Project: Re-brand

As you may have noticed, things are changing around here. What is an absolutely gorgeous design by the Killion Group (for a foodie romance brand) is going to be changing into another gorgeous design (hopefully also by the Killion Group) that will be more in line with the kinds of books I am currently writing.

In other words, Romancing the Palate will go on the backburner. On the front burner will now be: Big Hopes, Big Heroes, in the Big Sky. I’m also taking on a marketing director, Miss Kristy (who will be known also as Tistylee), a publicist (in Gliterary Girl Media), and a brand manager (Miss Chris). Can you tell I teach kids? LOL. Anyway, my hope is that rlsyme.com will be more focused, more fun, and more helpful.

So, what is Big Hopes, Big Heroes, in the Big Sky? Well, that’s my brand. I write about the New West–the West of Longmire and Bridger Bowl and A River Runs Through It. Not so much the West of Nora Roberts (although that West does exist, too… I just live in a slightly different version of it). My goal is that all of my books will portray this new west. The Pioneer West, sure, but the edgy West. The small town, the western city.

You see, the West is a big place, and it’s definitely got its share of cowboys and Sheriffs and Texas Rangers. But it also has fly fishermen and smokejumpers; ski instructors, teachers, poets, baristas, University professors, pastors, entrepreneurs, engineers, and farmers. With the cowboy, they share an independent spirit. They may not ride a horse, but they like the wild, nonetheless. They value economy and generosity, honesty and honor. They are everything that was great about the Old West, only in the New West. Those are the big heroes.

As far as the big hopes go, it’s important to know that the Pioneer Spirit never really died out here. Sure, the population may be bigger (in some places) or vanished (in others), but there’s still a lot of open land here, and open land calls to a person. The New West is a place where dreams are discovered and hopes are real. Not only is hope real, but it’s always on the horizon. No matter how dark the hour, there’s always a big hope in the Big Sky. In more ways than one, of course.

And of course, we all know the Big Sky. It’s clearer, crisper, and, yes, bigger here. The vastness of the state is hard to comprehend for some people who grew up with cities every 30 minutes that have grown together into a metropolis. It’s hard to comprehend the size of the sky when yours is crowded by beautiful skyscrapers. But that is the sky that calls me, as a writer. The New West has a particular bigness that can only exist here, where there’s new ground to develop and new things to discover and new love to find.

So that’s the new brand.

With the new brand comes some new segments to the blog. Here’s the current plan.

Mondays: The View From Here

Wednesdays: My Montana

Fridays: New West Test Kitchen

Weekends: Reviews and At Random

The View From Here

These are my writing posts. I still want to talk about things like social media strategy for writers, blogs that I’m reading, interesting things going on in the writing world, or what I’m working on today. The View From Here is probably going to be the only part of the blog that will be mainly about me. My hope is that the rest of the blog will be about where I get my inspiration: My Home.

My Montana

My Montana posts are meant to give you a taste of the New West. What do I mean when I say that something has a “New West” feel? I hope to tell you about that here. My plan is to let you see Montana (Bozeman, especially, but as much of the state as I can cover with my camera and pen) through the eyes of a local. Also, I’d like to give you a taste of what it’s like to be here, and what you can do for fun that the locals do, if you come here. A lot of these posts will be a “guide to My Montana” type of feel. Miss Kristy and I came up with a list of thirty or so things to try out. I’ve done a few of them and hope to do many more this Fall. But I also hope to take suggestions from those of you who live here. I want to cover things that are fun and interesting, and give you an insight of Montana you might not have seen before. Also, if you sign up for my newsletter (coming soon), you’ll get a special printable guide of recommended restaurants and things to do in one of the six major cities in Montana, complete with my personal thoughts and recommendations on each one.

New West Test Kitchen

This is the area that Miss Kristy and I are the most excited about. I don’t know if you remember the old community cookbooks. Every church seemed to have one. I have several stacks of them, and had been lamenting for so long that some of these recipes were just un-make-able today. And yet, the taste experience is so nostalgic for us. We grew up eating the recipes at potlucks, weddings, parties, and tables. They are our culinary DNA. But some of them need a little updating.

So each week, Miss Kristy (Tistylee) and I (Beckatron) are going to tackle one recipe from our old cookbooks. We’re using mostly the Syme Smorgasboard cookbook (because it’s bigger–yes, size matters) and the Our Daily Bread cookbook from St. Joseph’s in my hometown. But I found the same recipes in cookbooks from Westby, Medicine Lake, Butte, Scobey, Livingston, Minton, Radville, Lustre, Baker, and Outlook. So they have to be common everywhere. If not the same, then similar.

We’ve picked some of our favorites, some we’ve always wanted to make, some we remembered from childhood, and some we wanted to update. Most of the weeks will include an “original” recipe version, either one that’s been passed down to us orally, or one that we found in a community cookbook. We’re hoping to do something with all of the re-make recipes, so we may end up doing a FAILED NWTK remix post once in awhile. (We’re not even through our first month of recipes, and we both have a re-make already.) We also want to hear about your memories of the food, and your opinions about the remixes and what you might have done differently. SO make sure to speak up!

Weekends

I still have to do quite a bit of reading myself, and reading other blogs, and marketing. So I hope to spend the weekends reviewing. Either books that I’ve read, blogs I follow, articles I’m reviewing, or classes I’ve taken. Most will likely be books, because I have a big reading list for the year, but I hope to try to hit most of the major reviews that I need to get through on only one of the weekend days.

SO there it is. Project: Rebrand. There will be other facets to it. This is technically my “View From Here” post for the week, and next week, I plan to cover more of the re-brand, especially if you are an author considering a re-brand. Between having a brand manager and going through a re-brand, I can tell you SO much about the branding process… it’s going to be lots of fun. So stay tuned. Watch my Facebook Author page for the feed. Once the website redux is done, I’ll also be putting out a newsletter every month, with all new content. So stay tuned for that, as well.

Meanwhile… thanks for stopping by! I hope you enjoy the Big Hopes, Big Heroes, and my view of the Big Sky.

~ Becca (R.L. Syme)