Writing What you know
I keep getting asked if what I write is real life. I repeat-I’m not that interesting, but I have a heck of an imagination. Let’s talk Eastern Spice (Cynnamon Foster). Of course, I am not a spy. I am a writer. I’m certainly not a spy that goes undercover in swingers clubs, but I did write about real places I have been in the book. In fact, India and Japan are two of my favorites.
I always knew my characters would end up in India. I knew that before I had ever been or put one word on the page. I was intrigued by a story that my husband found in the paper about a woman found dead in a hotel pool where he was staying in India. In the movie in my mind, of course it was a conspiracy. I cooked up a story and started writing. Then I visited. I got to drive through the countryside and exchange wedding vows at the Taj Mahal, and had to go back and re-write what I had written. I wanted the details to be as real as possible, so m6 characters see what I saw with the same wonder that I did. I liked it so much that I will go back again, and maybe my characters will, too.
Now, you ask, why Tokyo? Tokyo is indeed one of my favorite cities. I visited often before the earthquake and tsunami. I studied Japanese in college. Loved everything about the place, including the formality of ceremony of the culture, so its only natural that my characters had a stop through there, if only for a minute. (A bit of trivia…I wrote an earlier short story as Cynnamon Foster entitled “In the Shadow of the Midnight Train. The name came from a sign I saw in the back of a taxi I took from Kawasaki station. The anthology it was in was published by Cleis Press.). The real reason they ended up there, though, is very simple; I wanted them to fly on a sexy G-6 plane, and the range of that particular aircraft could only take them as far as Japan from the Dallas-Ft. Worth airport. It also gave me an excuse to give them the mile high experience that so many people wish they could have. It would have been very different on a regular, commercial flight, right?
I’ll probably have to revisit Tokyo in one of the future books, and this time, the characters will leave the airport so that I can share with you some of the things I love about Tokyo.
Eastern Spice is available here: http://www.amazon.com/Eastern-Spice-69-Degrees-ebook/dp/B00CP5LE26/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1370229429&sr=1-1&keywords=cynnamon+foster
Get it now, the next book is coming!
I always knew my characters would end up in India. I knew that before I had ever been or put one word on the page. I was intrigued by a story that my husband found in the paper about a woman found dead in a hotel pool where he was staying in India. In the movie in my mind, of course it was a conspiracy. I cooked up a story and started writing. Then I visited. I got to drive through the countryside and exchange wedding vows at the Taj Mahal, and had to go back and re-write what I had written. I wanted the details to be as real as possible, so m6 characters see what I saw with the same wonder that I did. I liked it so much that I will go back again, and maybe my characters will, too.
Now, you ask, why Tokyo? Tokyo is indeed one of my favorite cities. I visited often before the earthquake and tsunami. I studied Japanese in college. Loved everything about the place, including the formality of ceremony of the culture, so its only natural that my characters had a stop through there, if only for a minute. (A bit of trivia…I wrote an earlier short story as Cynnamon Foster entitled “In the Shadow of the Midnight Train. The name came from a sign I saw in the back of a taxi I took from Kawasaki station. The anthology it was in was published by Cleis Press.). The real reason they ended up there, though, is very simple; I wanted them to fly on a sexy G-6 plane, and the range of that particular aircraft could only take them as far as Japan from the Dallas-Ft. Worth airport. It also gave me an excuse to give them the mile high experience that so many people wish they could have. It would have been very different on a regular, commercial flight, right?
I’ll probably have to revisit Tokyo in one of the future books, and this time, the characters will leave the airport so that I can share with you some of the things I love about Tokyo.
Eastern Spice is available here: http://www.amazon.com/Eastern-Spice-69-Degrees-ebook/dp/B00CP5LE26/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1370229429&sr=1-1&keywords=cynnamon+foster
Get it now, the next book is coming!
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