Here we are in the great outdoors 🙂 A quiet, peaceful little camping spot.
Thanks to Jenn J McLeod for stopping by my blog and sharing with us her thoughts about writing, life on the road and the release of her new book, The Other Side of the Season.
Picture this—life on the road:
No deadlines.
No pressures.
No problems.
Just wake up in the morning after a great night’s sleep, have a stretch and a yawn, and mull over a moreish brekkie of camp-fire cooked bacon, eggs and damper about which way to point the caravan today.
Sounds perfect, yeah?
Perfect fiction, maybe!
Almost two years of being gypsies, my partner and I are still trying to fit into the rhythm of life on the road and still meet publishing deadlines. We have no regrets, we haven’t killed each other—yet, nor have I missed a deadline—yet, and there’s been no Thelma and Louise moments either (*touch wood*), but there are things I wish we’d known before setting out, like how hard it would be to sleep when you can hear everything from boxing kangaroos fighting over territory to cows chewing their cuds. And let me tell you, the pitter-patter of rain on a tin roof might be lovely in a house. Sheeting rain, gale-force winds, thunder and lightning is the only time I miss the safety of bricks and mortar. Then there are things like:
“Umm,” I reply, “Only if you have room in that workshop for two people (including one a crazy writer) and a one-eyed dude-dog called Daiquiri who thinks she’s a Great Dane.”
The final thing I wish someone had told me earlier was to get out there and give it a go. What an incredibly positive influence the camping/caravanning life is having on my writing. Not only am I seeing and hearing and sensing things I’m sure I never noticed in the city, everything is clearer, crisper, and more colourful. My senses are in overload and they are inspiring lots of new stories.
So, yeah, the gypsy life has its charms and its qualms and life is now full of compromises—something my characters have to come to terms with in The Other Side of the Season.
Come to think of it, just about everyone in this book is having to compromise in some way in order to learn and grow.
So, yes, compromises are a fact of life (and, it seems, of fiction).
Book information and BUY links – www.jennjmcleod.com/book-room
Connect with Jenn on Facebook www.facebook.com/jennjmcleod.books and Twitter @jennjmcleod or join in the discussion at Readers of Jenn J McLeod Facebook group (no cat memes allowed!)