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Imagine spending your Christmas holiday on a canal boat, floating every so slowly on waterways across the U.K. Fairy lights strung across deck. Swans paddling by. It sounds perfect to me! Wanting to place one of my novel’s characters on a canal boat led to research about these tranquil vessels that have stood the test of time. Buoyant narrowboats originally served as a transport chain, delivering cargo from coastal ports to retailers across the U.K. Many were drawn along the shallow channels by horses strolling the towpath. Then came steam and diesel engines, putting the mellow beasts out to pasture. You can glimpse a lovely horse named Bilbo Baggins still carrying on the canal boat towpath tradition in the video below: An extensive railway network eventually led canal boats to a new use: residential digs and holiday lettings. When housing prices peaked, people willingly settled into a spartan lifestyle on the seven-foot wide boats, permanently docked in urban-based canals. Leisure cruising can also be had on these colorful boats, bobbing along the waterways through a series of self-run locks, swing bridges, and low tunnels. Leisure narrowboats offer all the modern amenities while tugging nostalgically on our heartstrings, beckoning us to a slower-paced holiday. While I continue on my own journey to a minimalist lifestyle, I wonder if I could find serenity on a tiny, brightly-painted narrowboat. I’m more than willing to give it a try on my next visit abroad!  Image courtesy of FreeImages.com I faced that thick wall known as “writer’s block” for about three months. It was undeniable. Insurmountable. Dreadful. Then chance favored me with inspiration.
Ages ago, I signed up to receive various newsletters that monitor historical discoveries and the black market trade of cultural antiquities. The topic is endlessly fascinating and allows me to peek at stunning art and historical relics from around the globe. One of these newsletters is where I stumbled upon the Caratacus Gold Stater. This ancient (AD 40-41), one-of-a-kind coin was recently discovered in England by a metal detectorist. Estimated value: £50,000. It doesn’t get more inspiring than that! Caratacus was a tribal leader based in Wales who fought against Roman invaders. He was very successful, yet so popular that when he was finally captured, the Roman emperor spared his life and allowed him to settle in as a well-hailed guest in Rome. (Is this where the saying 'Keep your friends close, your enemies closer' comes from?) This tiny, recently discovered relic of a coin catapulted me over that wall of writer’s block. You’ll find Caratacus gold launching murder and mayhem in my fourth novel, The Nighthawk’s Nemesis. My fanbase knows that the police Incident Room is relocated in every Barrington Bay story. It has hopped from an abandoned fish warehouse to a shuttered bank, then to a vacant chandler shop, and now—in The Nighthawk’s Nemesis—to a disused funeral parlor. Apropos for an All Hallows' Eve blog, don’t you think? This newest setting for the Incident Room launched my research into funeral homes and burials which invariably led to grave robbing. Ugh! Memories of the 1945 horror film The Body Snatcher still make me shudder. The film was based upon the Burke and Hare murders undertaken in Scotland as a way of obtaining fresh corpses (and put to ink by Scotland’s author Robert Louis Stevenson). The film showcases some of classic horror’s greatest talents: Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. Turns out that ghastly grave robbers were predominately hired by medical colleges to obtain cadavers for anatomy lessons. Students needed to practice somewhere, and the dead never complained. Their families certainly did, though! The grave robbing practice eventually led to riots by families and friends of the dearly departed. Thanks to their vocal and often violent protests, the practice was eventually banned.
Working in an abandoned funeral parlor where the unburied once festered, is it any wonder that our highly imaginative Sergeant Paul Albright has a bad case of the heebie-jeebies? When I am not caught up in writing an exciting scene in one of my novels, I am working in an IB (international baccalaureate) school. We come thundering back to campus in early August. While many are still kicking up sand on the beach, our summer has ended. We are already back-to-school.
Every adult can still recall the excitement found in the first days of school. The smell of a new pink eraser, lining up colored pencils with never-used points that promise a rainbow of fun, placing crisp sheets of paper in glossy folders, and wearing the newest, coolest jeans. We are sluiced with the thrilling anticipation of what might just happen tomorrow. We hunger for the unknown found in each new classroom. The flip side—plenty of strangers, getting lost in the halls, sitting alone at lunch—is best forgotten; a memory we all deny yet share. When I was a child, my family had the tendency to move. One of the places we called home was a stretch of land in an agrarian community named Caledonia. At the time, I had no idea that “Caledonia” is Latin for “Scotland.” Nor was I aware that this region had been settled by U.K. immigrants. Unknowingly steeped in that sovereign nation’s culture, I learned every lyric of “Drunken Sailor,” "Nut Brown Maiden" and “The Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond” in school. Our neighbors spoke of banshees in the gloaming and selkies in the sea. The library stacked Brontë, Burns, and Dahl beneath highland landscapes trapped in ornate frames. Heck, I thought every American parade featured old men wearing wild skirts and blurting bagpipes.
We moved. The deep snows of northern Wisconsin froze out those lush childhood memories. The turbulent echoes of the Vietnam War eroded such bucolic images from my heart. “Blackbird singing in the dead of night, -- Paul James McCartney I grew up surrounded by Red-winged Blackbirds that would flock over tilled fields each spring and then returned to bent, barren corn stalks in the fall. Their endless songs, echoing across farmland in the gloaming, would carry me off to sleep and just as often wake me in the morning. It’s early April. The spring migration is in full force. Birds course along the edge of Lake Michigan, heading north. The call of Red-winged Blackbirds again fills my mornings with dewy memories and delight. It is a bird watcher’s heaven. It is also incredibly appropriate, since I am penning my fourth cozy mystery, The Nighthawk’s Nemesis. The story is woven around bird watchers—twitchers, as they are called in the UK. As usual, I’m knee deep in research as I begin a new novel. I am studying ornithology, birder’s slang, and the stunning migration along England’s coast. It is made all the more fascinating by the actual spring migration that hovers over my own head in Wisconsin. In that recent research, I have learned that a group of chickens is a peep, a group of owls is a parliament, a group of larks is an exaltation, and a group of blackbirds…a murder. How terribly appropriate.  Image courtesy of FreeImages.com Dance revivalists? Oh, yes. Our Victory Service Club hosts marvelous wartime gatherings for both dancers and promenaders—those in darling vintage clothing who stroll along the sidelines. They are quite different from the lads who engage in actual reenactments. They don’t mind getting their gear dirty. Indeed, the rougher the bunker conditions the better! There has been an astounding growth in interest in World War I and II. People want to recall a time when Britons did something important; it's a sort of collective pride. Of course, the war period is heavily romanticized these days. Everyone focuses on the music which was filled with lyrics of longing. Then there are the televised shows with antique cars and retro dresses which gloss over the horror of war and the lives lost. Still, it keeps our history alive, if somewhat warped. -- Excerpt from The Tide Turns |
Welcome!This blog is where I post my inspirations for each book in the Barrington Bay series as well as behind-the-scenes tips, pics, and other tidbits. Feel free to click 'Read More' for in-depth posts. Archives
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