Winter has reared its ugly head here in the Canadian Prairies, and it got me thinking about when I started writing Scarlet Skies.
As I write this, the temperature is sitting around -20C, which is -4F for those who don’t use Celsius, and it is only going to get colder as the week goes on. When I first started writing this draft it was Nanowrimo 2022 and it was freezing! And if memory serves me right it only got colder as we moved into December. Christmas that year was bitterly cold.
Why is this important? Because the weather I was facing at the time I started writing helped dictate the setting of what was supposed to be just a little novella, and now is a full-length novel, the first in a series (coming out Spring 2024!!).
I was so cold as I sat at my computer, shivering and wrapped in blankets, the hot cup of tea quickly growing cold at my side. All I wanted at that time was to be somewhere warm, where the sun was shining warmed the sand as it met the ocean’s waves.
And there was my setting.
Scarlet Skies takes place in a much more tropical setting than the Canadian Prairies, simply because I was cold when I started planning and writing.
I started researching places that were hot during the Canadian winter – half research for the book and half daydreaming about travelling to these places to escape the winter blues.
Tahiti, Hawaii, Bahamas, Greece (because 15C is a heck of a lot nice than -25C in January), Mexico, Peru, anywhere that was decidedly different from the snowstorms outside my door. And I found my settings, at least very loose inspirations.
Scarlet Skies #1 is based on The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen. My story takes place in tropical waters of a world like earth, but one where mermaids, dragons, shapeshifters, fairies and magic all live alongside humans. The mermaid kingdom is deep below the waters surface, and I know it gets cold deep underwater, but I would rather be swimming with rays and fish and exploring coral reefs than trudging through snow and ice. The human kingdom, the first that we meet in the series, is not based on anyone place in our world. There are elements from various places that build the world. White sand beaches from Costa Rica, sun-dried clay houses inspired by Greece, fishing in Thailand, farming from the world over.
As my world outside the door turns colder, I am excited to dive back into Scarlet Skies #1 and begin my edits in earnest. I have a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it.
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