BEST ENDEAVOURS
Jane Cable’s blog about what happens once that digital publishing deal is in the bag continues.
SUNDAY BEST
On Sunday I went to Studland. Not simply because I needed to, but because I wanted to. Walk where my characters walk; see what my characters see; breathe the same air.
The plot of The Seahorse Summer takes place almost exclusively in Studland Bay and the on the beaches and cliffs which surround it. Centered on the village pub (not The Bankes Arms, albeit my fictional Smugglers shares a similar position) the haunting claustrophobia of the bay echoes Marie’s world as she wonders how she will ever escape.
Having spent so long on one side of the bar in The Smugglers it felt slightly odd to sit on the either side of it in The Bankes Arms. As well as the location I’ve borrowed a few other things; the grey stone of the building itself, the basic L-shaped layout; the huge fireplace and the garden overlooking the sea. But the real pub is very much a vibrant business with its own brewery, B&B rooms and armies of staff – the poor old Smugglers could never compete, relying as it does simply on Marie’s marvelous food.
As a writer you tweak your locations to fit your story, but in the case of Studland the location is changing all by itself. The Seahorse Summer is set just twelve years ago, but all the same coastal erosion has taken its toll. My original position for Marie’s beach hut was at the bottom of a wooden staircase onto the sand not far from Fort Henry. It was there when I first visited in 2009, but not any more. The incredibly wet winter of 2012/13 caused many landslips in the area and the steps were just one of the casualties.
The beach itself is changing too, constantly with every tide. Where there were rocks under Redend Point, now there is sand. One day, the sand will disappear and the rocks will be revealed once again. Up on the cliffs the gorse is almost completely covered with brambles and ferns. The landscape outlives us all, and nature can be a powerful adversary – or ally – as Marie discovers.
The essence of Studland on a sunny Sunday remains. Pleasure boats filling the bay, children playing on the narrow strip of sand as the tide drops, the pub garden filling as lunchtime draws closer. And a writer, wandering slowly through it all, drinking it in, storing it away. Refreshed for the final assault on her editing.
Jane Cable is the author of two independently published romantic suspense novels, The Cheesemaker’s House and The Faerie Tree, and a sporadic contributor to Frost. The Seahorse Summer tells the tale of how two American soldiers born sixty years apart help forty-something Marie Johnson to rebuild her shattered confidence and find new love. Discover more at www.janecable.com.