Hi there, guys and dolls!  For those of you who are familiar with my Poppy Cove Mysteries, you know I’m the kind of girl who loves detail.  I love time, place and atmosphere.  They are practically their own characters in my tales.  I encourage my friends and readers to create their own picture show in their minds of Daphne, Margot and the rest of the Santa Lucia set, but I can’t help but get absorbed and express what my girls Andrea and Heather see as they talk and type.

The town, the people and especially the clothes create hours of discussion, quite often while listening to jazz and flipping through pictures of the era and of the region, and sometimes while imbibing over a glass of wine or two, writing notes, really bad quick sketches and gesticulating wildly when one of their imaginations carry them to the point where it seems that what they’re describing must have of still does exist, or for goodness sake, should be created.

As the stories go from concept to the written word, they describe the rooms, the weather, the garments verbally out loud, sometimes both girls talking at once.  They layer descriptions of the rooms, textures of the garments or physical characteristics of the people or places, scribbling madly to capture the thoughts as they emerge.   For inspiration, they flip through pages of magazines, recollect memories of people and places, peruse old photos and a great movie or two.

Friends, one thing I have learned from creating these vignettes, never underestimate the power of daydreams.  Your next visit to your happy place may be the beginning of a beautiful story.

Toodles,

Barbara Jean