Apologies, I can’t get the typeface right for the heading and name of the location.. Drat.. I’ve got so much to learn about blogging and Poland and.. everything.. Why do I make life so tough all the time? Don’t answer that.
In ‘Bags’, the parents of the family spend time working in Gdansk in early 1970’s. Why? I don’t mean, ‘Why did they?’, I know the answer to that, I mean why on earth did I choose that location? I know nothing of Poland, let alone that city. Write what you know. I’m sure if I had more money and liked travelling alone more, I’d visit the place and be able to write about it better, but I’ll never be able to visit it in the 1970’s, as an English lecturer with his young wife carrying all their baggage of life. I have no idea how I’m going to make that part of the novel realistic.
When the 17,000 shipbuilders in Gdansk went on strike, the world knew about it, well, I heard about it as a university undergraduate, the images are still very strong in my mind. Not understanding what was going on, it intrigued me and I was mesmerised by Lech Walesa’s presence.
Ok, here’s how I’m going to do it.. one step at a time and I mean little teeny weeny steps.. I need to get my timeline sorted first.. I’m determined to keep Gdansk as a location in the novel. I want my characters to live their lives in what will later become a world reknown location but they’re just getting on with life and little realisation of what’s happening around them. Have I bitten off more than I can chew? (I need more cliche’s in my writing;). Probably.
If you have personal experience of Gdansk feel free to get in touch to help my location seem as real as I want it to.
Do you pick ‘easy’ locations for your novels or do you find yourself with grit and toil along the way?
My AtoZchallenge posts are about writing, parts of my novels or some research I need to do for them. I’m not allowing myself to write about anything other than topics linked to the books, my books. The current titles that I’m writing about are ‘Bags’, ‘Holiday stories’ and ‘Dream Gardener’.
lynnelives 