepared for what I really wanted to do. All my professors told me to "write what you know", but I didn't know how to write a novel.

So now that I’ve finished my first novel—and begun working on the second one—everyone wants to know about the process. Maybe they didn't teach novel-writing at USC because it comes down to two simple things: a few great ideas and lots of hard work.

Oh, and a good editor, supportive friends, and many bottles of wine...

The easiest part of writing Where I Want to Be was deciding which wines to mention. I looked back at four years’ worth of blog posts and picked out the most memorable ones.

After writing about eight drafts and proofreading until my eyes hurt, I am thrilled with the feedback from fellow wine bloggers and friends! And although this novel is “women’s fiction”, I know one guy who read it and thoroughly enjoyed it. Click here to check out Alana Gentry’s review on girlwithaglass.com.

I hope that you will buy my debut novel on Amazon today and enjoy it too. Preferably with a big glass of wine!

Cheers,

Cortney