This month - the last of 2021 and let's hope they all improve by leaps and bounds in 2022 - Rhobin asked: How do your family experiences translate into writing scenes?
I had to think about
this topic as nothing immediately sprang to mind. What were my family
experiences? After thinking long and hard, one word came to mind –
movement. Nothing is static, but my family always seemed to be on the move in
one way or another. Post-WWII uncles and aunts in the forces were still coming
and going. Some were gone altogether, having lost their lives in that conflict.
My father, a career
soldier, was demobbed but couldn’t settle in civvy street and joined the army
again. Dad was posted from one Territorial Army unit to the next, and we moved
every year from one married quarters address to the next. Ironically his title
was Permanent Gunnery Staff Sarjeant Major to Territorial Units. Although the
title was permanent, there was nothing permanent about our family life.
When Dad finally left
the Armed Forces, we moved again to the job he took post-army. I moved on as
soon as I could to work with horses. The next move was to my parents-in-law’s
home, then into our first apartment, followed by another apartment when my then-husband
took a new job. Our next move was into a new house where we stayed put for a
few years. Unfortunately, that situation changed after separation and divorce.
New home, here we come. We landed up in a charming but chilly 300-year old
country house which was my favourite house of anywhere I have ever lived. After
that came another not as old house, but a mere stripling at 100-years old.
The next move was a big
one. I left England and arrived in Canada in 1990 but homes were never
permanent even here. What started as a reasonably comfortable apartment in one
building became inconvenient with job changes, making a move across town the
sensible thing to do. Since I’ve lived in Canada, I’ve had eight moves. I
never, ever imagined I’d become something of an expert in packing and moving.
This movement appears in all the books I’ve written.
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In Book 1 of the
Berkeley Square books, my first Regency series, Emmaline Devereaux has been in
Spain during the Peninsular Wars, and after returning home and marrying Lord
Lucius Clifton, is kidnapped and taken to France. In Book 2, Lady Juliana
Beamish is on her way to India when her ship is attacked by pirates.
She finds herself alone on the ocean and rescued by a captain who is on course
for Jamaica. Book 3 in the series finds Lady Olivia Darnley abandoned by her
mother, ultimately leaving London for the refuge of her family estate in
Lincolnshire.
My contemporary Western
romances have leading characters who move from one place to another. In Loving
That Cowboy, Trisha Watts leaves her home in England for a vacation in Calgary
during Stampede. Then, in Legacy of Love, Callie Wade moves from Vancouver to
Southern Alberta. In my Canadian Historical Brides book, Brides of Banff
Springs set in 1935, young Tilly McCormack makes her way from her home near
Medicine Hat to Banff to work at the famous Banff Springs Hotel. In Envy the Wind,
another title in the Canadian Historical Brides series and on which I collaborated
with author Anita Davison, Grace MacKinnon escapes from a life of drudgery in Edwardian
England and makes a life for herself in Prince Edward Island.
For my second Regency
series, Those Regency Belles, Hester Dymock in Book 1 moves only a few miles
from her small but comfortable home and faces much more of a journey than that.
Book 2 sees Charlotte Gray having to move for her safety, and in Book 3,
currently in progress, my heroine moves from her family home to that of the man
she marries. That her husband has served in King George III’s Royal Navy and
tells her tales of his travels makes this something of An Arabian Nights tale.
Other family experiences, which may be more family traits, are that my characters are for the most part kind, honest people. I hope those factors make them stand out a little more.
I wish you everything you wish for yourselves for this holiday season but before you go, please check out my fellow bloggers here for what family experiences they use for inspiration:
Anne
Stenhouse http://annestenhousenovelist.wordpress.com
Dr.
Bob Rich https://wp.me/p3Xihq-2ue
Connie
Vines http://mizging.blogspot.com/
Skye
Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/blogging_by_the_sea
Marci
Baun http://www.marcibaun.com/blog/
Judith
Copek http://lynx-sis.blogspot.com/
Diane
Bator http://dbator.blogspot.ca/
Victoria
Chatham http://www.victoriachatham.com
Rhobin
L Courtright http://www.rhobincourtright.com
