Blizzard Thoughts

I wrote this yesterday and tried to post it then but Blogger was having none of it. So let's hope that they've got over their problems now and this posts today.

One of my resolutions for this year has been that, before I BICHOK - Bum in chair, hands on keyboard - every working day, I really should do some BOOC, LIM - Bum out of chair, legs in motion - ie some sort of exercise so that I can 'earn' my hours sitting and working.

And if I don't do that before I start my working day, then I know I'll never get to do it. So I've been 'walking to work' - setting out as if I was heading for an out of the house office and walking . . . Luckily there's a lovely big park nearby and I walk round that before heading back to my desk.

But yesterday there was a heavy, wild snowstorm - a real blizzrd that descended while I was walking. It was a real experience walking through it. I could barely see a few metres ahead of me, and the snow was coming down so heavily that within minutes, it seemed, all the recognisable landmarks disappeared, the paths vanished, and I could barely find my way out of what was a very familiar landscape.

And it was as I was trying to find my way that I started thinking that really the wild winter storm was very like writing romance - in several ways.

For one thing, the route I take on my walk is pretty regular. There are lots and lots of paths through the park so I can take various different ways, but they are all in the park, and they all start from one point and end up at a particular destination - coming home.

Which is very much like writing romance. You start with the meeting, the conflict and work towards the happy ever after ending. There are only so many ways to get there, but if you choose a different combination of approaches and walks then you can end up with what seems like a different journey every time - or one that's different enough not to get bored.

And every day the scenery is very slightly different. Or, as in yesterday's case, totally different. Today after the storm where everything had been 'whited out', prisitine and clean and monochrome, there was a blend of dingy dull grey-brown, of molten ice and swirling water. It was so much the same as when I walked there the day before and yet some very different touches had made it a completely different plpace. Just as when I'm writing a novel, I know that the basic 'journey' is going to be so similar and familliar, but I try to sdd in things that can make it look so very different.

That journey in the wild storm was somethign that i also try to put my hero and heroine through - an emotional storm though, rather than a physical one. One in which the surroundings and liveds they knew suddenly changed because something happened to make them different and dangerous, strange and unfamiliar. The emotional storm means that for a time they lose their way, get blown off course, and have to fight to find their way back to the peace and security they once knew. My winter storm even had a moment of sudden peace - of clear blue skies and dropping wind - just before the real 'black moment' when the clouds closed in again and the snow almost blinded me, so that I felt it worst for having a brief respite.

Finally, my whole journey turned into a metaphor for writing - the way that I an set out on the 'journey' of a book thinking that this is all a familar landscape to me - that I kow where I'm going, what paths I'm choosing this time, what my route and the scenery will be. And then some emotional storm between my characters descends and they and the book get blown off coourse. The lanmdmarks that I thought would see me along my way are almost obliterated and for a while I think I'll never find my way to the end. But I just keep on going, adapting to the new conditons, changing as I need to, and keeping my eye on a few fixed points that I know are important. (In the snow bound park, these were the benches scattered all around the place. They marked the lines of the paths even when the paths were snowed in and no longer visible.)

And I hope that when my readers get to the end of the book they will have enjoyed the storms and emotions that suddenly sprung up. And that they, like me, when I finally got back inside my home and out of the fury of the weather, will feel invigorated and excited by what they've just been through. Happy to be in the peace and quiet again but feeling that they wouldn;t have missed the drama for the world.

That's what I'm aiming for anyway. And I'm thrilled to know that with this latest review of Cordero's Forced Bride, for one reader at least I've succeeded in that.

Here's what Julie Bonello of Cata-Romance has to say about Cordero's Forced Bride which she personally described as - "a gloriously intense and wonderfully romantic story"

Kate Walker’s legion of readers will not be disappointed with her latest tale of torrid passion and heart wrenching emotion: Cordero’s Forced Bride.

. . .when Santos kisses his shy English bride, he is not prepared for the sheer power of his desire for her and when wild passion leads to a love which neither of them can deny, Santos cannot help but wonder whether his convenient bride will ever consent to being his wife for real…

Kate Walker's name is synonymous with unforgettable romantic novels that stay with the reader long after the last page is turned and Cordero’s Forced Bride is the latest in a long line of captivating tales from this most talented of storytellers. Fast-paced, passionate, intensely emotional and gripping from start to finish, high quality romantic fiction does not get any better than this!

Thank you so much Julie! Your review made all that time in the 'blizzard' of emotion of writing Cordero's Forced Bride so worthwhile.

You can read the rest of her great review here on the CataRomance site .

PS And while I was out walking in the blizzard, the sensible ones in the family were curled up safe and snug like this