Selfie Travel Interview -- tell me your travel stories...

Hi friends!

I'm more than a little under the weather with an end-of-winter flu, so my usual Monday post time came and went. I decided to post a travel post I've had sitting in 'drafts' for such a moment. Relax and read...

How exciting to see Baby Lit!

One of my little routines is to go for coffee at Avid Reader on the weekend -- a combined book store and cafe -- the perfect business! It's a welcoming little cafe in West End in Brisbane (a short walk down the street from where I live). I read the Sunday papers, eat a freshly-baked muffin, then browse the bookshop. Bliss! The first liftout I reach for in the newspapers is the Escape (travel) section.


One of the other things I do when I'm not writing flash fiction or sweating over novel writing, is write travel articles. Such an enjoyable process, collating all those travel notes from exotic and not-so-exotic journeys and pitching to papers and magazines.

Today I thought I'd post about travel by using the interview found every Sunday in the Escape liftout of the Sunday Mail.  I've jiggled it a bit to create a selfie interview, of course accompanied by photos. Once you've read it, would you answer some/all the relevant questions in comments? I'm addicted to all things travel, so I'd love to hear what you have to say...

WHAT'S YOUR FAVOURITE PLACE TO VISIT IN YOUR OWN COUNTRY?

Home made vanilla ice cream, espresso
 coffee and ice cubes. Ahhh. 

In my case that would be the wonderful world of Oz. My favourite place is the Sunshine Coast, particularly Peregian Beach where husby George (now a popular name again!) and I have a beach house. The beach is amazingly unspoilt, with long stretches of golden sand sparsely populated, so you can always find a private cove. Peregian Village is built in a courtyard square like in Europe, with cafes and boutique shops around the perimeter. The best iced coffee ever is found at my favourite hang out, Baked Poetry Cafe.


WHAT ABOUT YOUR FAVOURITE PLACE OVERSEAS?

Anyone who knows me knows my love affair with Paris. Geo and I have walked, bussed or trained just about every square kilometre, but Paris always delights and surprises. Once you've got all the museums and famous landmarks out of the way, you can really enjoy strolling aimlessly, the best way to enjoy the architecture, the cafes and the history, especially the literary history. We usually travel in the northern winter. It doesn't snow heavily, but sometimes in late winter you get caught by surprise!



BUT if it wasn't Paris, it'd be the medieval hill towns of Italy.

WHAT'S THE BEST THING YOU'VE EVER EATEN OVERSEAS?

I've got to be honest and state that our food in Australia is AMAZING and it really is hard to beat our fresh produce, seafood, beef and fabulous restaurants, so we've lowered our expectations when travelling and amaze ourselves with Paris street food like yummy crepes filled with what passes for chocolate (Nutella!) and banana or a savoury ham and cheese for Geo. All taste pretty good freshly made. Picking up all the makings for what we call a Paris dinner on the way home from a day walking the streets is awesome -- going from shop to shop picking up a fresh baguette, then runny cheese, duck pate or fois gras,  fresh ham, grapes and a bottle of wine. Why does it just taste so good when you're over there? But that duck (canard) at Bordes de Seine (near Monet's Garden) was to die for! Best regional food in France IMO.

WHERE ARE YOU OFF TO NEXT?

Looking up to the kasbah in Tangier

Five weeks in Dec/Jan -- beginning with a few days in Amsterdam, then 2 weeks in Paris north this time - staying at Euro Disney, but our days will be spent in Paris, returning to the Champagne region and Belgium (Bruges). Then the fast train to Malaga, Spain, with a short stint across to Tangier in Morocco, then Portugal. Not at all exhausting, lol!


DO YOU HAVE A BUCKET LIST DESTINATION?
Many. On the agenda is an extended tour including Alaska, Canada, the East Coast of the US. Scandinavia is another drawcard...well, anywhere we haven't been is on the bucket list.


WORST PLACE YOU'VE STAYED?
Chuisi in Tuscany, Italy. Geo liked the idea of a rustic 16th Century fishing hut beside Lake Trasimeno (Where Hannibal ambushed the Romans), and close to a couple of hill towns we'd read about. Not a good idea in winter! The hut was owned by an Aussie who was cosily warm back home. We arrived after dark to find the only heating was from a little wood stove, but there was no wood cut down to size, so our first task was to ring the agents and the best they could do was drive over with a tomahawk. The bedroom was so cold the ceiling dripped condensation all over us. That said, the position was fabulous and we have lots of fond memories. No bad travel experience ever feels bad when you look back on it. There's a story in that one but I haven't written it yet.

BIG CITY HOTEL, BnB, IGLOO, TENT..?
When I travel, I like to go like blazes all day, and really appreciate a hotel at the end of the day to fully chill. I've stayed in BnBs, but don't like being met at the door and asked to report on my whole day before being allowed to head for my room to relax! (This happened to us in the Loire Valley -- horrendous!)

IS THERE ANYTHING YOU CAN'T TRAVEL WITHOUT?
Comfy shoes that feel like runners, but are stylish enough not to be frowned on in Paris, lol!!

WHAT HAS TRAVEL TAUGHT YOU?
That the world is populated with people who are much the same everywhere, and language isn't a huge barrier. We shared a railway carriage back to Chiusi from Pompeii one night and as well as we Aussies, there was an Italian, a German, a Spanish family and a Bulgarian guy, yet we communicated well somehow and it was fabulous! I don't have horror stories -- nearly everyone we've met has been lovely (well, except for that nasty ticket seller in Rome's Termini (main railway station). But Rome's Termini is best avoided! Being chased by totes is pretty challenging, especially when your eyes are smarting from pollution and cars are parked anywhere and everywhere across footpaths and 'pedestrian' crossings! LOL!

But my travel philosophy is that it's not about arriving somewhere new, it's the journey to somewhere new. Enjoy every moment, or if that's not possible, laugh about it later!!

• So I hope you enjoyed reading my travel post. Please tell me about your travels or your dreams of travels...or do you have any travel questions?

A huge thank you to all the awesome people who posted for August's  Write...Edit...Publish  inaugural blogfest. What a lot of super entries to read. The September linky for MOVING ON will go live early September. Please consider joining this group of enthusiastic bloggers.

Writing Space/Place - for the Share Your Space Blogfest to celebrate NaNoWriMo.

You'd think only a masochist would enter a blogfest on the first day of NaNo, but hey, you've gotta be a masochist to enter so it's right up my alley. Thanks to Summer at 'and this time...concentrate, I am writing a picture essay about my writing space.

 Just before NaNo begins is a good time to write about where I'll be writing during this crazy month devoted to pen, paper, laptops, netbooks, too much caffeine in the form of chocolate and coffee, too many quick snacks like the giant muffins at my favourite coffee shop, too many...oh, too many to mention...read on...

Trouble with this scenario, my battery always runs out - even though it's supposedly 10 hours!

I've travelled the world, but have never tasted a better muffin than at the Brisbane State Libray coffee shop.

At times we can get a bit antsy about our private writing space. When you have toddlers the writing world is usually around the dining room table, where a few words snatched here and there are better than not writing at all! Many lug laptops or netbooks with them on trains and boats and planes, while others scribble the olde worlde way with parchment and quill in a favourite chair by a roaring fire (must be a few left!)

I'm sure many of you have writing palaces to die for,  but I'm pretty sure it is a truth universally acknowledged (sorry Jane) that some of our writing spaces leave a lot to be desired. But no matter what your situation, writers write!

Oh botheration, what was that word again? Methinks a little nap is in order.

I've been a bit disgruntled with my writing space since I moved from a large beach house to a city apartment. I often go to a coffee shop at the wonderful state-of-the-art city Library a few minutes away and write, surrounded by the sounds and the wonderful smells of coffee, rather than in my tiny space. The problem with this is there is just too much stimulation - there might even be a ridgy-dige digeridoo player to serenade you - distracting.

Getting serenaded while I work.

At the moment my writing place in the apartment is in an open study/cum spare bedroom/cum office/cum husband's ebay buying frenzy space. Eeek! So I only get my writing done in spurts.


I don't feel so bad about my lack of space/place after reading Barbara Kinsolver (author of The Poisonwood Bible and recently The Lucuna), and her comments in Small Wonder. To quote: 'It is widely rumored, and also true, that I wrote my first novel in a closet. Before I get all rapturous and carried away here, I had better admit to that. The house was tiny; I was up late at night typing while another person slept, and there just wasn't any other place for me to go but that closet. The circumstances were extreme. And if I have to -- if the Furies should take my freedom or my sight -- I'll go back to writing in the dark. Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, writers will go to stupefying lengths to get the infernal roar of words out of their skulls and onto paper.'

Really, I'm just spoilt! I have acres of room!


For NaNoWriMo this year I have booked my own private room where I will write for 2 hours every morning at abovementioned library. This will be good discipline. Every afternoon I teach in the same library, so I will be living half my life there for the whole 30 days.

My writing space for November - a meeting room at the library.

Inside Brisbane Square LIbrary - I teach on the right and write in a meeting room on the left.

STOP PRESS! We moved the tenants out of our beach house and yesterday we began the big task of moving back in - just for weekends at this stage and of course for the Christmas week. It'll be great knowing I have my beach house overlooking the Pacific Ocean waiting for me to escape to when I'm not teaching.

My beach house writing place - just gotta get the table cleared first! I'm making a study this time, but I'm sure I'll still sit at the end of this table as it overlooks the Pacific Ocean...

 ...with a view like this...

So let's go NaNo, let's go...now what where did I put that story outline then?

Blogfeast below: This entry - Writing Compelling Characters Blogfest

Thanks to Elana Johnson, Alex J Cavanaugh and Jennifer Daiker for their blogfest, Writing Compelling Characters. I only heard about it a day ago, so my entry may be no great shakes, but I'm sure the hundreds of other entries will be amazing. There is much to learn.

                                                         

WRITING COMPELLING CHARACTERS


As John Gardner says in his book, Creating Fiction, characters are the first reason readers read a book, therefore they must be alive and three dimensional, in other words, compelling.


How do we make our characters compelling? Aristotle, writing 2,000 years ago, wrote that sound characterisation was founded on four principals:

Aristotle thinking

1. good (morally worthy and sympathetic)
2. appropriate (representative of their sex, class or age)
3. lifelike, and
4. consistent

Do you think Aristotle's list is still relevant?

I'm no Aristotle, but I have a list too:

1. They must relate somehow to the real world, while at the same time be larger than life.
2. They must be believable - they must be written as convincing and consistent.
3. They must be fully fleshed, motivated, interesting.
4. Characters must speak with the right voice, often the most difficult part.
5. Let the characters face the expected, but also the unexpected to bring depth.
6. Let the characters reveal themselves through believable exchanges with other characters.
7. Minor characters have their place. They are not so important in a short story, but in a novel minor characters help move the plot along, bolster the main theme, add layers of suggestion. A good writer always uses minor characters well as they keep an eye out for their potential in the story. We've all heard cases where the minor characters take over the story, demanding a bigger role.
8. Take maximum advantage of brief moments in your story to let your characters shine.
9. Even if your character is a monster, they should/might/ have a soft spot, a crack in their armour.
10. Finally, if your readers don't care about your characters, they won't bother reading on. Make your characters sparkle, make them capable of change.

Okay, there you have 10 tips from me.

I always like to do an exercise. Here's one if you wish to work on your characterisation:

Recall someone you met briefly but who made a strong impression on you. Write everything you can about that person and the encounter you shared. Describe their dress, speech, the place, the weather, the scents, the discussion you had.

Then imagine that person stands up from your meeting and walks away. Where is he/she going? What did he/she think about? Who was the next person he/she met? What happened?

Let yourself go. Write quickly without stopping, then pause to examine where you've gone. How does the character you developed differ from the real-life person who inspired him/her?