Life's small excitements. Or not.

We don't have lions outside my local library.
Not like New York.

Every now and then I have a binge and reserve a slew of books from the local library. Then I have the fun of the phone call telling me a book is available. Sometimes they come quickly, sometimes it can be months and I've forgotten I ordered them and try to order them again. Sometimes, like this week, several come at once. But back to the phone call - or often, the answerphone message. Now sometimes the librarian tells me what the book is, but often they don't, just that there is one on the shelf with my name on. And then I know I have a little surprise waiting for me. Yes, I know, But I did say it was life's small excitements. You have to get your thrills where you can.

I did a batch last week - which is why I had three to collect this week - but while I was looking up new offerings from favourite authors and putting them on hold, It occurred to me how many writers used to be on my list who are not there any more. It wasn't because of poor writing or unconvincing dialogue, or anything like that. They had simply dropped off my auto list, because I had stopped enjoying their books. And that got me thinking 'Why?'

I'm a writer. Writers do 'thinking'. A lot.

In some cases the author had begun a new series that just didn't chime with me. Others had taken an existing series in a direction that I didn't go for - or maybe I got bored. Relationships, even the literary kind, sometimes end. One or two had begun to take a 'Ripped from the Headlines' approach to plotting - which is something that does not appeal to me, personally, although a lot of people like it. And as I have blogged before, a frequent reason for leaving a book on the shelf was simply that the books were depressing the heck out of me.

Sad, gloomy and often unremittingly violent. Not what I want to curl up with on the sofa.

My books are thrillers - violence and dead bodies, but I hope they have something positive too, which is why I write romantic suspense. Romantic suspense. The love story is, I hope, what lifts them away from the depressing. The thriller part makes them exciting. At least, that's the theory.

So, that's what I'm looking for too when I read. I don't mind dark, or tear jerking, in moderation, but I'm not into depressing.

I know that reading as escapism is often frowned on. But I can get real life in real life, thanks.

Really, it's just like knitting ...

Blue sky thinking?

If you want to wind a writer up, there's a good chance that you can do it by asking us where we get our inspiration. Not all of us, of course, but quite a few. It rattles our cages, because very often we don't know. It just happens. In my case odds and ends of ideas float around aimlessly, with no indication of where they might go, and then they combine with something else and I weave the threads together, and they start having a life. A bit like knitting - except that I can't knit.

I'm not doing a lot of writing at the moment, but I am thinking. I have a series sloshing about that keeps moving itself back. I had a three book sequence planned, then I had an idea that would come before them. Fine, no problem, start there. I have hero, heroine, plot, setting, villain - all the right ingredients for a book, but it also has a back story. So - is the back story a novella in it's own right? Possibly. So that should be written first? But does the whole thing really start there?

I've been jumping back and back with it, and sideways, as something else started to stir, with the result that I had two stories that came off the same back story - and I didn't really have the back story- only the plot, which is not quite the same thing. Have I confused you yet? No? Good.

I was peering into the mist, looking for this first story that would start the whole thing, feeling that I couldn't progress with either of the other two until I had sorted it out. Not really a problem, as I have a stand alone that I have partly written that I will go back to once I start writing again, but it is nice to know what might be in the pipeline. And thinking is like research, a feeling of doing something without the hard work of putting the words on the paper.

The blank when I tried to identify what might be the start point was very dispiriting though - it was just a blank. And then, suddenly there it was. The two stories did not have to be side by side. One of them could be the that elusive back story. I haven't figured out the nitty gritty yet, but I think it is going to work.

Where did that come from? No idea. Why didn't I see it before? No idea about that, either. It's all a mystery.

Thinking time is actually very important to me. I work out a lot of stuff in my head before I get round to actually writing. I realised only recently that in another book, also swimming in the mental soup, the villain has been showing me a dislike of animals which bordered on fear, that I hadn't picked up. A lot of pieces of the story fell into place at that point. I already knew that various animals would be instrumental in the story and that one in particular would help to bring the villain down, but I hadn't realised how significant that could be. That is is going to be really useful and already has my mind churning. A triumph of thinking time. Now it has to be written.

One day ...

Scent of a heroine

The stuff I'm sampling comes in a bottle

At this time of the year the shops are full of enthusiastic sales persons eager to spritz you (or a small strip

of card/ribbon) with their brand's latest fragrance, in the hope that you will like it enough to buy it, as an Xmas gift for someone else - or that you will persuade someone else  to buy it for you. I frequently succumb to these offers of a whiff of a nice new scent. The pockets of my coats often smell very exotic if I've stashed one of the card strips and forgotten about it. I'm not doing this on my own behalf though - I have two fragrances that I am faithful to - Origins' Ginger and Channel's Chance.  (The original, not the later versions, if you're buying.) No - I'm doing it on behalf of my heroine. It is a new idea for me, something to help build a character. I gather the actress Penelope Cruz uses the same technique, choosing and wearing a different fragrance for every part she plays. I got that information from the Boots' magazine, along with the discovery that, when surveyed, men considered women wearing spicy floral perfumes to be up to 12 lbs lighter than they really were and those wearing grapefruit scents were thought to be up to 5 years younger. Just on the power of a smell! Strong stuff, this perfume lark.

Scent is very evocative for fixing memories, which is why writers like to use it. And it's not just heroines, of course. Describing how the hero smells is practically obligatory. (We won't mention that this also provides an opportunity to study the publicity for fragrances promoted by the likes of Jonny Depp, Simon Baker, Gerard Butler ... Just for research purposes, of course.)

The heroine I have been working with most recently (although not lately) started me on the idea. While the book is rooted in the tragic events of one night, the main action takes place 15 years later. I was thinking how much the heroine would have changed in that time and the idea of what perfume she might now wear was something that occurred to me.

And, of course, the effect this might have on the hero, and the implications of change and the passage of time. It's helping with plotting the layers of the story and the emotions that the hero in particular is feeling.

All from a small, if expensive, bottle ...

Where are we now?

Landmark London by night

I recently treated myself to a trip to the cinema to see the film 'Burnt'. A top chef (Bradley Cooper) self destructs, then climbs back to win 3 Michelin stars and probably Sienna Miller. Not a rom/com - maybe more a 'with romantic elements'. Lots of F words and plate throwing and a few of my favourite character actors in 'blink and you miss them' bit parts. The critics were a little lukewarm, but I enjoyed it. I'd have liked a bit more information about the food we were seeing on the plate though. And I seriously want Sienna Miller's hair.

But one of the chief reasons I decided to see it was the London locations that I glimpsed in the trailer. It was set in the Langham - which I visited when it still housed the BBC staff bar.(I was with the engineers - the nerds equivalent of 'I'm with the band.') And I've stayed there since it was reinvented as a posh hotel. On a cheap weekend offer, I hasten to add.

There were lots of shots of the river Thames and the bridges - I'm a sucker for bridges. And the back streets and alleys around Leicester Square. I have my doubts though about the scene that seemed to imply that the Langham had a

And by day

river frontage.

It made me think again about that perennial question of location. If you know a place, does it add to the attraction of the book or film? In this case it certainly influenced my decision to go. And what about locations that are made up?  In that case, the author really has to do their work to make it real.

Places I know, or which are vividly portrayed certainly add to the atmosphere for me.

That wish fulfillment setting

Dreaming of living  close to the sea?
There's bound to be a book for that.

Following on from last week's post, I was thinking about the ingredients for the setting of one of those re-write the lifestyle books. Yes folks, it's another list! Again, in no particular order :-

• Beautiful countryside - suitable for long healthy walks. Or horse rides. Or maybe a bike ride?

• Quiet - where the noisiest sound is the birds. But - take it from me, if these are seagulls, that's pretty noisy.

• Local food/produce - buying vegetables from the market, local sausages, wine, beer...

• Clear skies - for romantic star gazing.

• A local community - friendly neighbours, book groups, allotment societies.

• An artistic community - studios, talks, classes

• Impressive weather - i.e. wonderful sunshine, spectacular storms, cloud formations to make Turner weep. Not too much rain, unless it's the warm summer kind - cue one of those romantic scenes where hero and heroine have to dry off together - well, you can imagine the rest. Or a sudden torrent at the black point of the book, so the hero/heroine is physically devastated as well as emotionally. 

• Attractive buildings - to included stately homes, fisherman's cottages and the derelict with potential.

• Historical atmosphere - historic sites, traditions, folklore. Particularly if these have some sort of public celebration attached, like a parade or a fair.

You probably wouldn't have all these in one book and I'm sure there are more, but that's all that strike me at the moment. They are fairly transferable too, whether it's Cornwall, Tuscany or Indiana. Whether they actually exist in real life, and how attractive they would be on a permanent basis - that's another question, but I take the view that one of the purposes of genre novels is to help readers to dream, and if necessary, to escape for a while. If writers can create a bit of wish fulfilment as part of a story - for me, that's all good. Others like their fiction gritty, mine are also scary - at least I hope they are - but always with a positive ending.

As they cliche says, it takes all sorts, which is what makes life, and reading,  interesting.

Living the Dream

Running away to the sea?

We all have our little fantasies. No - not that kind of fantasy. I'm talking about the ones where we run away to the seaside, the countryside, rural Italy, an island somewhere ... and start on a whole new way of making a living. This usually involves something creative, self employment and spectacular scenery. Writers, being good with fantasies - we make stuff up all the time - are always ready to oblige, either with books with protagonists who have done just that, or books set in the dream situation/location.  Just for fun I've assembled a few suggestions. Yes - it's a list, folks. My baker's dozen of new life dream escapes.

In no particular order :-

Cafe/deli

Bookshop

Other 'creative' retail - bakery, patisserie, sweet-shop, florist.

Plant nursery/smallholding/vinyard.

Art Gallery

Pottery/artist studio

Photographer

Restoring and opening an historic house/garden to the public.

Running a museum/staging a festival

Interior/garden design

House sitting/dog walking

Running a B&B/boutique hotel/holiday let.

And, of course, writing that best selling novel.

It's interesting to speculate how far these are dreams, fun to read about but not for real life, or secret hopes and plans. Are writers feeding fantasies, or ambitions?  

Maybe a bit of both?

Standing at the crossroads?

When something that has been a fixture in your life for a long time suddenly changes - as has recently happened to me - it can be a catalyst for a re-examination of goals, lifestyle, etc. And, of course, it is exactly the sort of situation that writers love most. The kicking off point for the story. Catching your character at a point of change. Which got me thinking, as you do, about some of those classic change points. And I made a list:-

Loss - a loved one, a job, a home.

Gain - a dream job, a new relationship, the birth of a baby, a legacy. Silver linings that might just have a cloud attached.

Rites of passage - leaving home, a significant birthday, marriage, divorce.

Threat - now, in the kind of books I like to write, that's likely to be the ominous phone call, a visit from a stranger, a violent incident, but it can also be something like illness or accident.

A mystery - a letter from the past, a tin box in the attic full of family papers, a discovery about the family tree ...

An acquisition - I'm thinking of the kind of thing that might kick start a time slip novel - a painting, a house, a piece of jewelry.

Travel - a holiday, a business trip, a journey for family or personal reasons.

Discontent - the hero or heroine is unhappy with their life and decides to change it.

Those are the ones I could think of, but there are bound to be a whole lot more.

Crime writing, if it is a police procedural or features a professional/amateur sleuth, might be a bit different as it is often linked with an event - like the discovery of that unexpected body in the library ... But then there can be consequences for a whole circle of people, all with their own journeys to follow.


Whatever your genre, if you have your character standing at a cross roads then there is bound to be a story. The points where two road meet have traditionally been thought of as dangerous places ...

In some cases the journey from the change point can lead to one of the others - loss of a job to landing that dream job for instance. And we writers do like to tie things up neatly. I've often thought, when reading, that in real life you don't get a sudden windfall, or meet that fabulous new love, or inherit a house, just at the moment you most need it. But if you write fiction with a positive outlook, especially if it is romance, with an expectation of a happy ever after, that's the way it has to be. I believe readers do know this, but the whole point is optimism and possibility. An affirmation that things can be worked out.

I've got a lot of support from those affirmative books while standing at my crossroads. I'm grateful to the authors who have written the stories that are keeping me going.