The perfect environment to write your first novel - Princess Cruises

So, what does it take to write a novel? While I may not be an expert I can at least share the experience from the perspective of someone who has done it before. I can't promise these tips will work for you, but they might.

Since a young boy I have always wanted to write but as we all know things during your life seem to get put in your way. In a large majority of cases the biggest need in life is to make a living to support a lifestyle that usually entails marriage, mortgage then children, not necessarily in that order.  In my life, so far, there has never seemed to be the right moment to realise my dream, this may be the case for you too. Spare time outside our working hours is greedily taken up by what we generally call maintenance of our family and home which usually entails; taking our kids to their sporting actives on the weekend, helping our partner with the house cleaning and shopping plus the garden is always crying out for more attention.  This maintenance often appears to be a bottomless pit!

It wasn't until I decided to take a cruise sailing out of Fremantle on Princess Cruises Sun Princess with my beautiful wife Christine, some 3 years ago, that it became obvious, after the first day onboard, that this would be the perfect place to start my writing.

Why is a Princes Cruise the right environment, you may ask?

Once you step onboard a Princess Cruise voyage, to coin the phrase used in Princess Cruises promotional material, you escape completely. It is a promise they don't fail to deliver.  You have a well appointed Stateroom with first class service from your friendly and knowable steward who keeps your cabin in tip top shape. You are free from all the day to day demands of life. On board your Princess cruise life is made so very easy for you. The Horizon Court buffet will welcome you 24 hours of the day and is a haven for all tastes. There are four set meal times for you - breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea and of course dinner.  Even the fussiest eater will find a wide range of food to their taste.  When it comes to washing clothes, not a problem – just give them to your cabin steward and the next day you will have them back sparkling clean and pressed. No meals to think about or prepare no washing to do – what to do with this spare time, indulge in your passion and start writing!

There are many places onboard to start your writing. You can sit out on your balcony, head off to the library, a public room, or onto the Promenade deck and grab a deck chair. There are many places onboard where you can find a quiet corner to sit and contemplate where to start the process of writing your first novel. Here are a few tips.

Plotting – What better place to begin than incorporating your story line around the cruise you are on. Some writers plot out every twist and turn beforehand and some people just write. Although I've always been a 'write first and think later' kind of author, I'm slowly coming to appreciate having a detailed outline to work from. One reason is because I now write to deadlines. Writing to a plot keeps me on track.

Characters – Again cruising is a great place to just sit and 'people watch'.  Building your story through the use of many interesting characters you see from the crew and of course the passenger list can be the beginnings of a good read.  I have 'good' and 'evil' characters in my novels. The conflict this generates is more than enough to escalate things to a satisfactory climax and conclusion. I don't spend too much time developing bit players, unless they become more important during the writing. If someone's only going to appear in your book for one paragraph, treat them like a piece of furniture. Also, try and limit the number of characters.

Scenes -  Are the story units, and there are one or more of these per chapter. Again what is happing around you every day will help you. Take the many interesting ports of call. In my case South East Asia. Your Scenes can be built around your characters activities in these exotic ports.  

Bangkok. Temples with gold leaf spires harbor priceless Buddha's. Riverboat trips down a maze of canals.

Ho Chi Minh City. Clouded in history.  Over three decades have passed since the fall of Saigon. Now it is a bustling metropolis on the Mekong River. The air is filled with the cries of street hawkers and honking horns.

Kuala Lumpur. Is a melting pot of Malays, Chinese, Arabs, Hindus, Eurasians and Europeans.  A place where steel and glass towers stand side by side with graceful stone colonial buildings and mosques adorned with slender minarets.

Sihanoukville, Cambodia. Pristine beaches and crystalline waters with some of the finest big game fishing in the world.

Singapore. The very name summons visions of the mysterious East. Buddhist temples and Arab bazaars await you with some of the finest duty free shopping in the world.

I can go on and on. These ports will make a wonderful backdrop for your story as you will experience them yourself first hand. You also have the facility of the internet on board to do any further research for your book.

Revisions - Don't bother…finish writing the book. You will have plenty of time for improvements later, and it's easy to kill a book by being too critical during the writing process. You're not trying to produce finished work at this stage - remember, by the time a major publisher releases a book it's been through several drafts and has also had input from a professional editor and a proof reader. Think of your first draft as a block of raw material, from which you will chip your finished work. Throw everything into it! Don't worry about inconsistencies and dead ends they can be trimmed out afterwards.

A Princess cruise has everything in place for you to write your first novel whether you use the cruise as a backdrop or not.  If you look around you onboard you will see nearly everyone has a book in their hands and during the daylight hours are buried in it.

What a thrill I got on our last cruise when Christine, who had been watching the city skyline of Singapore pass by, caught a passenger more interested in reading their book. On closer inspection she found it was my novel Butterfly in a Glass Bottle being read!

Why not book a cruise and follow in my footsteps and start writing.  I am onto my second book and yes I am using all the characters and experiences I gathered from my previous cruises.