Hi, H.C. Brown here, or Heather to my friends.
I live in paradise, yeah that’s true. How else would you describe living close to approximately a twenty-mile stretch of white sandy beaches? The climate is tropical, which means the weather is great every day…unless it’s raining. I love the beach but it took me twenty years of hard work to get here. I used to live in a drought area in a little town in the west. It’s surprising how our lives reflect how we write. Here, I’m content and my writing flows…before every paragraph was an effort.
In my personal life, I’m an International Cat Judge. This means I travel a great deal and meet heaps of very interesting people…and cats. I bred Siamese and Oriental Shorthair for thirty years and won Cat of the Year eight years in a row. I don’t own a cat now, for me with animals it’s all or nothing. I knew with writing I wouldn’t have the time to give 100% care to my animals and judge as well. Yes, I miss them….terribly…but they are all doing really well and I get to visit.
You would be surprised how many stories spring into my imagination when I’m stuck in an airport or on a long trip. Carrying a notebook for me is a must do. If I see anyone ‘interesting’ I jot down everything about them from the way they walk to how they speak. I think travelling is also a great opportunity to discover unusual names of people and places.
The other day I was watching a show on T.V. about people solving problems when dreaming. It was interesting because most of my stories evolve from an idea that triggers a dream. Although *sigh* the heroes in my stories have remained elusive. This of course becomes a problem for me when I’m writing mystery stories. I usually write about a female P.I. who usually solves a murder, which personally, I don’t enjoy dreaming about. There are many authors writing about Vampires at present. I’m finding that to write a different Vamp story I had to make quite a few decisions.
Firstly, do they go out in the sun? Well that problem limits the chance of finding a love interest and keeping them in the dark. Do they suck human blood or the local cow? If they suck human blood, will the love interest mind/ offer herself/ run like hell? Do they rip people to shreds or are they just nice guys who suck blood? Then, on the other hand will they be cold as ice, sleep in coffins or be rich and famous and have their own heated tomb? The cold skin bothers me slightly… I like my men hot. :-)
Writing Paranormal and Fantasy to me is bliss, it offers me total freedom of thought that writing a Historical Romance does not. Although, I love the old language and the period way of speaking comes into my head when writing…it’s a shame the research is so difficult for no matter how much you do, someone finds an error. I write every day, because I want to, need to. I have four manuscripts in progress and ten completed awaiting edits. I started High School in London U.K. when I was eleven years old, we were divided up into four house groups, Science, Mathematics, Literature and Commerce each had a name of a famous person. They put me in Jane Austen House…well for once in my life someone got it right.
Warm Regards,
Heather
