This was a typical New Year's Eve party at our house. Everyone would be dressed up (that's me in the pink dress and the bad perm). Our group would usually number around ten - my parents and me. the Griffins and their son, the Jones and their friends Madge and Jim. The evening would start with a meal out at a country pub, then it'd be back to our house for a party until midnight. At twelve o'clock, everything would stop and as the final chime rang out, we'd join hands and sing 'Auld Lang Syne'. After the resulting hugs, we'd go first footing, calling in on each other's houses. Sometimes one of us would bring along a piece of coal and a sprig of greenery, other times it would be a bottle of wine. One year, Jim even led us down the street playing his bagpipes. Unfortunately the mad gasman (one of the neighbours not at our party) called the police that year but that's another story altogether.
Christmas Day was different. The morning was for pyjamas; the afternoon was casual. We stayed indoors with our loved ones and left the outside world for Boxing Day. It might have been cold outside but we didn't care.
I never went anywhere for Christmas Eve. Now we sometimes go to my inlaws house. But usually it's Christmas books, music, and shows. Then after my daughter goes to sleep, my husband and I exchange gifts so the morning can just be about her.
Real life doesn't just have to provide inspiration for our characters. It can also feed into the locations we use in our writing. This is the school I attended between the ages of seven and eight years old. This photograph, and more of the interior, was kindly taken by an old school friend. I always loved this building and now it has provided the inspiration for Darkacre School in my novel. Photograph taken by Dan Howard of 500px.com York Minster (from my home town) was the inspiration for the cathedral where Rex Haven's funeral takes place in my novel. Taken from www.rightmove.co.uk The terraces of the South Bank area of York, where I lived for a time, are the streets of the old town in my novel. The details don't have to remain the same - we writers are tailors of imagination after all - but basing our story locations in reality can add a grounding element to our writing that convinces our readers. What real locations have you used in your wr
I only recently came across the term 'blog hop'. Am I the only one who hadn't heard of this before? In essence, it's an online event where a group of bloggers drop in on each other's blogs and leave comments. It's a way to create new connections, boost the number of visitors to your site and generally have a bit of a party. Today I signed up to take part in my first blog hop for members of the She Writes Books and Writing group. I always enjoy finding new interesting blogs and forging fresh alliances so I'd like to welcome all my fellow She Writes blog hoppers to my blog. I hope you enjoy reading my posts. I'll be dropping in on as many of you as I can. I've even created a blog button (scroll down the right hand column to find it) for any of you who are collecting them. My blogging tip is to keep a plan of future blog posts so you can look ahead to what you're going to be writing and collect necessary links, articles, images etc that you mig
That's it. My writer website is now up and running - yay! What that means is that I won't be posting to this blog anymore. If you'd like to follow my book publishing journey, and especially if you'd like to subscribe to my newsletter, head over to my new website. You can find it here . See you over there very soon.
I never went anywhere for Christmas Eve. Now we sometimes go to my inlaws house. But usually it's Christmas books, music, and shows. Then after my daughter goes to sleep, my husband and I exchange gifts so the morning can just be about her.
ReplyDeleteOn Christmas Eve we went to church and then to my grandparent's house to open one present and eat cookies and other snacks.
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