In the 237 summers which have come and gone since July 4th, 1776, the date has increasingly become a juncture for white sales and auto dealer blowouts. In fact, lost amidst the mall madness and car lot carnivals is a simultaneously fascinating and pedantic period of committee meetings, assignations, rewrites, copies, messengers, vote-taking and gallons of coffee, ale and wine. As I currently scribe the fourth novel in my six-part, historical-fiction series of books, Savannah of Williamsburg, Independence Day takes on a more front-and-center appearance than usual as research takes me through the 1750s, well into the meaty burgeoning of colonial revolution.

“There’s an awful lot of weird, pasty people in here, myself included.” So went my recurring, silent observance throughout this year’s Comic-Con, striking oft as I flitted hither and thither through the San Diego Convention Center, like a frantic mosquito seeking an open window on a muggy, Malibu, summer’s day. The pastiness was not truly what struck me, nor was the definitive weirdness. The real oddity was, like in so many gatherings where we geeks gather en masse -Renaissance Faire, Disneyland- the convergence of and shoulder-to-shoulder conditions pressed upon so many individuals not generally prone to mainstream socializing. Moi? I haven’t left my Hotel del Coronado much since 1934. Dr. Lucy, my ghostie cohort? 1904. Judging by the bevy of pale and malleable bodies endeavouring some severely awkward social interactivity, they’ve not left their abodes since 1904 either. Need more than just one fat Slave Leia? Dr. Lucy’s Comic-Con 2012 Gallery of Oddities!

 From the start The Darlings of Orange County reads like a film: pirates, sexy Swedes, beautiful surfers, brooding femme fatale brunettes and volatile redheads running amok amidst the sunny and sandy shores and stores of Newport, Laguna and Dana Point. Natch, any writer will tell you their book should be a narrative film. Yet, clearly some scream for the marquis lights more than others. I mean, just look at the cover art!

Here's the question I posit to those of you whom have read the book: who do you envision in the various roles? Sure, many of the main and supporting characters are dysfunctional, self-obsessed, superego, mendacious murderers, drug dealers and all-around finks; yet, like any good Anne Rice novel, most of them are also hiding some innate goodness and are preternaturally beautiful, without aesthetic flaw. They are mathematically perfect specimens with hearts of bronze.

Suffice it to say there's an opening or two for the likes of Brad Pitt (Kalifornia-Brad, not Benjamin Button-Brad), Matthew McConaughey, Zach Galifianakas, Parker Posey, Adrianne Curry, Anne Hathaway, Ed Helms, Sofia Vergara and the like. Bien-sur, scribbled on a Hello Kitty piece of notepaper, I have my definitive actor wishlist: distinct actors paired with specific characters. Oh sure, I suppose I'll have to sign Johnny Depp, Robert Downey, Jr., Conan O'Brien and some of the other stars dotted throughout the pages. Still, who's your John Everyman playing Pardo, Ryan or Tucker; who's the Betty-next--door playing Veronica, Kieran, Astrid or Sasha?

As far as Chet Darling goes, the scruffy, sketchy, Captain Ronesque land-pirate who lives on a broken down yacht in Dana Point harbor, subsisting by making canvas covers for boats and costumes for Renaissance Faire folk? It's Zach Galifianakis (The Hangover, Muppets Most Wanted) and only Zach on my dream casting list.

Clearly, the title needs to lap dance on the right people.  If you were the right lap, who would you cast? Head to Amazon's The Darlings of Orange County forum to see whom other readers envision and let your wishes and fantasies be known! If you're shy, you can even just write us a note here at our Contact page; we'll pass it along to Jerry Bruckheimer personally! Tell Hollywood it's time to bring some H-town sizzle to the shores of the O.C. (Psst. BTW, don't call it that.) Film rights still available. Tweet

As of late, the adventure-lit of Edgar Rice Burroughs has captured my interest with a pleasant focus. The travel narratives of 19thC. adventurers have forever suited me well: Mark Twain, Richard Henry Dana, Charles Darwin, Henry James and Thomas Jefferson with his 18thC. accounts of Italian and French sojourns. To that end, contemporary travel essayists fill a healthy portion of our nearly 2,000 volume library: Bill Bryson, Peter Mayle, Hunter S. Thompson. Perhaps these travel writers and novelists have fueled my Wanderlust; perhaps I am drawn to them because of said-lust.

I have certainly been intrigued by adventure-lit since I first flipped through a fave and well-dogeared volume of Mom's 1940s  I Married Adventure by Martin and Osa Johnson. Tales of a 1930s power couple, he a photographer and contemporary of Jack London (another childhood fave of mine), she the devoted and steel-spined wife and protective riflewoman, they travelled South America and Africa well before the likes of Margaret Mead, Diane Fossey and Jane Goodall: all ladies whose works were also regular reading material about the house. (Mom was an anthropology major when I was wee and I suppose the lure of travel, questions of man's origins and the eternal quest for social knowledge set in early. Her degree was largely focused on Southeast Asian Studies; but I always thought it was Southy Station Studies, as in people who rode trains in the South. Silly girl.) Natch, I could go on here ad nauseum about all this twaddle, but I must save zee leetle grey zells' work for my current endeavour ... which brings me to the animal-loving Brit in the loin cloth.

Motivated by this year's themes for San Diego Comic-Con -for which I am anxiously awaiting press passes for the purposes of reporting from the convention floor for GoodtobeaGeek.com, as my alter ego/pseudonym Miss Hannah Hart, ghostdame- I have dipped my feathered quill and now sit pensively, pondering my submission to the official Souvenir Book, my inky nib aloft and hesitating just inches above my parchment. My theme of choice? The 100th anniversary of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan of the Apes.

I utilize this casual canvas, similar to my previous post wherein I gathered some Savannah of Williamsburg thoughts -how to formulate my fourth book in this series- as a sounding board to crystallize some free-radical ideas in my noodle. It seems to be working; I feel the gears moving, like one of Dr. Lucia Devereaux's steampunk contraptions sputtering to life. (If you read Hannah, you'll know of Dr. Lucy.) Some of you may know I was published in the 2010 Comic-Con Book: lead story even for the 60th Anniversary of Peanuts segment! My task at hand this time is considerable. These Tarzan geeks are tough competition.

Now, being the weird combination of she whom reveres original fairy tales -Grimm (Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel und Gretel), de la Fontaine (The Grasshopper and the Ant, The Tortoise and the Hare), de Ségur (Blondine), etc.- yet also adores the Disney reiterations thereof, my Viking and I ventured to Disneyland to get my noggin revving and skittered amidst the branches of Tarzan's Treehouse in Adventureland. In fact, the attraction used to be the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse and far superior ... to the Tarzan Treehouse, not superior to the Robert Louis Stevenson book. Ha! It was a subtle homage of vintage suitcases, silver hairbrushes and antique china to the durable and genteel, accidental survivalists from the mind of the man from Edinburgh. Happily, some of the props have remained in place.

Once again, merci pour écouter, thanks for listening; I think I have some ideas brewing. I imagine, alongside reading more of Mr. Edgar Rice Burroughs, a few more trips through the treehouse may very well be in order.

Update to Post: I did indeed come up with an article for Comic-Con 2012 and it was published in the annual Souivernir Book. Read it here!

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