Travels in the land of my imagination: the beaches

My characters don't spend a lot of time at the beach, but there are a few beach scenes, all at a place called the Forgotten Beach, which I largely modelled on the beach at Tidal River, Wilson's Promontory, but with whiter sands -- something like Denison Beach, near Bicheno (below). It could otherwise have been the bottom picture, which is on the Southern Ocean. When I was at the prom (in Victoria), I walked part of the beach blindfolded, to see whether it could be done, because one lot of my characters have to walk the Forgotten Beach in almost total darkness. As well as finding out whether it could be done, I wanted to experience their sensory deprivation, to experience the cold mauling on my ankles the way they would, so did this walk late in the evening.

I've always lived near the sea, but on a bay, not the ocean. I know its moods, its scents and sounds. I know the birds that wheel overhead. It's amazing to me when I go somewhere like Squeaky Beach at the prom, or Denison Beach in Tassie, to hear the different sound that the sand makes, that sharp squeak on the ball of my foot. Or to go somewhere like Perissa Beach in Santorini, and feel just how hot black sands get -- quite different to the paler sands I'm used to.

I've never seen a beach with the sand rippled the way it was in the picture taken near Strahan (below). This was an estuary with day-tripping cruise ships moving up and down it, their wakes causing the rippled effect.

Visiting places gives you those telling details that you might not have otherwise imagined. I remember one of the surprises for me was walking on Corfu on a hot day (say 40ish degrees), and the hot wind (which I'll always think of as a north wind, because in Melbourne our hot winds come from the north) bringing the scent of eucalypts -- a startling smell that made me nostalgically homesick. Had I never travelled, I don't think I could have imagined this as something I might smell in Greece. You really do need to get out there.

One day, I'm going to set a novel in Delft in Holland. My father's from Holland, but not from Delft, which is somewhere I haven't been. Yet. But if I do write that novel (have to finish the current and next trilogies first), then I will be going -- going to track down its sounds and scents, its colours and textures, all the things that make it unique.

Honeymoon Bay, Freycinet National Park

Honeymoon Bay, Freycinet

Nine Mile Beach (near Swansea)

Denison Beach (near Bicheno)

Tessellated Pavement, near Port Arthur

near Strahan

near Strahan

near Strahan

Travels in the land of my imagination: the forests and mountains

I live in the city, but I'm not writing about city or suburban life -- I'm writing about a land that's been partially terraformed by humans and is essentially a medieval-type landscape and society. My characters are riding around on horseback, through forests, on beaches; they live in castles and in underground homes. In my imagination, I dwell in these places while I'm writing, but it helps to remind me of what that means by researching, by visiting places that are as close to the ones in my novel as I can find.

Perhaps one of the most famous writers maxims is to "write what you know". To me that doesn't mean I have to write about suburban life, but that I must try to capture emotional truths. I know what it is to be frightened, to feel horror and loathing and joy and love and embarrassment. Frustration is often a parrot on my shoulder. I know these things, and I try to give them to my characters: I try to write my characters from the inside out.

Visiting forests, walking through the leaf-litter and hearing the soft pad underfoot (not so much the crackle of leaves because of the dampness), feeling the cool air lace fingers through my hair, smelling the dankness, experiencing the quiet, the sense of being alone in the world, in a world that could be medieval helps me to know my setting too, to bring it to life (I hope) for my readers.

We've just come back from a family holiday in Tasmania, where I got to inhabit quite different forests to the Victorian ones I'm more used to. Below are a few of my holiday shots, all of which could be part of my novel. They remind me of what it was like to be there, what it's like for my characters, and help me enter that place in my imagination where I do know what it's like to be a soldier or a king or any other thing I want my characters to be.

Freycinet National Park

Looking across to Freycinet

near Strahan

Dove Lake & Cradle Mountain

Enchanted Walk, Cradle Mountain National Park

En route to Cradle Mountain

En route to Cradle Mountain

Why I love real life research

It's all very well to hit the books and read up on a location, but nothing beats actually being there and absorbing the sights and sounds and smells. And best of all you can happen upon things that you didn't expect to see. I've been to the Prom a number of times, and, having grown up in a beach-side suburb, I've spent a lot of time at beaches in general. But on this trip I saw something that I'd never seen before: thousands of little crabs, each no bigger than a ten-cent piece (Australian -- say about 1.5 cm diameter), leaving fabulous patterns in the sand. As we approached, they burrowed under the sand, completing this with a somersault-type action. It was hard to get a close-up photo because they seemed to sense our approach and dive under early. Here a few photos though -- and I just know that the editing pass I'm about to embark on is going to have a new detail in the coastal scene: crabs. It's these little details that make the setting more believable, more unique.

Prom

Last weekend we had four days at Wilson's Prom. I love the Prom, and it makes me feel close to the characters of my novel because it is part of their world. The beach ride that my characters embark upon under cover of darkness takes part on a much longer version of Norman Beach. I did the research there -- walked a good way with eyes closed in freezing water to see whether I could navigate the beach, blind, with only the feel of water on my ankles as a guide. The tracks that lead away from Normal Beach -- both to Little Oberon Bay in one direction and to Squeaky Beach in the other provided inspiration for the forests near the beach. So I go to the Prom and feel close to my characters. So here's the first four months of my "calendar trip" to the Prom:

Another island photo

This is my favourite photo from the other side of the island. I love casuarinas, and these trees feature heavily in my coastal scenes,  as as do their needles on the trails! 

Island photos

For days, I've been trying to load some images to my post on setting but to no avail. Blogger, it seemed, didn't want to visit Ithikal (the land of my novel). Finally, today, I loaded one into the original post, but it seemed silly scrolling down to put there there, so I've started a new post for that purpose. But I've left that one there -- if you want to scroll down and have a look.

Here are some that are in keeping with my characters beach ride, including the path at the end of the beach. I think bigger cliffs, less red volcanic rock (more sandstone), but with this Australian type of forest: casuarinas (oh, so coastal!), eucalypts, callistemons -- and, yes, they are flowering at the moment, beautiful red bottlebrushes everywhere, and acacias. In my novel, it's a little earlier in the year -- the acacias are out but not much else. Wilson's Prom was very much the setting I had in mind, but I haven't been back there with a digital camera in tow... Or since it was so badly burnt nearly two (?) years ago.