Source: Whatever: FIX YOUR HEARTS OR DIE (John and Athena Scalzi)

Excerpt:

Sometimes, you have to take inspiration from wherever you are. In author Athena Giles’s case, most of that inspiration came from their time in New Zealand and New Hampshire. Follow along in their Big Idea to see how the sea contributed to the creation of their new novel, Waves Take Your Bones.

ATHENA GILES:

“I wrote the opening for Waves Take Your Bones on the back of my bus ticket from Christchurch to Dunedin while solo traveling in New Zealand in 2013. Many of the early scenes were similarly written on scraps of paper, tickets, and napkins as I backpacked my way around the two islands. Minor characters and setting developed themselves while lounging in the Coromandel, heavily inspired by the landscape around me. The final scene of the book was written in the area of Shakespeare Cliff and Lonely Bay. Avoiding spoiling the ending, yes, those caves exist, and so does that rock.

Though my time in New Zealand lasted about six months and my process of writing Waves Take Your Bones took twelve years, land and seascapes remained a primary influence. As much of the setting was taken from my home in seacoast New Hampshire near the Great Bay as from the Coromandel. That classic “low tide” smell across salt marshes invokes comfort and familiarity to me more than disgust.”