Cynthia Hamilton's Blog: Reading and Writing - Posts Tagged "summer-reads"
The Story Behind the Story: Alligators in the Trees
The fun thing about being an author is not knowing when or where inspiration will strike. For anyone who’s decided they wanted to write a book and gone as far as sitting in front of their computer with absolutely no idea what to say, I’m sure you can appreciate the caprices of creativity. It likes to sneak up when you least expect it and usually when you’re least prepared to grab it by the horns.
The premise for “Alligators in the Trees” came to me in an idle musing and slowly developed over a few weeks’ time. It started while listening to a song from the ‘70s. Besides holding up remarkably well, the lyrics got me to thinking about the band, particularly the singer. “Give her some funked up music, she treats you nice…” Personal observation? I thought so. I then pictured the scene he was describing—the life of a rock star, pre or post stardom? Had success changed him and his partner? What was his life like outside the glare of public scrutiny?
Instead of being a fleeting thought, musings about this musician stuck around in my head, popping up at random moments to offer additional insights or speculations. Then one day when my husband and I were having lunch at a roadside diner, I became intrigued by our waitress. I can’t say what about her caught my interest, but there was something about her that made me wonder what her life looked like, outside of her job.
Strangely, those dual musings somehow meshed in my head, and before I knew what was happening, the two characters from very different backgrounds were bouncing off each other. They were as different as snow and sand, and aside from speaking the same language, they had almost nothing in common. Well, that’s not entirely true. Both possessed a remarkable talent for writing lyrics, though Priscilla had never shared hers with anyone. And though Tobias Jordan figured his half-hearted disguise concealed his identity, Priscilla knew immediately who she was serving two poached eggs on dry wheat toast to—someone responsible for lyrics that had struck deep chords in her psyche.
Okay…so now I have two people loitering in my head. By this point, they were too vivid to dismiss. They had my attention and I had to take the scenario further, find out what would come of such an interaction.
But there was something missing. I needed another dynamic, something to save the story from being some quirky kind of romance novel. Then one night while out to dinner, we ran into an acquaintance, a talented architect with his head in the clouds and a dreamy expression on his face. As we stood there talking to him, it hit me I had the third element my story needed. A once famous—now infamous—architect, a bad-boy ‘90s rock star in need of a comeback, and a coffee shop waitress who puzzles out life’s conundrums in spiral-bound notebooks that no one’s ever seen.
From this vantage point, it seems so unlikely that anything could come from such meager musings. Yet, once I typed out the first sentence, the story was up and running and couldn’t be stopped. I honestly didn’t know where I was going, so I just surrendered the reins to the three stars of the show and followed them individually and as their lives became tangled together. It was a fun book to write, mainly because I stayed out of the way and let the characters call the shots.
As today is the official first day of summer, I decided to kick it off with a fun summer read, available today and tomorrow—the 21st and 22nd—for free downloading on Amazon. Grab your ereader and check out “Alligators in the Trees” and let me know what you think!
https://amzn.to/2BctwJu
Wishing everyone a fun, relaxing summer with an endless supply of great reads!
Until next time,
Very warmest regards,
Cynthia
The premise for “Alligators in the Trees” came to me in an idle musing and slowly developed over a few weeks’ time. It started while listening to a song from the ‘70s. Besides holding up remarkably well, the lyrics got me to thinking about the band, particularly the singer. “Give her some funked up music, she treats you nice…” Personal observation? I thought so. I then pictured the scene he was describing—the life of a rock star, pre or post stardom? Had success changed him and his partner? What was his life like outside the glare of public scrutiny?
Instead of being a fleeting thought, musings about this musician stuck around in my head, popping up at random moments to offer additional insights or speculations. Then one day when my husband and I were having lunch at a roadside diner, I became intrigued by our waitress. I can’t say what about her caught my interest, but there was something about her that made me wonder what her life looked like, outside of her job.
Strangely, those dual musings somehow meshed in my head, and before I knew what was happening, the two characters from very different backgrounds were bouncing off each other. They were as different as snow and sand, and aside from speaking the same language, they had almost nothing in common. Well, that’s not entirely true. Both possessed a remarkable talent for writing lyrics, though Priscilla had never shared hers with anyone. And though Tobias Jordan figured his half-hearted disguise concealed his identity, Priscilla knew immediately who she was serving two poached eggs on dry wheat toast to—someone responsible for lyrics that had struck deep chords in her psyche.
Okay…so now I have two people loitering in my head. By this point, they were too vivid to dismiss. They had my attention and I had to take the scenario further, find out what would come of such an interaction.
But there was something missing. I needed another dynamic, something to save the story from being some quirky kind of romance novel. Then one night while out to dinner, we ran into an acquaintance, a talented architect with his head in the clouds and a dreamy expression on his face. As we stood there talking to him, it hit me I had the third element my story needed. A once famous—now infamous—architect, a bad-boy ‘90s rock star in need of a comeback, and a coffee shop waitress who puzzles out life’s conundrums in spiral-bound notebooks that no one’s ever seen.
From this vantage point, it seems so unlikely that anything could come from such meager musings. Yet, once I typed out the first sentence, the story was up and running and couldn’t be stopped. I honestly didn’t know where I was going, so I just surrendered the reins to the three stars of the show and followed them individually and as their lives became tangled together. It was a fun book to write, mainly because I stayed out of the way and let the characters call the shots.
As today is the official first day of summer, I decided to kick it off with a fun summer read, available today and tomorrow—the 21st and 22nd—for free downloading on Amazon. Grab your ereader and check out “Alligators in the Trees” and let me know what you think!
https://amzn.to/2BctwJu
Wishing everyone a fun, relaxing summer with an endless supply of great reads!
Until next time,
Very warmest regards,
Cynthia
The Story Behind the Story: Golden State
The idea for Golden State came to me quite out of the blue while taking a walk with friends on New Year’s Eve 2007. It had been a year since I’d received the correct diagnosis for what had been torturing me from within for nine years. Reflecting back on a time that is happily in the review mirror, I get glimpses of why being inspired by a conversation with my friend was such a momentous occasion.
Writing—what I’d turned to seven years earlier as a means of coping with the pain—had to be abandoned because I was physically unable to sit for hours at my laptop. I’d gotten to the point that I couldn’t even do it for fifteen minutes at a time. The pain was completely overwhelming. Looking back, I can’t fathom how I managed my “real job”. But the alternative methods of treating late-stage Lyme had robbed me of my one solace. By the end of 2007, I had abandoned two novels, one at 75,000 words. To say I was hanging on by a thread would not be overstating it.
As my body struggled, my psyche gradually healed to the point that when my friend regaled me with tales of mutual acquaintances who were bravely chasing success in the real estate profession, my pent-up imagination went wild. In a matter of seconds, I saw it all unfold in my mind’s eye. Roxanne Platt is a thirty-something single mom who struggles valiantly but without grace as a cashier at bargain grocery store and has become nearly despondent from the mind-numbing tedium. She is so open to a way out that becoming a real estate agent during the collapse of the housing market doesn’t even register.
What Roxanne sees is a lifeline. She grabs it, digging in with her heels and turning a pair of deaf ears to anyone who doubts she has the right stuff.
Because I worked in the mortgage industry, I was required to have a real estate license. My profession was wedded to real estate sales, so luckily for me, I knew the ins and outs, the pluses and pitfalls of the real estate world. Where I channeled Roxanne, I have no idea. She popped into my head, fully-formed, daunting attitude securely intact. She’s my anti-heroine and I had a blast watching her in action. The fire she walks through hones her instincts and melts away the rough edges. She is at such a low point in her life, failing isn’t an option.
From this vantage point, I can see a correlation between Roxanne’s situation and what I was going through. I had no conscious appreciation of this as I wrote the book; Roxanne was escapism for me, plain and simple. It gave me hope that Lyme had not robbed me of everything. I had recovered enough to pound the keys and complete a 135K-word novel in a year’s time. I was down, but I wasn’t out…not yet.
Aside from being a saving grace, Golden State turned out to be a fun romp with a slightly garish ray of hope. The underlying message—if there is one—is that we are capable of transforming our lives, even when we’re so down we can’t see a way out.
Golden State is available for FREE downloading July 14th and 15th. Grab your ereader and indulge in a little summer escapism!
****Correction: Due to a scheduling snafu, Golden State will now be available for FREE downloading July 15th and 16th.
Happy reading!
Until next time,
Warmest regards,
Cynthia
Writing—what I’d turned to seven years earlier as a means of coping with the pain—had to be abandoned because I was physically unable to sit for hours at my laptop. I’d gotten to the point that I couldn’t even do it for fifteen minutes at a time. The pain was completely overwhelming. Looking back, I can’t fathom how I managed my “real job”. But the alternative methods of treating late-stage Lyme had robbed me of my one solace. By the end of 2007, I had abandoned two novels, one at 75,000 words. To say I was hanging on by a thread would not be overstating it.
As my body struggled, my psyche gradually healed to the point that when my friend regaled me with tales of mutual acquaintances who were bravely chasing success in the real estate profession, my pent-up imagination went wild. In a matter of seconds, I saw it all unfold in my mind’s eye. Roxanne Platt is a thirty-something single mom who struggles valiantly but without grace as a cashier at bargain grocery store and has become nearly despondent from the mind-numbing tedium. She is so open to a way out that becoming a real estate agent during the collapse of the housing market doesn’t even register.
What Roxanne sees is a lifeline. She grabs it, digging in with her heels and turning a pair of deaf ears to anyone who doubts she has the right stuff.
Because I worked in the mortgage industry, I was required to have a real estate license. My profession was wedded to real estate sales, so luckily for me, I knew the ins and outs, the pluses and pitfalls of the real estate world. Where I channeled Roxanne, I have no idea. She popped into my head, fully-formed, daunting attitude securely intact. She’s my anti-heroine and I had a blast watching her in action. The fire she walks through hones her instincts and melts away the rough edges. She is at such a low point in her life, failing isn’t an option.
From this vantage point, I can see a correlation between Roxanne’s situation and what I was going through. I had no conscious appreciation of this as I wrote the book; Roxanne was escapism for me, plain and simple. It gave me hope that Lyme had not robbed me of everything. I had recovered enough to pound the keys and complete a 135K-word novel in a year’s time. I was down, but I wasn’t out…not yet.
Aside from being a saving grace, Golden State turned out to be a fun romp with a slightly garish ray of hope. The underlying message—if there is one—is that we are capable of transforming our lives, even when we’re so down we can’t see a way out.
Golden State is available for FREE downloading July 14th and 15th. Grab your ereader and indulge in a little summer escapism!
****Correction: Due to a scheduling snafu, Golden State will now be available for FREE downloading July 15th and 16th.
Happy reading!
Until next time,
Warmest regards,
Cynthia
