RTW: The Alpine Path

Road Trip Wednesday is a 'Blog Carnival' where YA Highway's contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question that begs to be answered. In the comments, you can hop from destination to destination and get everybody's unique take on the topic.
This week's topic:
Share your most inspiring and/or motivational video, book, or quote on writing!

Since I'm not NaNoWriMoing because I'm mid-WIP, this inspiration is just to keep pushing through my You and I contemporary WIP, now at 50K. This post is also serving double duty as a Thanksgiving Blog hop post. Wheeeeee!

I picked up the top left "Emily of New Moon" on PEI because my original book is falling apart, but the 1980's covers will always be my favorites

I'm so thankful that the Emily series were the books that introduced me to LM Montgomery's writing. While a lot of people say Anne is their favorite, from the moment 10 year old me picked up these books, Emily captured my heart. We're so much alike, and her passion for writing spoke to the writer in me.

Everything about these books inspire me as a writer, but especially the passages where LMM captures the magic (and challenges) of being a writer. Passages like these, which sooooo perfectly echoed how I felt when I finished the first draft of my first manuscript:

"Again, it seized hold of her imagination and called forth all her creative impulse. She would write it out-- she would begin this very moment. Flinging on a dressing-gown over her white shoulders to protect them from the keen gulf air she sat down before her open window and began to write. Everything else was forgotten-- for a time at least-- in the subtle, all-embracinbg joy of creation. Teddy was nothing but a dim memory-- love was a blown-out candle. Nothing mattered but her story. The characters came to life under her hand and swarmed through her consciousness, vivid, alluring, compelling. Wit, tears, and laughter trickled from her pen. She lived and breathed in another world and came back to New Moon only at dawn to find her lamp burned out, and her table littered with manuscript-- the first four chapters of her book. Her book! What magic and delight and awe and incredulity in the thought."
...
"Emily finished her book in six weeks-- finished it at dawn one morning. She flung down her pen and went to her window, lifting her pale, weary, triumphant little face to the skies of morning...

"Finished-- complete! There it lay-- A Seller of Dreams-- her first book. Not a great book-- oh, no, but hers-- her very own. Something to which she had given birth, which would never have existed had she not brought it into being."
-Emily's Quest, LM Montgomery

Since these books are semi-autobiographical, there's magic in knowing that over 100 years ago my favorite author felt the same way that I feel today. She covered the joy and self-doubt of being a writer. She wrote about rejection and heartbreak and starting again. For a little while, (SPOILER) Emily just gives up. And she gave me a chance to be Emily holding the acceptance letter for her first book.

What greater inspiration could I possibly have?

How about you? What inspires you to write?

"Most Likely"

Road Trip Wednesday is a ‘Blog Carnival,’ where YA Highway's contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question that begs to be answered. In the comments, you can hop from destination to destination and get everybody's unique take on the topic.

 

I don't always road trip (heck, y'all have seen my regular blogging record,) but this week's topic sounded like fun:  

 

What yearbook "most" category would your character win?

Full disclosure: I was never voted "Most Likely" anything at my high school. With a 300 student graduating class (with 7! valedictorians) and the fact that I basically managed to fly my geeky self mostly under the radar, I was not surprised, either. If "Most likely to attend a Star Trek convention" or "Most likely to move into the library" were on the list, I'd probably have gotten those. As it is, it's fun to see where this applies to my MCs, in both current and past WIPs.

Sooooo... being "most" deprived and all, I went to a local school's website and pulled the superlatives they used:

Best Smile, Friendliest, Most Likely to Succeed, Most School Spirit, Class Clown, Most Musical, Most Artistic, Most Talkative, Quietest, Most Unique, Most Daring, Classiest, Most Laid-Back, Most Gullible, Most Dependable, Best Laugh, Tallest, Shortest, Most Easily Embarrassed, Most Changed since Freshman Year, Class Flirt, Most Athletic, Best Hair, Best Eyes, Cutest Couple, Should've Been a Couple, Best Fashion Sense, Best Friends, Most Likely to become Famous

Sara, who would likely be a staff photographer on the yearbook and who happens to be one of those driven girls who made me crazy in school because they knew exactly what they wanted out of life (unlike flighty, arty me,) definitely would have earned a superlative or two.  

Since she and Jer spend most of their school year time together, it wouldn't be a stretch to say they would probably get "Should've Been a Couple" from their classmates.

Phoebe (MSB Contemporary WIP,) on the other hand, is more like me. So, unless her status is elevated by dating the hottest guy in the clarinet section, they would have to make up a custom superlative for her. I think "Most Likely to Die in an Avalanche of Books" would fit her perfectly.

My current TBR pile (well, add Obsidian and Before I Wake.)
Much deadlier when you add it to my Read pile (AVALANCHE!!!)

What about your characters? Do any of the "Most Likelys" above fit them?

RTW: Forests and Tombs and Cities, Oh My!

This really should be about The Rapunzel Curse, or diving deep into my half-outlined contemporary. But lately I've received two wonderful critiques on the first two chapters of The Desired that have me heavily in edits... again.  I can't complain, because I love the result.  To be honest, the beginning of the story was missing... something, and both critiques sparked my imagination with the perfect "something". I've paused my queries and am back in Sara's world. Therefore, for my YA Highway Road Trip post, I'm answering

What images inspire/ represent your WIP?

for The Desired.

Like I've said before, place is as much a character in my stories as any person. The idea for Sara and her story came to me about a year and a half ago while I was in the cemetery in my "hometown" in Portugal. As I stood in the middle of a granite walkway (swaying a little bit from my constant low blood pressure,) I could just see ghostly figures weaving amoungst the tombs and the entire place flowing back to how it had looked centuries ago. From that moment forward, I couldn't look at a new place without thinking of this shift and how it would affect my nameless teenage character. Ghosts of places and people became my constant companions everywhere I went that year.

But, to really have a story, first there had to be a place. Sara's grandparents' house and land is a mish-mosh loosely based on my maternal grandparents' properties with a bit of my paternal grandparents' mountainy home thrown into the mix.

My family's yard. In the foreground- a rosemary bush, in the background, orange trees and roses.

 I wove in the woods that I've known since I was a baby. Land that has been in my family for centuries, filled with pine and eucalytus and fern, pine nuts sitting on the ground next to blackberry bushes. And the occasional stone house that is barely kept standing.

There's a tiny stable on the righthand side, but this house isn't being used now.
This was mostly used for storage and as an occasional overnight shelter for farmworkers.

The closest city is Coimbra, and Sara hops trains there all of the time. She even drinks at a charming little cafe in the city. In the fall, students in full uniform-- down to their capes!-- wander the streets and pop into the bookstores. Shoppers trip down steep stairways. This is a gorgeous city.

One of the shopping avenues in Coimbra. Charming, but pricey!

But, then... there's also the paranormal element. Hints of the past that haunt my main character. In a landscape that still has remnants of its celtic and roman inhabitants, it's impossible not to find signs pointing towards bits of roman road, prehistoric dolmens in the middle of the woods, or tombs on the edge of fields (in fact, many of these prehistoric, celtic, and medieval tombs were broken up by landowners who didn't want to waste nice, big hunks of stone and that stone was repurposed for walls surrounding the properties. Talk about a creepy vibe!)

A double tomb carved in a huge stone on my great-uncle's property.
According to a local historian, this is likely early medieval. Tombs like these litter the landscape.

Plus, there's just... something about stone walls and granite staircases that captures the imagination and adds that surreal element for any of us who spend most of our time in fairly modern North American buildings.

Taken with my grandfather's old bellows-style Polaroid camera. My shoes are too modern!!!
This is the outdoor stairway that leads to my bedroom (cool, isn't it?!?!?!?)

 And this last picture wasn't taken in Portugal, but definitely still captures the feel of Sara's world:

Taken on the grounds at Drumthwacket, the NJ governor's residence.
I love how the light flooded out this image.

These are my images and my story... what are yours? Comment here or go on over to YA Highway to join the roadtrip!

(all of the images above are mine...)

Wanderlust and Wanderlove

YA Highway posted a Road Trip Wednesday this week that hits a topic near and dear to my heart...

Travel.

If you could wander anywhere in the world, where would it be, and why?

 If you haven't figured it out from this blog, I love to travel and fall in love so easily with places and people and food (oh, the foods!) My dad is still a little bit disappointed that I never tried to break into travel writing beyond my trip blog.  But the fact is... traveling inspires me. Travel writing doesn't.

For this RTW, I ran over to my planner and pulled out two post-it notes that I keep stuck to my front cover. On those post-its are lists that are constantly evolving:

The Top Ten Places that I want to visit*-- in no particular order:
*That I haven't already visited

1. Greece
2. Egypt
3. Morocco
4. China (during dumpling season... I just want to wander in the cold from dumpling house to dumpling house until they have to roll me back onto a plane)
5. Japan
6. Toronto, Canada (specific, eh? But TO and I have a long history of things happening-- like SARS-- that kept me from visiting. I WILL visit the CN tower one of these days!)
7. The Catskills or Adirondack mountains in the fall/winter (visit meaning: stay at least overnight, since I've been to both on day trips.)
8. Luxembourg
9. Austria.  I blame "The Sound of Music" for this choice.
10. Chile

and...

At the Karla caves in Maharashtra State, India

The Top Ten Places I've been to and want to revisit (again, in no particular order):

1.  Portugal (of course): Evora, Sortelha... it's a little country, but I love every bit of it.
2.  Seville, Spain. Oh, Seville... I love, love, love wandering this city at night.
3.  New Orleans, LA: I don't drink and adore wandering this city early in the morning as it wakes up, so I'm probably an oddity when it comes to tourists in NOLA. But, it truly is beautiful, filled with the greatest music and food and atmosphere on the planet.
4.  Quebec, Canada. Duh.  QC is awesome. Even if I don't really like poutine.
5.  India.  Two weeks was just enough to make me dream of more, more, more.

Sunset over Marine Drive in Mumbai, India
(yes, that's a wrist brace. I traveled with a sprained wrist
and sinus infection. Because I'm tough!)

6.  Prince Edward Island, Canada. The "Gentle Island" captured my heart.  Anybody from there want to adopt me?  Technically, I'd qualify as a "skilled immigrant", if that would make the paperwork easier.  And I actually did pick potatoes a few times as a child...
7.  Ottawa, ON, Canada: I want to skate the Rideau Canal again and then I want to go there during the tulip festival. Oh, and if I do go back? I'm SO staying in the same hotel as I did during my last visit.
8.  Nova Scotia... aw, hell, I should just have written Canada, shouldn't I? That would have covered all 4 mentions on this list.  Uhm, I just really, really like it up there and I have the stamps on my passport to prove it.

Maybe I should put this on blog entries that need a CanCon warning?

The rocks at Peggy's Cove, NS. Don't climb on these.

9.  Nashville, TN. I went there for work and got to see so little of the city, but I'm curious to see more.
10.  France. I really miss Bordeaux and CDG airport (for a while there, I had the terminal layout during construction memorized. And the skating schedule at the ice rink in Bordeaux centre memorized, too.)

Now that you've seen my explosion of wanderlust, tell me about yours!  Where do you dream of wandering?

(ETA 16-March: If anyone wants advice on travelling, travel safety, travelling alone, even finding ways to fund travel, I TOTALLY recommend Wanderlust and Lipstick. Beth's advice is great and I've completely worn out my copies of "Wanderlust and Lipstick for Women Travelling Solo" and "...For Women Travelling to India."  A lot of her advice is common travel sense, but we don't always think of everything! The blogs on her site are also a GREAT way to fuel your wanderlust.

Also, my favorite travel guidebooks come from Lonely Planet. I've found their descriptions and recommendations to be the best and love reading their guidebooks as if they were novels.)