Writing in Paradise
Writing in Paradise
Award-winning author Marcia Talley writes the Hannah Ives series. She's working on her next novel, "Dead Man Dancing," and sent us this guest blog from the Bahamas.
My friend, mystery novelist Elaine Viets who lives there, says that Ft. Lauderdale is the farthest south you can live and still get some meaningful work done. I’ve checked the maps, and my present location in the Bahamas, 26 degrees 35.51 North, 77 degrees 00.36 West to be precise, is exactly 28 minutes of latitude – approximately 32 miles – north of Elaine’s condo in Lauderdale, so as a novelist, I figure I’m safe, but it’s not always easy writing while living in paradise.
We’re in a rented house on Dickie’s Cay, a tiny strip of land in the Abacos that forms the harbor that protects Man-o-War Cay, a settlement of boat-builders and church-going people with a year-round population of approximately 150. There’s a hardware store – "if we
don’t have it, you don’t need it" – where items that went on the shelf twenty years ago are still for sale, with their original price tags. There’s one sit-down restaurant – "best hamburgers in the world at the Hibiscus," my husband says, a couple of gift shops, a sailmaker’s shop where four ladies sit at ancient sewing machines turning out the most beautiful and practical canvas bags, and two groceries that don’t sell cigarettes or booze. No law against it, they simply don’t.
Albury’s Harbour Market, where I shop, is the size of your average two-car garage, but I can’t think of anything that Phyllis doesn’t have – even half-and-half! – in that tiny, neat-as-a-pin store. I shop, she puts it on our tab, and we pay up at the end of the month. With a tab, I feel like I really belong.
There are no ATMs, the bank is open on Tuesdays from 10 to 2, and few cars. Rush hour is two golf carts meeting on The Queen’s Highway, an eight-foot-wide strip of concrete that bisects the narrow island.
There are no roads where we are on Dickie’s Cay, and our family car is an Avon dinghy. To go shopping or to eat out, we walk out to the end of the pier, climb down a wooden ladder, fire up the outboard and putt-putt across to Man-o-War.
On the porch of "Tradewinds" where I’m sitting right now riding a rogue wireless signal (thank you, whoever you are!) I’m finishing up my next Hannah novel, "Dead Man Dancing," drinking a cup of coffee, and watching the sun come up. Just a few minutes ago, the first boat of the day motored by, filled with Haitians from Marsh Harbour who come here to work building boats and houses, doing yard work, anything to earn a few dollars to send back to their families in
Haiti. They are a friendly, hard-working people who often spend their lunch hours reading passages from the Bible aloud, and seem delighted when I speak to them in my passable French.
I’ve adopted a cat, Dickie, who showed up one day so hungry that he ate plain, cold spaghetti and bits of garlic bread. We don’t know what happened to his family, but he may be a boat cat who fell overboard and swam ashore. We’re feeding him to help protect the local bird population. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
And speaking of birds, as I was writing yesterday a hummingbird whizzed by like a giant wasp, reversed suddenly and hovered just two feet in front of my face, wings a blur. I’d seen hummingbirds visiting the yellow flowers on the oleander in the garden, but I couldn’t figure out
what drew this little fellow to me, until I realized that on his side of my computer screen there is a brightly-lit white apple.
A sudden rainstorm followed by a rainbow, a sunset that sets the horizon ablaze, a tiger cat purring for the first time in who knows how long nestled against my side, and a hummingbird seriously checking me out. As I said, there are distractions while working in paradise, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Rock on, Marcia. You found paradise.
Posted by: mary alice at mystery lovers bookshop | February 02, 2008 at 12:25 AM
Can I come play there?
Posted by: Lynn | February 02, 2008 at 05:25 AM
That's it...I'm moving...:)
Posted by: William Simon | February 02, 2008 at 07:11 AM
Hi, Mary Alice! Looking forward to seeing you at the Festival of Mystery in April.
Posted by: Marcia Talley | February 02, 2008 at 07:12 AM
How many guest rooms, Marcia? (If you're smart---none, but here's hoping!) Gad, it sounds marvelous.
Do you really get any writing done??
Posted by: Nancy Martin | February 02, 2008 at 07:55 AM
Interesting how the Bahamians handle guest rooms. We've got a main house with a large living/dining/kitchen area, with two bedrooms and a bath in between. This is the basic house. When you need another bedroom, you simply build another little house which is called a "snore box." We have two snore boxes -- the "Bunkhouse" that sleeps two (a corner of the bunkhouse is my office), and a darling cottage on pilings that is cantilevered out over the Sea of Abaco and also sleeps two. All houses and boats have names, so we live in "Tradewinds" and watch the sun go down on the deck of "The Lookout."
Took some coffee down to the end of the dock early this morning to watch the sun come up. Water flat, smooth and transparent as glass. A spotted eagle ray swam by. Otherwise, all is quiet.
And believe it or not, I wrote two pages before breakfast!
Posted by: Marcia Talley | February 02, 2008 at 08:30 AM
Marcia, you are a good friend, but this blog is really stretching the limits of our friendship. I'll admit it. I'm jealous. Or is that envious? Where's a copyeditor when I need one?
Posted by: Elaine Viets | February 02, 2008 at 08:34 AM
Sounds idyllic. Bravo for finding a place where you can actually write.
I think we need a "snore box" around here, and not for guests!
Posted by: Karen in Ohio | February 02, 2008 at 08:36 AM
Elaine, I'm a copyeditor! It's envious.
You're welcome. ;-)
Posted by: Karen in Ohio | February 02, 2008 at 08:37 AM
Elaine, I was afraid that posting about writing in paradise was going to strain some long-standing friendships. LOL. It's like losing twenty pounds and trying to find someone in this Super-Size-Me era that you can brag to about it. [Big grin]
Posted by: Marcia Talley | February 02, 2008 at 09:03 AM
Yes, and that's another thing, Marcia -- you don't NEED to lose 20 pounds. I want to come there too.
We have a tiny, overpriced market in our tiny town of Topanga, but I'm scared to eat anything that comes in a box, as I'm not sure twenty-year old Toblerone milk chocolates are safe. But in the Bahamas, I'd eat them.
Posted by: Harley | February 02, 2008 at 09:12 AM
Offtopic -- Someone wrote a few days ago about her 300 sq. ft. house, which I thought was a typo (I certainly make plenty of those). Then I saw an article in AARP Bulletin about "Home Bigger Than a Breadbox? Just Barely" and checked out http://www.resourcesforlife.com/groups/smallhousesociety/
and http://www.littlegreenbuildings.com/
Now I'm even more curious. Can a couple really live in 300 sq.ft.? What would you do with all your "stuff"? Thoreau would be proud of you, I'm sure.
Posted by: Mary Storyteller | February 02, 2008 at 09:34 AM
Marcia -- and you're trying to work in this paradise exactly why?? I plan to live in the Caribbean someday but I don't plan to get anything done there. Thanks for the glimpse of heaven. Don't be surprised if I turn up on your doorstep.
Posted by: michele | February 02, 2008 at 09:56 AM
I hate you so much, Marcia.
Okay, not really. Sounds wonderful. Thanks for sharing that bit of paradise with us.
Posted by: J.D. Rhoades | February 02, 2008 at 10:30 AM
Elaine, what are you bitching about? You're in FL.! It just took me 15 minutes to haul a 50 lb. wheeled trash can up the drive, thru 8 inches of snow! I'll pass on the Mardis Gras parade in Soulard today. brrrrr
Marcia, it sounds absolutely beautiful. Enjoy it for me.
Elaine, sounds like Dickie cat needs some catnip for entertainment! LOL
Posted by: Rita Scott | February 02, 2008 at 11:15 AM
Marcia, I don't care where you are girl, just keep on writing and I'm happy. When will your next Hannah Ives book be available?
Posted by: Annette | February 02, 2008 at 11:55 AM
Rita, maybe Mardi Gras next year. I'm going over to make commitments to a house, my health will benefit, I'm sure, from not having smoke come through the walls from condo neighbors, plus I'm going to have no carpeting, and it's right next to the Y. I'm hoping proximity will lead me to exercise more (just as when I taught at Barnwell, driving by the Dairy Queen would suck me in). Somehow, though, today I wish I were building a house in paradise instead . . .
Posted by: Mary Storyteller | February 02, 2008 at 12:53 PM
Harley, Toblerone is Swiss. If you can't trust the Swiss for immortal brown gold, who ya gonna trust (Toblerone is the only chocolate known to lose no more than 1.5 seconds per year)?
Marcia, Dickie mom is named Nora. In fact, I thought he *was* Nora when I first saw his picture. The sudden appearance from nowhere is a family trait.
Nora was waiting on our front porch in STL one frigid night when we'd come home from a dance on The Admiral - we thought she was one of our feline troop who'd wriggled out somehow. Imagine our surprise when we saw her inside in stronger light and said, " - Uhh, wtf? Who's this? This isn't a Maine Coon!"
She stayed with us until the circus came into port on the riverfront . . . but that's another story.
Posted by: Tom | February 02, 2008 at 03:04 PM
Sounds like heaven... I wanna go there!
Posted by: ArkansasCyndi | February 02, 2008 at 04:06 PM
Well, another joy of paradise is that the internet signal can go down for no particular reason, usually because the electricity is off. Then the guys from BEC (Bahamian Electric Co) show up 1) at Island Treats for sandwiches, then 2) go down to the point where the electric cable comes over from Marsh Harbour 4 miles away where, 3) they fix the break with duct tape (or something that looks very much like it.) We're back up now, refrigerator running (yay!) and my husband and I thinking that what we REALLY need to do is buy the house we're renting a generator as a gift. [grin]
And Harley, my sister-in-law came to visit bearing seven gourmet candy bars she'd bought at Central Market in Austin. We end every dinner here with red wine and a candy bar. Yuuuumm.
Posted by: Marcia Talley | February 02, 2008 at 05:25 PM
Hi, Rita. The next Hannah mystery is Dead Man Dancing and it'll be my first hardcover. Pub. date is October, just in time for B'con. Hannah gets involved in the world of competitive ballroom dancing. I've had a ball writing it. [ducking now]
Posted by: Marcia Talley | February 02, 2008 at 05:38 PM
Marcia!
So great to hear from you, even though I am jealous too.
Thanks for visiting TLC - see you at the MLB Festival in a couple of months. You will be the glowing, well-rested one of the group!
Posted by: Kathy Reschini Sweeney | February 03, 2008 at 07:35 AM
Very cool cat. Did he come with the room, like at one of those motels where you get your own pet?
Posted by: JudyinBoston | February 03, 2008 at 03:27 PM