11 February, 2012

Selkies scrapbooks



Here's the first of three scrapbooks (link is to the Flickr set) I made when I was writing Sea Hearts/The Brides of Rollrock Island.



Here's the second scrapbook.



And here's the third.

And here's all three of them in the one set.

Updated: Wendy Orr mentions the scrapbooks, and talks about visual aides-memoires, over at her blog.
But the best images of all are the ones that capture the mood you're looking for for this story, that lead you into the emotions that your characters are feeling. It can be the colours of a sunset, the expression on a face, the flip of a pony tail... there are no rules. You'll know when you find the images of the clues that'll help you dive deeper and focus more sharply in the world you've created.

4 Comments:

Blogger Sycorax said...

Oh, beautiful. I finished 'Sea Hearts' a few days ago. I have always been fascinated by the story of the Selkie wife - eerily beautiful yet simultaneously terrible - and so I was thrilled when I heard you where exploring it. The copy I read is from the library, but ‘Sea Hearts’ is definitely a book I need to own, reread and lend. I’m looking forward to seeing you in Better Read than Dead in a few weeks.

11 February, 2012 14:45  
Blogger A mermaid in the attic said...

Lovely to see these, a glimpse into the way a writer finds inspiration. And I was oddly comforted to see they were 'real' scrapbooks, not online ones...I suppose because I can imagine them sitting stacked up on an old wooden desk, among notebooks and pens. I have foolishly romantic notions about writer's lives, I know ;-)

11 February, 2012 17:44  
Blogger Among Amid While said...

Sycorax: Yes, it's that combination of beauty and unavoidable loss that I've always found ... compelling, I'll say, rather than attractive, about selkie tales. I'm glad you liked Sea Hearts, and the fact that you want to own and reread it is wonderful! See you in Newtown!

Mermaid: Oh yes,a proper scrapbook needs to smell of glue, get tatty with use at the edges and fall apart at the spine from the sheer weight of real paper pictures! (You got it right; some of us writers are still fond of the old (lack of) technology.) My desk isn't old, but it is wooden. See over here for a pic: http://www.gabriellewang.com/archives/margo-lanagan-on-writing/#more-5308

12 February, 2012 09:12  
Blogger Pam Pho said...

Wow, love this.

12 February, 2012 09:17  

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