The “Frequently Asked Questions” Videos

By
Diane Chamberlain
on April 25th, 2009 | | Comments (8)
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The contest continues! Win a vacation on Topsail Island and help me celebrate my 20 years as an author by clicking here to learn more. You may enter once a day.  

The short videos John and I made are now up on the video page of my website. I created these to address the questions I’m most frequently asked by readers as well as by aspiring writers. There are five videos, and they cover my start as a writer, where I “get my ideas” (which has to be the most frequently asked question!), how I create characters, my writing process, and advice for aspiring writers. We had a good time (mostly) putting these together. I hope you enjoy them!

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Happy Holiday!

By
Diane Chamberlain
on April 11th, 2009 | | Comments (13)

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I wish my readers who celebrate Easter or Passover a joyful time with family and friends.

My California granddaughter, CC, is in town for the festivities. She’s now fifteen months old and a smiley little thing. I gave her this little outfit and when we saw how perfectly she matched one of our dogs, Keeper, John had to whisk both of them downstairs to the studio to take their picture.  

Easter will be at our house tomorrow with lots of extended family, tons of food, and plastic eggs hidden all over the living room, some of which I’m sure I’ll be finding well into the fall.  I plan to forget about writing for 24 hours (we’ll see how that goes. . . ) and enjoy the day.

Have fun, everyone!

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While I Was Away

By
Diane Chamberlain
on February 18th, 2009 | | Comments (5)

nolan.jpgOkay, this has nothing whatsoever to do with writing, unless you count the fact that I was away on a writing retreat when this picture was taken. This is just pure grandma indulgence. While I was gone, John invited my stepdaughter and her two little boys over for a photo shoot. I love this picture of NJ, one of the three cutest grandkids in the universe. Isn’t he a star?

 

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Eating Our Way Through New Jersey

By
Diane Chamberlain
on December 17th, 2008 | | Comments (17)
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As I wait to hear on my latest book proposal, John and I decided to take a pre-holiday, visiting-relatives-trip to New York and New Jersey. It’s been great, complete with a (small) snowstorm last night. Although John grew up in Virginia, many of his relatives are on Long Island, and I lived in  New Jersey until I was twenty. Mostly, we’re eating ourselves through the two states. All really bad-for-you and totally delicious food. Lot’s of diner stuff and take-out. Why can’t North Carolina make pizza like they do in New Jersey?? I’m going to import my pizza from NJ from now on.

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Anyway, this first picture is, from left to right, my sister’s aide, Nina, my sister Joann, and me.

 

Nina’s Georgian and she just gave me a great-sounding Georgian recipe to try when I get home. If it’s a winner, I’ll share it with you. (note: Nina just walked out of the kitchen with this gigantic platter of some kind of Georgian meat blitzes she made for John and me to take back to North Carolina with us! The eating continues. . . )

I dragged John to my hometown, Plainfield, and he took this picture of me in front of St. Mary’s, the church where I practically lived as a kid. Seems like we were always in church.

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 Then we went to my great niece Joanna’s school, where her class made a presentation on Native Americans. Here she’s demonstrating a rainstick. She’s a cute girl whom I can picture someday being an actress, a writer, a scientist or president–in short, anything she wants to be. She’s amazing. 

John and I head back to North Carolina tomorrow. It’s been a great trip, but we’ll be glad to get home and back to work.

 

 

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What Do You See?

By
Diane Chamberlain
on August 20th, 2008 | | Comments (4)

see.jpgThe last time John and I were on Topsail Island, we were having dinner in a restaurant when John suddenly said, “Do you see that waitress over there? That’s Dawn.”

I figured he must mean the character Dawn in my latest book, Before the Storm. I turned to look at the waitress. She was a little chubby, about five-four, with chin-length medium brown hair and a no-nonsense demeanor.

“Dawn who?” I was perplexed.  

“In Before the Storm.”

“You’re kidding! Is that the way you picture her?”

Indeed, that was John’s image of Dawn. In my own mind, Dawn is tall and lithe, with long auburn hair and, yes, a no-nonsense demeanor that only barely masks her vulnerability.

Our conversation started me thinking about what I see as I write a book versus what my reader sees. I have such a clear image of not only each character, but each setting–every house, every room, every sand dune, every night sky. Without going overboard on detail (yawn), I try to give my reader the same vision I have. Apparently, I sometimes fail! Remember our earlier blog conversation in which some of you told me you didn’t realize The Sea Tender, the house my characters lived in, was round? You came up with your own images, and they worked for you. That’s the important thing. I think as readers, we get very attached to the images we form in our minds. That’s one reason why, when a book is made into a movie, we can have trouble making that leap from the page to film. The people and the setting may not look at all like the pictures we’ve affectionately created in our own minds.

I have a confession to make, though. In Before the Storm, there are two kitchens in The Sea Tender.  It nearly drove me crazy as I wrote the story. For example, in the scenes where Laurel tends to little Maggie’s cut hand and where the teenaged Maggie meets her illicit lover, the kitchen is in the rear of the house and overlooks the ocean. In the scenes where Laurel has post-partum depression and Sara brings over groceries for her, and the scene in which Marcus asks Laurel if she’s comfortable with him moving back to the island, the kitchen is in the front of the house. And they are completely different kitchens. This is very rare for me. Usually I get one image in my mind and it becomes so real that I can’t budge it if I try. The Sea Tender kitchen moved back and forth over time and nothing I did (including keeping a diagram of the house next to my computer) could keep it in place. I only hope my readers were able to get it to hold still.

So, are you visual readers? Do you picture each setting and each character in detail? Or do some of you see only words without images attached to them? I’m curious if different people experience books in different ways. 

Soundtrack of the day: I’m listening to the soundtrack of Blood Diamond on my iPod as I work today. Beautiful, stirring music (and an excellent movie, too).  

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Barefoot Contessa Photo Adventures

By
Diane Chamberlain
on August 12th, 2008 | | Comments (7)

I’ve taken a tiny break from the blog as I train myself in using my new Blackberry, along with Outlook, Word and a few other torturous inventions designed to move me into the twenty-first century. So while I’m doing that, I thought I’d share this video John made for Barefoot Contessa Photo Adventures, nature photography workshops he teaches along with two other photographers. John’s the workshop’s master of digital printing. I hope you enjoy it, and I’ll be back with a fresh blog post in a day or two.

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