On our sister blog, INSIDE BOOKS WE LOVE, Kathy shared a wonderful look at the beginning of her voyage to writing her novel for the Canadian Historical Brides series.
"As a writer, I’m used to having ideas for my books come to me in a variety of ways. Sometimes a dream will set the trigger that sends my mind racing to sort out characters, plot, subplot(s), the whats, wheres, whys, and whens. Sometimes I’ll read something that sparks the imagination. Most of the time, I take months—even years—to let the idea germinate before I begin the preliminary work, the research, exploring appropriate character and place names and settings. Usually I don’t start the actual writing until my mind begins to bubble over, no longer able to contain the story. By this time, I can’t stop myself from hitting the keyboard, often writing away for countless hours at a clip, unaware of the passage of time.
But never in all my years have I been presented with a concept and been forced to come up with a story based on a theme.
All that changed when Jude Pittman, the publisher of Books We Love, asked me to participate in an exciting new project now known as “The Canadian Historical Brides” series.
For my story, I chose Quebec Province, a place I’d visited a few times in my youth on family vacations, and twice since while an undergraduate in college…well over 45 years ago. I had no idea what I’d gotten myself into. From that moment, I found myself scrambling. What did I know about Canadian history? (My answer, in retrospect, was “close to zilch.”)
My writing partner for the project, BWL Canadian author Ron Ady Crouch, and I tossed some ideas back and forth. We did some reading and preliminary research, settling on an idea only to toss it aside for any number of reasons before agreeing on another period in history. Neither of us had ever worked before with another writer, and Ron, who specializes in contemporary mystery and suspense, had never written a historical.
We soon found ourselves steeped in information-gathering. An overwhelming prospect for one who’d never taken on anything like this before. For me, it was eye-opening."
You can find the rest of the post HERE
I know exactly how you feel. I've been scrambling around and even travelling halfway across the country to do mine. The nice thing is, a lot of my relatives have joined in the hunt.
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