Slideshow

...about The Sands of Santa Rosa.


I’m about half-way through what I hope will be the final edit of The Sands of Santa Rosa. And I decided to do something I’ve not done before: give folks a glimmer into how one of my stories came to be. (That’s assuming, of course, that anyone has any interest in knowing.)

Last year when I attended the Pierre Chastain Family Association Reunion in Dalton, Georgia (my hometown), several of my Chastain relatives I met there asked why none of my books featured a Chastain character. I decided that the main character of my next novel would be a Chastain.

And in October, with the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico being a main topic of conversation here on the Gulf Coast, a cousin’s husband off-handedly said I should write a novel about an oil spill.

Ok, I thought. I’ll do that.

NaNoWriMo was looming, and I already had a character (Tilmon Lamont “Cotton” Chastain) and a setting/situation (oil spill in the Gulf). Now I needed a title.

Folks around here have told me they like reading the stories that are set in our local area, and On Berryhill Road is my best seller at festivals and book signings. So, I wanted a title that would anchor the story here. Since Santa Rosa Island is our barrier island fronting the Gulf, I thought it would be nice to use “Santa Rosa” as part of the title, and since the beach sands are impacted by things like oil spills, the title became The Sands of Santa Rosa.

All cut and dried and ready to go, right? Um, not so fast.

As usually happens when I write, what happens in my stories surprises me more than my readers. And this story was no exception.

I had a character, I had a setting/situation, and I had a title that I THOUGHT I knew the meaning of. But I was wrong.

As I wrote a scene where I followed Cotton Chastain onto the Santa Rosa Island beach at Navarre, suddenly, out of nowhere, a little girl popped up and said to him, “What you doing, mister?”

The little girl’s name? Sara Sands.


9 comments:

lynnmosher said...

YAY! Way to go, Tommie Lyn! You are a fast one, aren't you? May it do well! :D

Tommie Lyn said...

Thanks, Lynn.

And I wish Mama could have heard someone say I was fast at something. She always said I moved as "slow as molasses at Christmas," and that I was born in low gear and never shifted into high, LOL.

Connie Chastain said...

She pulled that on you, too? The nickname she gave me, starting about age 10 on until my 50s, was "Myrtle the Turtle."

Congrats on making a blog post. Now I guess I'll have to make one....

Li'l Bub

Tommie Lyn said...

Yep, I guess neither of us was up to her speed.

And I'll be looking for that blog post....

Big Bub

Dana said...

And what would your mom have said about your penchant for violence, I wonder? LOL. But you are fast =-)

Sheila Hollinghead said...

Of course I want to know how book ideas are born! Sounds interesting.

Thanks for sharing!

Tommie Lyn said...

@Dana - Where do you think I got my love of mysteries? And of course a mystery usually involves violence of one kind or another, LOL. Mama loved Nero Wolfe, Agatha Christie and others...and I do, too.

@Sheila - I hope it was interesting for you...I always enjoy reading how writers go about developing their stories.

Samantha Fury said...

I do wish I could pump the books out like you do. Thanks for sharing it's always interesting to know how someone starts a great novel.

Samantha

Tommie Lyn said...

Thanks, Jacks...but, actually, you've written a lot of stories, way more than I have.