An Idea Or Two

I love hearing from readers and really enjoy talking about writing and about the story they’ve just read. It’s a wonderful feeling when a reader becomes so involved they ask about the characters and where the idea for the book came from.

And my answer is always the same ….. Where do ideas come from? Well, everywhere.

As an example, in my latest Harlequin Special Edition release His-And-Hers Family, I got the idea from a family friend whose cousin gave her baby up for adoption when she was just fifteen. From this one conversation I started thinking about what might happen if she had a chance to reconnect with that child many years later. So, the story was born by asking a whole series of ‘what if’s’.

In another book I wrote recently, watching a television special on the ABC late one night about twin sisters who were separated as toddlers and then found one another again when they were thirty, got me asking myself the same ‘what if’ question. As I watched the show I discovered that these sisters had experienced many similar things in their life – like they married a man with the same first name and both had a operation on the same day . It wasn't long after watching this show that the idea for the book developed and was then written.

But it’s not only in writing where ideas abound. I have a friend who is an interior designer. She can look at and old piece of furniture, imagine it restored and immediately see that piece fitting into the home of a client. Me, well I just see an old piece of furnitureJ. She can merge colours together and knows exactly what lighting, what art and what floor coverings will work. And guess where she gets her ideas from . . .  everywhere. From books, from television, from other people. 

The best part is, ideas are free. They can come when we least expect them, or when we’ve been studying something long and hard. And they make us unique, because we all have different ideas that come from our different experiences and our different lives.

What about you – have you ever seen a gardening show and thought you might like to plant a veggie patch in your own yard? Have you ever witnessed a picture perfect sunset and thought you might like to paint it. Or grabbed your camera to snap a photo that begged to be taken? Do you have an new idea just begging to take hold? I'd love to hear if you're about to embark on a new adventure or embrace a new idea.

Wedding Excitment with Sue MacKay

Summer brings the sun and blue skies, warmth and calm seas. (Not mentioning the unseasonal snow we had earlier this week.) And it also brings weddings. The beautiful brides in ther gorgeous gowns and their stunning looking grooms scrubbed up for their best clobber.

This week is a busy one for us as we're going to a wedding on Saturday. We've got friends staying for most of the week who're also attending this wedding and all the functions associated with it. Seems weddings are more than the main ceremony and celebration nowadays. We've got a dinner on Friday as a warm up, and on Sunday a wind down brunch which the men are cooking.

This wedding is being held at a local resort and the bride is arriving by boat while the groom and his sidekicks are coming on jetskiies. James Bond? I might get to shake hands with Daniel Craig yet. Forget shaking hands. I'd be throwing myself at him.

Last week I went fishing with my man to get Blue Cod for the Sunday brunch and then yesterday he took the groom and two guests out to get scallops to go with the cod. They had a fabulous day out on the briny, more about telling tales on each other than hauling the shellfish from what I heard as I opened a couple of hundred of the delicious delicacies when they got back.

I've been shopping for a dress and the matching nail polish and lippie, not to mention the shoes. Had to wear the shoes around the house a few times to take that edge off them, if you know what I mean. All this adds to the building excitment. And while the men were out on the boat my girlfriend and I have been mulling over what to make for the wrap up dinner we're having here for the bride's family on Sunday night. In the midst of this the bride to be spent an hour here yesterday letting steam over all the things that weren't going exactly to a very rigid plan. Mounting tensions that will dissipate on the day. Fingers crossed.

For the last four months my office has been the storage space for all the wine and beer for the function. Very tempting on days when my writing was not going well, but I managed to resist. And now I have my office back to normal. Rather boring really. But I will get to sample the bubbles tomorrow.

I love weddings, big and small. All that romance and glam. The anticipation and excitment. Bring it on.

 I love imagining how the couple met and wondering if they knew instantly that this person was The One or whether that came later.

Are you going to a wedding this summer? Or already been to one?

Tell me what you enjoyed the most. I will send a copy of You Me and a Family to someone next month.

Colloquialisms -- Yes or No?

by Michelle Douglas

Earlier in the month I received one of the best reviews I’ve ever had (if you want, you can read the entire review here). It’s not reviews I want to talk about today, though, but an author’s voice, which this particular review has started me pondering. In her second last paragraph the reviewer says:

Michelle Douglas has a wonderful earthy style, writing in Australian English and drawing from her homeland the rhythms, the warmth and the space between what is realistic and what is possible. (If you're not used to the differences between American and Australian English, it may be a bit of a curve.)

Obviously I write in Australian English, because I’m Australian. :-) And when I first started writing I clung tightly to my Australian colloquialisms and speech patterns.

Why?

I like the way Australians speak. I like the unique and, often, colourful expressions my fellow countrymen utter. Very often this is the way I hear my characters (particularly my heroes) speaking inside my head.

And in homage to Aussie slang, here is a fine sampling:
* Her words hit him for a six.
* She’d grabbed the rough end of the stick there.
* She’s such a sticky beak.
* She didn’t give a flying fig.
* He’s a sandwich short of a picnic.
* Those are as scarce as hens teeth.
* She was as happy as Larry.
* She stared at him like a stunned mullet.
* He couldn’t take a trick.
* He was determined to be first cab off the rank.

I worry that language is becoming intolerably generic. Personally I like stumbling across a phrase I’ve never heard before and trying to work out what it means from the context it’s been used in, and I know I’m not alone in that.

BUT…

I’m starting to soften my stance.

Why?

I hate the idea of excluding anyone from my stories, of not including them in any in-jokes or making it difficult for them to understand the dynamics between my characters. When I wrote my Masters thesis—yes, I used formal language—but I deliberately shunned language that would make it difficult for a layperson to understand. By holding so tightly to my Australian colloquialisms, am I not doing precisely this—making it difficult for a person unfamiliar with the Australian vernacular to take part in my stories?

It’s occurred to me, however, that this isn’t an either-or situation. I can choose to tone down the Australian vernacular in my stories, but it doesn’t mean I can’t use lively and energetic expressions that will just as easily get my point across without baffling anyone (I hope).

Thoughts, anyone? Or perhaps you have a favourite colloquial expression of your own you’d like to share—beware, though, I may use it in my very next story. ;-)

Love Is All Around .......

By Helen Lacey

I know, that’s a pretty corny blog title and I think I stole it from a song. But I’ve been having a to-and-fro email conversation with a reader over the past few days and some of the things she’s said has stuck with me. It started out as a lovely fan email and now I feel as though I have connected with a kindred spirit. Because she just loves ‘love’ …. In books, in movies, in songs. When she opens a book it’s what she looks for, even in books that aren’t traditionally romances. And I realized that I’m like that too.

For instance, one of my favourite movies is the classic Terminator. Not because I care for the sci-fi elements, or the gun-toting, muscle bulging Arnie – but because when Kyle Reece says, “I came back through time for you, Sarah,” it just melts my bones. It’s the love story that resonates and I find I look for that in pretty much every movie I watch. Do I care if the Hobbits get to Mount Doom? Not particularly ….. But I do watch the twelve hours of extended version Lord Of The Rings Trilogy to see Aragorn and Arwen locks lips near the very end. Even when I sat through the Bourne Identity for the first time I was cheering for Matt Damon to hurry up and slay the bad guys so he could get the girl.

 

As I’m chatting to this reader back and forth on email and she’s telling me which movies she loves and which books are her favourites, I started thinking about my own favourite books and how I started reading Mills & Boon when I was eleven. It turns out this reader has read and loved many of the same classic M&B romances that I did. Here’s a few of my classic keepers.

 

What amazed me is how suddenly, this person, this stranger who lives on the other side of the world and only happened to connect with me because she liked my latest release, has been reading and loving romances all her life for the same reasons I have. Like the thrill of sharing the journey as two people fall in love - which is often fraught with will-they or won’t-they as they overcome the many hurdles in front of them. Or waiting for the first kiss, and of course, hoping for that magical happily ever after. So, we’re two people with no connection, and are suddenly connected by our mutual love of Harlequin novels and romantic movies.

 

So, corny or not, it seems love certainly is all around.

 

Do you also look for the love-story in the books and movies you read and watch? Even if it's not a traditional romance?