Life and Art - All Mixed Up!

Those of you who visit my website regularly or follow me on Facebook likely already know what a geek I am when it comes to research.  I ♥ it so much that sometimes I think research might be my favorite part of writing!  ☺

Well, what's true in my writing life is also true in my real life.  About 15 years ago, I got totally hooked on hunting my genealogy.  The more I found, the more I wanted to know.  The discovery that some of my lines led back to Scotland was what enticed me to go there.  And visiting there on vacation, sitting in the real-life Fairy Glen, is what encouraged me to write that first book in the Daughters of the Glen series - Thirty Nights with a Highland Husband.   

Now I've found an even deeper connection between the genealogy research and the writing research...

After eight books in the Daughters of the Glen series, we decided to begin a Spinoff series - The Warriors.  Characters from one move freely into the other as they all inhabit the same world of Medieval Highlanders.  The biggest difference?  The new "core" family is descended from Vikings who settled in Scotland.  [They're also descended from Norse gods.  And Faeries. But that shouldn't be a surprise if you've read any of my books.  ☺].  See the possibilities for hours upon hours consumed by my beloved research?  Yeah.  I was in heaven with the changes.  Still am.  Currently working on a character descended from the Picts.  Know how little information there is on the Pictish culture????  But I digress.  As usual.  ☺

So... where does the 'art' of my writing get mixed up with the 'life' part?

A few months ago I signed up for a DNA test through Ancestry.com.   It was the kind that traces where your people originate from, giving you a sense of where in the world your ancestors lived.  I fully expected to see the highest percentage [51%] of my ancestors having come from the British Isles -- my research points to Scotland, Ireland and England on BOTH sides of my family.   I had long teased my sons that they actually ARE the Highlanders I write about, so this finding made perfect sense to me. 

What I DIDN'T expect was the location of the second highest percentage [32%].  Scandinavian!!  Sweden, Denmark and Norway, to be precise.  I'd found NOTHING to support that finding... or had I???

The research I'd done for The Warriors series had already shown me how Vikings [from Norway and Denmark] had traveled all over the world, but, specifically, many of them settled on the Northwest coast of Scotland --  in the Highlands, as well as other parts of Scotland, England and Ireland.  

Now I get to tease my sons that not only are they the Highlanders I write about... they're also the Viking descendants I write about!

Life and art -- all mixed up!

What about you?  Are you an avid genealogy researcher?  Struggling to learn more about your ancestors?  Or are you simply an admirer of medieval Highlanders and Vikings [and...um... who isn't???]   ☺  

By the way... if you haven't signed up for my newsletter yet, this would be a good time to do it.  In the next month or so I'll be starting a contest to give away books and swag I've picked up at some of the conferences I've attended this summer.  My newsletter is the only place you'll find information on the contests.  You can go HERE to sign up now. 

Until later ~

~ Melissa

A Reader First...

Isn't it funny how some books crawl in the back of your mind and stick with you forever?  

I hadn't really thought about this for a while but it came up when I was responding to a lovely blogger who invited me to visit her blog in December.  *Waving to Kati at ROMANCING RAKES *  She asked what my favorite Christmas Romance is and would I be willing to give away a copy when I visit her blog.

Wow... my favorite Christmas Romance.  I don't know if I can do that.  How do I even begin to remember ONE book out of the thousands I've... Wait!  One popped right into my thoughts even before I could finish lamenting about the difficulty of the question.  Christina Skye's CHRISTMAS KNIGHT. 

Released in October 1998, that means it's probably been thirteen years since I read the book but I so remember that story.   I can still visualize the characters when I think about them!  I can close my eyes and actually SEE Ronan MacLeod approaching Hope's cottage and working on the thatched roof and... well, I think I've made my point.

I was a voracious reader long, long before I ever began to write my first book.  Books were my fantasy world of choice from the time I first began to read.  [Dick and Jane and Spot, anyone?]  Books have always been my passion.  I have hundreds of them packed away in plastic storage boxes in the crawl space because I have no more room on the shelves in my office.  Or on the back of my bed.  Or in my closet.  Or in my bedside table.  Or... well, you get the picture.  I'm sure many of you have the same... um... storage issue.  And those don't even take into account all the books I've given away to thrift shops and libraries and friends.

Storage problems aside, I love books.  And while there are thousands of stories I've enjoyed, there are some that still linger in the back of my mind, ready to jump out at a moments notice.  You, too? 

I read and loved every single book in the NANCY DREW series.  I idolized Carolyn Keene for the wonderful stories she wrote.  I wanted to BE her.  [Can I just tell you how disappointed I was when I learned, years later, that "Carolyn Keene" was actually several different people who wrote those books?] 



Then there was Mary Stewart's THE MOONSPINNERS.  I saw it first as a Disney movie and then hunted down the book at my local library.  The book was soooo much better that it still has a place -- all these years later! -- on my keeper shelf.


Douglas Adams is probably best known for his HITCHKIKERS GUIDE TO THE UNIVERSE books, but my all-time favorite of his works [and one of my all-time favorite stories ever and a big part of the reason I wrote my first book] is THE LONG DARK TEA-TIME OF THE SOUL.  I LOVE that book.  [Though I'll admit, every time I read it, I imagine there's one more chapter that ties up things the way I want them tied up!]  If you haven't read this, you really need to give it a try.  And if you want a real treat, find yourself a copy of the audio version [so old it's on cassette tapes!] of the author reading the full story. 

So, Kati's question got me to thinking... what IS it about those books that made them so unforgettable to me?   As you can see, my best loved books aren't all Romance [okay, most are, and for the ones that aren't, I pretend they have the HEA I crave!].  So what's the one thing about them that really hooked into my imagination?  For me, it all boils down to the characters. 

There's nothing like having a character come to life in my imagination as I get to know them while reading their story.  I think that's why I'm NEVER satisfied with a movie or television adaptation of books I've loved.  The character living in my head exists only there so any actor chosen to play the part is an imposter to my way of thinking.  Ruins the story for me.  From Keene's spunky, smart, ahead-of-her-time Nancy Drew, to Adams's funny, perservering Kate Schechter [who, by the way, I see as the heroine of this story even though reviewers insist the book belongs to the private eye, Dirk Gently], these characters have taken on their own lives in my imagination.

Now that I've shared a few of my favorites, tell me yours.  Is it the characters that make the stories unforgettable for you, or is it something else?  Come on, share... I'm always looking to add a new favorite to my seriously overflowing bookshelves!