Kevin

When You Write the Book of Your Heart

I am SO passionate about the last book I wrote, I find myself thinking about the characters all the time. It’s one of the only novels I ever wrote over a long period of time, as opposed to over a long weekend at the Muskoka novel writing marathon.

When I first had the idea for THE CAMINO CLUB, I was just about to set out on one of the greatest adventures of my life…a walk on the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route in Spain. The idea simmered slowly while I made my packing list back home in Toronto. I was picking up a spork and hiking socks at a camping store in Toronto while contemplating one of my main characters and how he would suffer a tragic loss while he was being forced to walk the Camino over his summer holidays. I was trying on backpacks while coming up with the name for another main character…one who loved her dog and hated her parents and fought the idea of walking the Camino with every fiber of her being.

I even came up with the tagline idea prior to actually setting foot in Spain. THE BREAKFAST CLUB MEETS THE CAMINO DE SANTIAGO. As taglines go, it doesn’t even make much sense. The whole MEETS thing is to conjoin two books, two movies, two shows, two ideas, etc. Not to conjoin a movie with a place. But in my head it worked. Juvenile delinquents forced to walk the pilgrimage route as penance for their crimes. A youth diversion program.

Long before I wrote the first word of The Camino Club, I knew intuitively that it would be THE book…the ever-illusive ‘book of my heart‘ book. I heard others speaking of their own ‘heart books‘. I knew some of mine had come close, but I also knew I had not yet written my heart book. It was still out there.

I had planned to take notes every day I was on the Camino, to assist me in shaping the novel that I would eventually write once my own Camino pilgrimage was over. I really did. I thought I might even write some of it in the albergues at night, after my long days of walking. But the magic of the Camino that I had heard so much about for so many years prior to heading to Spain? Turns out, even though it was exuberantly described to me, it was still greatly understated. There is no describing what the Camino does to a person until one enters the Camino and discovers the magic for themselves.

As life-changing as the pilgrimage was, I still somehow managed to walk with each of my juvenile delinquent characters in my head and in my thoughts (mostly). I imagined them grumbling at the difficult bits and slowly melting into a softness of acceptance along the way. I imagined their dramas and their downfalls and their highs. I questioned why I would want one of my characters to experience the loss of a loved one back home while they were hiking across Spain and unable to do anything about it. Why would I be so cruel?

It was only while I was on the Camino that I realized there was a core character missing from my novel idea. I had to run into this magically delightful older Frenchman before the full bones of the novel began to fall into place for me. Upon meeting Claude, I instantly knew I had to immortalize him in my story…even if only for myself.

IMG_20180126_180748 — The gentleman in the foreground of this shot taken at an albergue in Spain along the Camino de Santiago was my inspiration for the BASTIEN character in **The Camino Club**. Claude’s magic just would not leave me. I knew I needed someone like him in my story.

Today is actually the 5th anniversary of the day I met this man. I know this because this is what came up in my Facebook memories today:

A man from France I met today. “And life is still good.” #Camino #CaminoDeSantiago #peregrinos

He was telling us that life was still good even though he had just lost his wife. He was walking the Camino and bringing joy to everyone he met along the way. He held our albergue as a captive audience that night…told us stories that made us laugh and stories that made us cry. When he said the line quoted above, he had tears in his own eyes. And with that line, I received my AHA moment. This man will help my delinquents along on their journey! 5 years ago today, BASTIEN was born. Happy Bastien Day! It is my hope that one day you will be able to read this story for yourself and fall in love with Bastien the same way I fell in love with Claude. It’s the story of my heart.

Buen Camino!

EDITED TO ADD: THE CAMINO CLUB was purchased by Duet Books, the YA imprint of Interlude Press. It is on PREORDER HERE.

Write What You Don’t Write & MNM Brain

I woke up this morning with Writer Instructor dialogue running through my thoughts. I notice this phenomenon ratcheting up as the yearly Muskoka Novel Marathon slowly approaches. This is the time when I truly begin to think about the writing process in general and the upcoming MNM novel in particular. I become this super coach who prepares a team of ONE for a marathon that does not involve any form of running, jogging or walking.

This morning I woke up thinking about all the stuff the writer has to do to learn about their characters, their plots, their settings, their universes. We have to write the stuff down that we don’t use in our story. I’m not talking about the stuff we’ll sneak in as the dreaded INFO DUMP. I’m not really talking about backstory, even, even though I am. I know that doesn’t make sense on the surface, but trust me…it makes sense.

Backstory, in general, is stuff you sprinkle into your story for the reader—stuff they discover about the characters’ pasts. Their motivations, their goals, etc, etc, etc. BUT—there’s another kind of backstory the WRITER should think about. Yes, there are motivational epiphanies we should share with our readers. That’s obvious. But there’s a whole life behind every character we create. Have you ever thought about writing out memories and experiences the characters have that have NOTHING TO DO WITH THE STORY YOU’RE WRITING? I mean, HAVE YOU? Because you should.

This is not a new concept, even for me. But it is one I keep going back to. I wrote an article for a writing newsletter once upon a time about diary entries. It’s now on my blog and for some reason it’s one of my most popular posts. People come to it by these bizarre Google searches about writing and diaries and characters and the like. I linked the blog post above…and I might be repeating myself today.

The backstory you give your characters stays inside you and you remember it as you’re navigating your way through your story. You become an expert on what your characters would or wouldn’t do, how they would or wouldn’t react based on this backstory. And again—I’m not talking about the backstory you feed your readers. I’m talking about the backstory ONLY YOU KNOW. So, the more you explore the people you create, the more you know them…the more you intuitively know their path through the story you create. This is why I spend a lot of time this time of year in developing my people for my Muskoka Novel Marathon novel. We 40 writers get together for a long weekend in July and we all attempt to write a novel in 72 hours. I like to know who my characters are before I leap into that kind of an abyss.

Now, you can write their unseen-by-any-readers-ever backstory on paper or on your word processor, OR you can just chew away at it in your own little head. Either way works. The more stories you create about their past, the more it helps you to predict their future. And the future is the arc in which they travel through your novel. By setting up these pre-story lives as much as possible, you are doing a kind of homework that would otherwise be impossible. Even if you ‘practice’ with these characters for a hundred pages and then toss it away…those hundred pages are not wasted words. They are a foundation on which you can build the first sentence of your novel, and the second and the third.

For me, this works. Especially since I hit the ground running on a Friday evening and attempt to walk away on a Monday evening with a fully written first draft novel. I need every edge I can get.

Random photo because I wanted to add something to look at. There’s a magical place along the Camino de Santiago where you get to walk through vineyards and it’s gorgeous. Here’s a peek.

Do yourself a favour and try this. Write situations, scenes, memories with your potential characters. Form a backstory for them that you will NEVER use in your finished work. Get to know them. They’ll pay you back in spades when you’re deep in the heart of your novel and trying to decide what your character will do next. If you know your character, you know how they’ll choose to move forward in your story…

Happy writing!

HERE’S MY AUTHOR PAGE ON THE MUSKOKA NOVEL MARATHON WEBSITE. YOU CAN CLICK ON THE SUPPORT THIS WRITER BUTTON TO BE TAKEN TO MY DONATION PAGE…BECAUSE THE MUSKOKA NOVEL MARATHON IS NOT ONLY A 72 HOUR NOVEL WRITING MARATHON, BUT IT’S ALSO A FUNDRAISER FOR LITERACY PROGRAMS. WE’RE WRITERS HELPING READERS.

Pratisara Protection Threads – From Abhaneri, India to Samos, Spain…

Tuesday September 18th of 2018 was a traveling day for us. That was the day we made our way by bus from Jaipur to Agra in India.

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We had a surprise stop along the way at a beautiful stepwell in Abhaneri. It was called Chand Baori Stepwell.

The Chand Baori Stepwell is an architectural wonder. There are many places like it in India. And it was just sitting there in a small village, at the side of the road.

At the Chand Baori Stepwell in Abhaneri, India. September, 2018.

While there, we visited a holy man who was at a small temple off to the side. He tied red and yellow pratisara protection threads on our wrists and offered us a blessing. I’m writing about it today, on Tuesday May 14th, 2019, because my threads finally broke free of my wrist this morning.

IMG_20180918_125315_003 — The Holy Man who gave us our pratisara protection threads while we were en route to Agra, India.

It was bound to happen. It was just some threads tied together around my wrist. I’m actually surprised it lasted almost 8 months. Michael’s is still intact. Not only that, his looks way better than mine looked when it snapped. I’m guessing he’ll get a full year out of his. We shall see.

The Rio Sarria, flowing past the beautiful monastery in Samos, Spain.

They say you should place your pratisara protection threads into a flowing waterway after they come off your wrist. I now have an offering for Rio Sarria, the river that runs through Samos, Spain, along the Camino. The river runs alongside the monastery there and I love the idea of leaving my protection threads in the river there.

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There are places in the world where one enters and they immediately know they’ve discovered one of their heart-homes. Samos is definitely one of those places for me. From the moment I saw the monastery from afar as we entered the town, I knew it was a special place. I knew I would have to return.

Now, I get to Samos added meaning by leaving something behind when I go back in September. (-:

The Pratisara Protection Threads I’ll Be Leaving Behind in the Rio Sarria in Samos, Spain.