How to write: be inspired by nature

Mother Nature can weave magic into your story if you let her.

In my role in media liaison at The University of Western Australia I have the wonderful task of writing about some of the fabulous research that goes on there.

I was lucky enough to meet some amazing scientists who are working hard to save the honeybee, which accounts of one-third of what we humans eat. And some of their passion for bees rubbed off on me.

I also met other scientists who are researching the love-potion created by a Western Australian endangered orchid, the zaspilothynnus, to attract its pollinator, a tiny wasp. The orchid has evolved to look and smell exactly like a female wasp!



The pretty orchid that is a love-cheat

Bees and orchids wove their way into my latest novel, Stella's Sea. The main character, Stella, was a beekeeper until her daughter's tragic death caused her to leave the Western Australian country town where she was living. Her love of nature is the only thing that keeps her alive in the awful months that follow the death of her only child. I began writing Stella before meeting the bee and wasp scientists and was pretty bored with her. I even thought of ditching her altogether. But a wise and dear friend suggested I make Stella a beekeeper and suddenly the magic started.

How to write: conflict

Conflict is what drives a great story, makes the reader keep turning the pages. It may even make the reader go straight to the last page of the story to find out what happens.

But how do you write a story that has lots of conflict?

In romance novels, the reader knows that the hero and heroine are going to end up in each other's arms. But the reader doesn't want it to be all plain sailing.

So if you're a writer, dream up lots of obstacles and put them in your lovers' way. Obstacles could be:

* an ex, or even a current partner who doesn't want to give up the relationship
* a child belonging to one of the lovers who doesn't like the object of their parent's affections and has to be won over
* a cranky friend or family member who is jealous or sceptical about the new lover
major financial worries for one of the lovers
* the lovers' strong conflicting desires (one could be a passionate conservationist and the other a property developer who wants to clear a forest to build a housing estate).

In my novel A Hard Man to Love, the conflict arises out of  the governess, Pansy Summers', love for Anna, the child she has come to Australia to tutor, and Anna's father's determination to be over-strict with her. There's also Prudence de Brett, who's in love with Anna's dad, Rex Falkland and isn't going to let Pansy win him. And there's the awkward fact that Pansy looks uncannily like Rex's dead wife, who made him utterly miserable with her wild ways.


My garden, a tranquil place where I write stories full of conflict!

 

  

Romance rocks!

Hi romance readers. I'm excited about my blog, Scribblygum, being on my Amazon author page soon and I hope some of you will add comments to the blog.

A scribblygum is a magnificent Australian eucalypt. It's remarkable because its bark looks as if someone has come along and scribbled on it! So you can see why it's a good name for a blog about writing, but also about loving Mother Earth and the amazing things she provides for us -- such as family, friends, animals, gardens, food, and of course, love in all its guises.

I live in Western Australia, where a lot of my stories are set. But having a Welsh father, and being lucky enough to have enjoyed a few holidays in Wales, I also adore writing about Celtic Wales -- the Wales of warriors, magicians, druids and Roman and Viking invaders.



Here are our ex-battery hens, Barbara and Bernice, on the day we brought them home from the egg farm. We have three other hens: Olive, Dusty and Egglantine. They give us lots of joy -- and eggs, which I turn into cakes, quiches, you name it!

This is me with our puppy, Max. He's a Pomeranian. This photo was taken at Christmas and he's grown quite a lot since then.

 

I've been a writer since I was a kid. We didn't have TV in the small country town I grew up in, in the Western Australian wheatbelt, so I used to write stories to keep myself amused. Half a century later, I still enjoy writing.

Romance: what's all the fuss about?

Why is romance such a big deal?

Because it makes the world go round, that's why!

It's part of the fun of meeting someone hot and maybe having a baby or two or three with them.

Reading, and writing, romance, is a joy.

To write a good romance you need a few magic ingredients. The most important is characters. You need a woman who knows what she wants more than anything else in the world and a man who knows what he wants more than anything else in the world. These wants should conflict because the resulting fireworks will give you the peaks and troughs in the story; will keep your readers turning the pages.

I love writing romance novels and have a few to my name. They're available on Kindle through Amazon. Why not check them out?

I also have a novel for a more general readership, but it's still a love-story of sorts. It's called Stella's Sea.

This is the novel I'm working on right now. The cover's already done. It's by fabulous graphic artist Erin Steenson.

Valentine's Day: get yourself in the mood!

Get yourself in the mood for love and romance this Valentine's Day.

Check out this great deal on Amazon: my novel Loving Venus is available NOW via Kindle or through a Kindle app.

This is the story in a nutshell, and you'll soon see if you read this synopsis that this steamy romance is sure to get you in the spirit for some loving of your own this Valentine's Day: 

What happens when a curvaceous redhead from Australia – descended on her father’s side from convicts – inherits a rundown Italian vineyard and villa that everyone expected would go to her relative, who is aristocratic, spoilt and devastatingly handsome? Alessandro and flame-haired Annabella are second cousins and haven’t seen each other since a happy holiday when he was 17 and she was 12. But 13 years later their great-grandfather makes a crazy death-bed decision and leaves his estate in fabulous Tuscany to Annabella. The old man’s final testament drives a wedge between the cousins. Alessandro has lived at Casa dei Fiori all his life while Annabella – fresh from a struggling wheat and sheep farm in Western Australia – has only spent a few weeks in Italy. When Annabella arrives at the Casa in her denim shorts and Doc Martens to take her rightful place as heiress, she has every man in the village eating out of her hand. Every man except Allesandro, that is.        

Selfie Valentine's Day pressie

Why not give yourself a great Valentine's Day present. And it's free!

My novel A Hard Man to Love is free via Amazon from 14 February 2014 to 18 February. You can read it on Kindle or through a free downloadable app.

It's a sexy read that's had some lovely reviews. Here's the synopsis:

When Pansy Summers arrives in outback Western Australia in 1910 after answering an advertisement for an English governess, she finds a barren landscape, harsh and unforgiving. She is angered by her employer’s cold and distant attitude towards his daughter, yet wonders what terrible secret lies behind the enigmatic Rex Falkland’s tormented stare. Gradually, Pansy delights in the beauty of the bush, seen through the eyes of her young charge, while Beacon Hills – and Falkland himself – irrevocably capture her heart. As fire and famine threated their existence, will Pansy be able to save the Falkland ancestral home or will its master pursue his own course as its only hope?

 

In my previous post I talked about characters who love animals and the special cachet they have. In this story, a stray dog plays an important role near the end!

 

I hope you enjoy it.

 

Some of the dogs in our family. The bigger one is a former stray.

 

Battery hen rescue

We have a dog called Harley who my son found online at SAFE (Saving Animals from Euthanasia). Harley (at age six months) was on 'death row' in a pound in Western Australia's Pilbara and I guess that a ranger, admiring his friendly nature (despite his ill-treatment at the hands of a previous owner) thought, 'this guy's too cool to be put down' and contacted SAFE. We've had Harley for more than three years and we've loved almost every minute of having him living with us, except when he escapes through the open front door every so often and we're terrified he's going to get run over. We always manage to get him home unscathed and he always runs to the beach where he tries to round up the waves. He thinks they're sheep!



Harley helping me in the garden. What would I do without him!




So having had such a great experience adopting Harley, we decided to adopt some battery hens! First we got rid of the backyard swimming pool (see a previous post on Scribblygum) and then we got a great carpenter to build the chook yard, once the garden was in.

Our new chook yard, ready for our 'girls'

Once the chook yard was ready we drove out to an egg farm, thanks to info from Adopt a Battery Hen who gave us the addresses of egg farmers in the Perth area who sell hens past their laying prime. Ours are ISA Browns and were $5 each. I got five, trying to choose from the ones on sale those who seemed the most desperate to get out of their small cages, and also the ones that were baldest. I drove them home in boxes on the back seat of my car. The woman at the farm cut a viewing strip in each of the two big boxes, and the hens all stuck their heads out as we drove along, but they didn't like it when I had to turn a corner as the boxes slid around. Next time (when these girls die of old age) I'll take cushions to make the boxes more secure.

Our 'girls' on their way to their new home

When I got them home, my other son helped me carry them into the chook yard and shut the gate behind me while I opened the boxes and let them out. Harley, our puppy Max and one of my daughter's two dogs were all watching with great interest on the other side of the chook yard gate! The hens were SO pleased to be in a nice shady yard with fresh straw and good things to eat including lettuce and watermelon and corn etc. One, the baldest, whose name is Dusty, dug a big hole in the sand and stretched out luxuriously. The others walked up and down, stretching their necks, lifting their legs, feeling the sun on their skin. An aeroplane flying low overhead scared them, but now they're used to planes and helicopters that are always scouring the coast for sharks.

Puppy Max takes a keen interest in our chooks, but they're not scared of him although he looks like a fox!




 

 We didn't get the chooks because we wanted eggs (though having eggs is a lovely bonus) -- but they do give us up to five eggs a day, mostly three. I'd advise anyone who loves animals to give stray and unwanted ones a good home. It's so rewarding and it's amazing to see the hens growing their feathers back and enjoying every minute of their new life at our place.

As a writer, I love creating characters who are animal lovers. My most recent novel, Stella's Sea, features a former bee keeper whose daughter's little dog, Pom, is the only reason she has for staying alive. The novel's getting some lovely reviews, which I was surprised about. But perhaps people are liking it BECAUSE of the animal-loving nature of its main character, Stella.

I'e written lots of romance novels too -- and all the main characters have animals! Right now, you can download Beyond the Border 1 free from Amazon. You can read it on Kindle or on an app. It's had one review, which wasn't complimentary. The reviewer said there were too many characters, but stay with it if you like stories about Welsh princesses, Celtic magicians and Viking warriors. Beyond the Border 2 will be free in a few days.