Inspiring images — Kandy Shepherd

Back in the day, I used to prepare a scrapbook style story board for each of my stories. They would be filled with cuttings from magazines and catalogues, key words, even scraps of fabric. The boards were a bit messy and cumbersome and my skills with glue and sticky tape left much to be desired—bits and pieces were always falling off!

Then along came Pinterest! What a joy to make a digital scrapbook for each story. Inspiration for every aspect of my book at the click of the keyboard—hero, heroine, their clothes, their jewellery, their rooms, house, places they travel. I became a big fan. Some might say an addict!

First I start with inspiration for the hero and heroine. What an excuse to trawl through photos of gorgeous males! 

The joys of research!

Equally fun to find my perfect heroine. Even more fun the clothes she wears. As many of my books for Harlequin Romance feature a wedding, I have a page just for beautiful wedding ideas, including spectacular gowns.

For my latest book STRANDED WITH HER GREEK TYCOON, I researched inspiration for the hero Cristos: Greek, exceptionally handsome, tall and dark (of course!) with the kind of looks that made him an international model. After much pleasant browsing, I settled on French model Nicolas Simoes.

 For petite, blonde heroine Hayley, I went no further than lovely actress Michelle Williams. Then there was the blue coat Hayley wore—I found one that was just what I imagined. And her wedding dress of course!

Michelle Williams - inspiration for my heroine Hayley

 The story is set in the Ionian islands in northern Greece. I’ve been there in summer—my research showed my what the islands look like covered in snow in the  winter.

Of course as the writing of the book progresses, the hero and heroine become people in their own right (in my imagination, that is!) and very soon they are uniquely themselves, and perhaps different from the images that inspired me.

Here’s a screenshot of my Pinterest board for Stranded with Her Greek Tycoon. 

Why not hop over to the site and see it in more detail. If you’ve read the book, I wonder if it differs from the image you have in your mind of the characters and the settings! https://www.pinterest.com.au/kandyshepherd/cristos-and-hayley-stranded-with-her-greek-tycoon-/

 Do you use Pinterest for inspiration (I also have boards for home and garden!) Do you scrapbook? I'd love to see your comments.

Kandy Shepherd’s Stranded with Her Greek Tycoon is a February 2018 release from Harlequin Romance in North America; Mills& Boon True Love in the UK; and Mills & Boon Forever Romance in Australia and New Zealand. 

The model on the covers of the UK and Australian editions is just how I imagined Cristos—and not dissimilar to the images I collected on my board!

  

Kandy Shepherd is a multi-published, award-winning author of contemporary romance and women’s fiction. She lives on a small farm in the Blue Mountains near Sydney, Australia, with her family and a menagerie of four-legged friends.

Visit Kandy at her website

www.kandyshepherd.com

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Photos of male model and Michelle Williams from Deposit Photos.

Cowboys, Kids and Bull Riding School -- Anne McAllister

Just last week Tule Publishing reprinted a book of mine called The Cowboy and the Kid.  It is the 4th in a series of loosely related books called The Tanner Brothers because the first three were about brothers, and this guy is the best friend of one of them.

Loosely means you don't have to have read the others to make sense of it, but if you do, you'll know more about the people who make up the hero and heroine's world.  Out of my seventy books, it is one that has remained near and dear to my heart.

In thinking about why it has remained one of my favorites, I've decided that it gave me the chance to celebrate bits of my life that I value a great deal -- and it took me out of myself to a place I'd never been, which is always the best part of research.

So . . . what I value:

Cowboys, of course. Goes without saying. I imprinted on one when I was five and the inclination to follow one anywhere still lingers.  Not sure what it is -- maybe the sense of responsibility, the 'try' that means he always makes maximum effort no matter the cost, the  strong/quiet vibe that so many of them do so well. Or, well, maybe it's the Wranglers and the hat . . . but cowboys, especially ones like sinigle-father Taggart Jones, will get me every time.

And kids.  They're very much a part of my world. I've got four -- all grown up now -- and nine grandkids in various stages on the road to maturity (well, one is already there).  And Becky, Taggart's daughter, owes a bit to several of them who are dear to me, in particular to the daughter of friends who was seven when I wrote about Becky and who had every bit of the curiosity and determination and stubbornness that Becky did.  She's all grown up now, too, and I'm thinking she wouldn't make a bad heroine.

And scrapbooks.  I inherited a few scrapbooks from my long-gone relatives, and they inspired the scrapbook at the beginning of The Cowboy and the Kid.  I always loved looking through them and "reading" the story of the person whose life they reflected by reading the news articles and seeing the cards and bits and pieces of memorabilia they saved.  I did one myself in 8th grade to tell the story of Peter Stuyvesant in New Netherlands for a social studies project.  I remembered it when my then editor wanted me to start with something that focused on Taggart (otherwise the book started from Becky's point of view).  It was fun to do.  (There's still an 8th grader somewhere deep inside me).

And small town folks.  Sometimes they can be urban neighborhood folks, of course. But they are the people who live nearby and who feel almost more like family than they do just acquaintances.  They're the ones you can call on when you need a helping hand.  They're sometimes the ones who know you need a helping hand before you know.

And bull-riding.

This is the research part, the part that took me out of my own life and dropped me straight into one I had only seen from a distance.  This wasn't a natural for me, but this kind of research is one of the parts of writing books that I value  more than anything else.

A year or so before this book, I'd done another book -- The Eight-Second Wedding -- and in it there was a bull-rider.  I sort of fell in love with that bull-rider, and in doing research to make him 'real,' I spent a fair amount of time on the phone with a cowboy who taught bull riding "for real."

He was a great resource.  It was a fun experience, so much so that I wished he could be a resource for another book.  He said, "Well, you could write one about a hero who was a bull-riding instructor."

So I did.  And of course, ever the stickler for authenticity, he said, "You should come to bull-riding school."

So I did -- over the Presidents' Day weekend quite a lot of years ago.

Let me be clear: I audited the course. I did not take it for 'credit'  -- I did not ride any bulls. One of the other things I value, besides authenticity, is self-preservation, and I know my limits.

But I did spend three days attending class and watching my fellow students survive -- and thrive -- in the course and in the arena.

I came away with a great appreciation for what it take to put yourself out there, for the commitment and the determination, for all the tiny details that go into making a success of a ride.  Or not.

That weekend was one of the most memorable of all the many bits of life that have turned up in my books. And that bull-riding instruct or was one of the most helpful, insightful cowboys  I've had the pleasure of following around for three days (and it wasn't just the Wrangers and the hat).

Putting it all together afterwards, and finding the heart of the story in all the details from so many places and people, made it one of the most enjoyable books I've written (sometimes I tear my hair. OFTEN, I tear my hair.  But not on that book).  It was even fun to go back through it and touch it up a bit.

The first book in the Tanner Brothers series, Cowboys Don't Cry is available for free for a limited time as an ebook in a variety of formats.

Check it out at your favorite online bookseller if you like cowboys who don't (as another former editor said) "own multi-national corporations on the side.  In other words, there are no billionaires in this series.  Sorry about that!

Book 5, Cowboy Pride, will be released February 13, and can be pre-ordered now.