No rest for the writer - Kandy Shepherd

A writer never really has a holiday. No matter where we go, what we do, our stories and characters are always with us. Even on an indolent tropical vacation, those characters in our heads are always poking their noses in and suggesting ways the location might affect them and the way they behave on the pages of our books. If we’re away with another writer that’s even worse, as we talk incessantly about our stories and the way they’re shaping up!

Recently, I’ve been fortunate enough to take two mini-breaks in Australian locations utterly different from each other.One to a resort in tropical far north Queensland where it’s always summer, the other to the Southern Highlands south-west of Sydney where it’s autumn right now.

The bliss of a lagoon pool in a funky, tropical resort

The relaxing beauty of change of season

One resort was funky, upbeat, with a lagoon pool, palm trees and a party atmosphere.

The sign says it all!

The other was traditional, elegant, reminiscent of a Scottish manor house complete with baronial hall. I loved each of them for very different reasons. (Oh, and they both had amazing food!)

Even the adjoining golf club house was traditional

While I swam in Port Douglas, Queensland, walked country roads in Sutton Forrest, New South Wales, my mind was ticking over with ideas for various new stories and the characters who will drive them.

Could my character work in a place like this? Or own it?

Which romance hero or heroine could live behind these gates?

I came up with the perfect “back story” for one heroine, in this case where she met the man who done her wrong and affected her future relationships. And all sorts of scenarios are ticking over for other stories.

The traditional hotel was once a private home and comes complete with ghosts

 

Fun and funky in the tropics -- appealing in a different way

When I’m away from the everyday, relaxed and enjoying good company, the creative side of my brain kicks into overdrive. (It certainly helps not having to cook, clean, or do laundry, too!)

When people ask me did I have a nice, relaxing break, I of course say “yes”, but a writer never really takes a break and with my creative batteries recharged, I’m keen to get back to my stories.

I’ve used Port Douglas briefly in my latest release Reinventing Rose, not as an actual location but as somewhere the characters talk about visiting. (To say any more would become a spoiler!)

BTW, the hotels I visited were the QT at Port Douglas and Peppers Manor House.

What about you? Do you have a favorite vacation destination? What do you like most about taking that so-needed break from routine? Do you enjoy exotic destinations in the novels you read? I’d love to hear from you! Leave a comment for a chance to win a free download of Reinventing Rose.

Don’t forget to include your email address if you want to be in the draw.

Kandy Shepherd writes fun, feel-good fiction.

Her new contemporary womens fiction e-book, Reinventing Rose, is available now at  Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple, Kobo, Smashwords, and other e-book retailers.

Kandy’s romances include the Amazon bestseller The Castaway Bride, Something About Joe, and the award-winners Love is a Four-Legged Word and Home Is Where the Bark Is.

Visit Kandy at her website

www.kandyshepherd.com

Kandy Shepherd - Setting the Scene

How important is setting to you in a novel? As a reader, I’ve always enjoyed books set in different parts of the world. I’ve probably learned more from novels than I have from geography or history lessons!

I love to travel, and visiting places I’ve read about in books is one of my favorite things to do. Visiting new places also inspires my own writing—and helps me get the details of the setting right. How lucky we writers are to be able to travel and count it as research!

What kind of hero or heroine would live in a house in this amazing setting? Mendocino, California.

 I just returned from a trip to California, that turned into a fact-finding mission for my stories. We started off in Anaheim for the Romance Writers of America national convention, which was as fabulous as always.

An artistic water stop outside the Mountainsong Galleries in dog-friendly Carmel-By-The-Sea.  I like writing dogs in my stories--could this inspire a scene?

Then we set off on the road trip. We visited Santa Barbara (what a beautiful town!); the quaint Danish village of Solvang; charming Cambria; Carmel (my third visit); then drove north to visit friends in Shasta County via San Francisco.

The car he or she drives can help define a character. I love this one parked at Carmel-By-The-Sea. 

We drove on  the coast-hugging Highway 1 to make the most of the awe-inspiring scenery (when it wasn’t shrouded in fog, that is!) Point Reyes, Elk, and Mendocino were highlights.

This was the view from our room at the Greenwood Pier Inn at Elk, California.  I'm sure I'm not the first writer to be inspired by this delightful place with its magnificent views and beautiful gardens.

 It always amazes me the things can catch the writerly imagination—from the house a character might live in, to the work they do, to the pets they might have, or quirky details that can add life to a story.

This pony grazing in a field of daisies in the Fall River Valley, California, might be just the horsey character I need for one of my stories.

On this trip, I found just what I needed for the story I am currently writing—but I won’t jinx myself by telling you about it just yet. I also found a whole lot of inspiration for new characters and new stories.

This tells me the person who set this scene near their front door has a warm and welcoming heart - the kind of heroine I want to write.

We finished up in the beautiful Fall River Valley to stay with our friends who farm wild rice. They also produce a delicious chocolate bar made with puffed wild rice and Belgian chocolate. The crunch and flavor the wild rice adds to the chocolate truly is a taste sensation.

Wild rice growing in the Fall River Valley, CA. I love wild rice whichever way it's cooked but its particularly toothsome added to chocolate!

 Is there a setting you particularly like in a book, movie or TV show? Or one you don’t like? Have you visited a place you’ll never forget? I'd love to hear from you!

My friends produce this chocolate from the wild rice grown in their valley. I'm hoarding my bar, but I don't know how much long I can hold out until I eat it!

Please leave a comment to be in the draw to win one of three bars of Fall River Wild Rice Dark Belgian Chocolate that retail for $4.50 each. I'm sorry, but this prize can only be sent to addresses in the USA. Be sure to leave your email address with your comment.

Kandy Shepherd writes fun, feel-good fiction. She is the author of The Castaway Bride (set on a tropical island in the Pacific); Something About Joe, (set on the harbor in Sydney, Australia); Love is a Four-Legged Word and Home Is Where the Bark Is (both set in San Francisco.)

Visit Kandy at her website

www.kandyshepherd.com

You Can Go Home Again : : Anne McAllister

Hardly a writers' conference goes by -- or a library talk or an article in a newspaper or magazine -- that doesn't somewhere contain the sentence, "Where do you get your ideas?"

People who don't write -- and sometimes even people who do -- seem to want to know that more than they want to know anything else. Except for how much money we make!

I think it has to do with the 'mystery' of writing.

It seems like it should be easy because we've all done it, haven't we?

Everyone over the age of six has written a composition about what they did on their summer vacation or about their favorite pet or, if they are like my youngest son, they write fabulous adventures using every gun every known to man because he spent his youth devouring Gun Digest.

So it should be simple. Everyone should be able to do it.

But they don't. Because the ideas aren't the hang-up, when you get right down to it.

We all have them. Ideas for books have, to be honest, come from things I've done on my summer vacation. They've been inspired by places I've been, songs I've heard, fortune cookies I've opened. They've been infiltrated by my favorite pets -- and several other peoples' pets as well. (Hi, Sid!).

And if I haven't got all the guns known to man in my books yet, well, it may be just a matter of time -- or genre.

The ideas are the easy part. You just use what you know, what you remember, what you feel, what you're interested in. You find the story in it -- and you've got a book.

Well, sort of. But that's the basics. Even though, after 63 books, I find myself digger deeper and deeper into what I know so I don't use the same stuff over and over again.

Still, I do use it. When I wrote my newest book, One-Night Mistress ... Inconvenient Wife, I needed a place that was upscale and yet not really glitzy. I dug through my mind for what I knew -- and I ended up going clear back to the beginning and basically 'went home again.'

I grew up in Manhattan Beach, California. While I spent summers (those well-used vacations that got me through nearly 20 Desires and Special Editions and a single title!) in Montana and Colorado, I spent school years on the beach of So Cal.

And even though Manhattan Beach changes regularly and quickly, some things about it don't change -- The Strand, the pier, the broad walkup sidewalk streets, and most of all, the informal beach-oriented lifestyle.

It's an upscale community now compared to when I grew up there. You do pretty much need to be a millionaire to live on The Strand these day.

So it was a perfect place to put Christo, my hard-driving lawyer hero, because it gave him the beach on his doorstep so he could kick back and relax and go surfing when he wanted to (see how useful growing up on the beach was?). It was an equally good place to stick Natalie because it was his turf and she was out of her depth.

I went home again in my mind a lot while I was working on the book. I also called my friends who still live there and picked their brains about how things have changed. (Writing is good for maintaining friendships).

Of course, 'going home again' to a location wasn't enough to get the book from my brain to the page to the bookshop. Books are more than settings and ambiences. They require a lot of bits and pieces that make up the patchwork. Occupations, families, backstory, emotions.

Which are simply more types of going home. I needed to reconnect with other friends and relatives, too -- one in Brazil who helped me with Christo's Brazilian father and grandmother, and one in Pennsylvania, a lawyer cousin who on a daily basis kept Christo from getting disbarred.

I borrowed the name of one of Robyn Donald's granddaughters. I borrowed someone else's cat. (No, not you, Sid!) I moved a house from Hawthorne to Torrance. I played fast and loose with few things from my own emotional baggage. I threw in a sand castle and some body surfing, a rainstorm I remembered all too well, a wedding with fairy lights, and, especially, a beloved grandmother.

I went home again, physically and emotionally -- and I went to a few other peoples' houses, too. And I wrote a book.

It's the same process every time I write one. And I never quite know until I'm actually working which memories, which facts, which emotions, which bits and pieces are going to be the ones I'll need.

It's the joy of writing -- getting up every morning and discovering where I'll go and what I'll use today.

How about you? Do you go home again? Have you written about it? Where do you go in your head?

Artist's Dates

On Tuesday night I finished my read through and tweak of my seventh contracted manuscript, sent it off to my editor and completed my Art Fact Sheet details on Harlequin's Editorial Resourse System. I woke on Wednesday morning feeling absolutely exhausted. My mind was already buzzing with ideas for my next proposal to create and send to my editor but some wise advice I'd heard about Artist's Dates, combined with a wish to see the movie Atonement (which is so not my dh's kind of film), overtook my driving need to keep the momentum of my work up and saw me indulge in filling the well, finally fulfilling my promise to myself at the beginning of the year to do something nice, just for me, once a month. Okay, so I've kind of slipped on the once a month thing. Better late than not at all, right?

Now Barbara Samuel is one of the best speakers I've ever heard on this subject, especially on the importance of taking care of our writer's muse or, as she and several other awesome best-selling authors call it, "The Girls in the Basement".

I've never been big on spoiling myself, generally it makes me feel guilty or selfish (must be some past life guilt trip to investigate there, LOL!) but on Wednesday I did it--I went to see Atonement, and I'm so very glad I did. While the movie didn't have the happy ending my romantic heart loves most of all I never realised the freedom attending a movie on my own could give. Now, I'm not a frequent movie goer, although we do watch alot of DVDs at home, but there's something quite decadent about sitting in the Circle Lounge with the leather recliner seats and footstools and watching a film with the lush cinematography Atonement delivers. I only wish I'd thought to order a Latte before the movie started.

Note to self: Do that next time :-)

So what did I do after the movie? Well, I went to the beach and had a beach front lunch at a lovely restaurant and gallery and it was fantastic. So what if the weather wasn't great, there was a constant drizzle and the sea was a non-descript grey-green colour, but the bright warm atmosphere of the restaurant was the perfect antidote for any lingering sorrow left as a footprint from the movie, the service was friendly and welcoming and the food was divine.

And now I guess you're asking what I've always asked myself when I've heard of others doing this, "What's the point? Yes, it's lovely to go to a movie and to head out to lunch. So what?" For me I think the point is you're allowed to do it. You're allowed to indulge yourself, to take a day off and reward yourself for a job well done and love every second of it. To refill your well. To actually relax and give your mind a break from the next plot, the next characters, the next awful thing you're going to do to them, even the next meal you have to cook for your family.

Honestly, I felt warm and fuzzy all day. And the day got even better when Bronwyn Jameson drew my attention to the Barnes and Noble website where my February cover for TYCOON'S VALENTINE VENDETTA was up. Colour me totally in love!

So the upshot of this is if you've never indulged in an Artist's Date--DO IT! You owe it to yourself no matter what you do. It doesn't have to be a movie. It could just be a picnic in your favourite place, or a trip to the beauty therapist, or a massage. The thing is, don't put it off. Yes, there are always going to be important things that crop up in your life but if you don't look after yourSELF, and your creativity, there'll be a whole lot less of you to go around when the going gets tough.