Like so many books, The Pleasure Trip underwent a serious evolution between initial concept and finalized story. I’d had the idea of two sister heroines rattling around in my brain for about six months before I actually wrote the proposal chapters for the story, but when they first entered my consciousness, I assumed each was the heroine of her own book. I like the idea of juxtaposing personalities and seeing the way different types of characters walk out of similar situations and upbringings, so I was interested in listening to Rita (the grounded, hyper practical one) and Jayne (the starry-eyed dreamer) talk about their varying views in the competitive world of glitzy stage shows.

Initially, I thought their stories would take place in Las Vegas, the mecca of elaborate shows with a risque edge. But my editor encouraged me to think outside the box with my setting until I came up with the idea to set the story on a cruise ship. A cruise liner setting appealed to me immediately because it maintained the vacation mentality we associate with Las Vegas where visitors take risks and gamble with their hearts as well as their wallets. But the ship setting added a new element of small community that we don’t necessarily get with Las Vegas, and I really liked the idea of the ship’s personnel being a bonded group who knew one another’s business. By now I’d started to realize that I needed a bigger book to fully develop the more unique setting and it became apparent that my heroines could share a book to help contrast their approaches to life.

I had a handful of chapters written for The Pleasure Trip before I realized two things. One, my hero wasn’t just a resort owner but an FBI agent at a point of change in his life. And two, I really needed to take a cruise to do the book justice. These were major changes in my writing schedule since I don’t usually allot for vacations in the middle of writing a book and I haven’t done a huge amount of suspense writing. I knew I didn’t want any deep and dark suspense plots for the story since I don’t write gut wrenching drama or edge-of-your-seat suspense. I like fun, escapist stories with occasional sticky emotional quagmires that force my characters to re-evaluate and– ideally– grow. A light suspense plot could help act as a crucible for characters who were very adept at reacting to life in certain ways that had worked well for them in the past. Suspense elements can shake characters out of their comfort zones when their old reactions to the world no longer work.

The Journey

Now the fun begins. Not only am I knee-deep in writing my story, but I have to take a Caribbean vacation (not exactly a chore, but definitely an additional research timeframe I hadn’t expected) and I need to research my suspense elements. Fortunately, my husband was all over the idea of us taking a cruise. He’s a fun-loving Aries and I’m a driven Virgo who doesn’t take much time away from work. This was only going to be a quick trip so I could see what the boarding and debarkation processes were like in real life, but my husband planned to make sure we squeezed every moment of fun we could out of our trip.

If you’ve been on a cruise before, you already know it’s the ideal setting for someone who wants to have a good time at every waking moment. There is an activity calendar every day so you can plot your day to fit in as much as possible– sort of like sleep-away camp for adults. With alcohol. I’ll admit, the margaritas appealed to me more than parasailing or rock-wall climbing, but I gamely signed on for a few activities. The mopeds we rented in Cozumel were the coolest. I had a moment of misgiving when I learned the mopeds were no longer recommended by the cruise lines after a lot of accidents, but I strapped on a helmet anyhow. Too much fun! We zipped all over the island, shopped, danced and snorkeled, and still found time for margaritas on the beach.

As passengers, we saw all the glitzy aspects of cruising, but because of my story I was interested in life on board from the employee perspective. What surprised me was that the ship employees represent many, many countries. Our waitress was from Poland and we had fun quizzing her about what made her sign on for life on board for months on end. Basically, the travel and the partying. The employees work long and hard, but in between they can snag days in the ports of call and they develop tremendous rapport with the people they work with.

The ports provided inspiration, too. There is a strong juxtaposition between the Americanized tourist attractions and the reality of many islanders, a contrast that helped strengthen my suspense elements. I feel confident I’ve written some good books that contained settings I had never visited, but I’m positive that taking my own cruise strengthened The Pleasure Trip in a hundred little ways. The authentic details brought me a lot of satisfaction as I wrote, and it speeded the whole process despite the week of downtime to vacation in the middle of writing.

The Return

Interestingly, the tone of my book changed after I came home from my own cruise. I wasn’t really aware of it until I turned the whole thing — some 430 manuscript pages– into my editor. She had approved the opening before I took my trip, but when she saw the opening chapters in light of the rest of the book, she pointed out some inconsistencies in tone that I attribute to diving head first into the world of the book in between the first few chapters and the rest of the story. I cut some scenes and polished it again, trimming back my page count so that I was– hopefully– left with only the best of the best.

I like to look back at the process of each book when it’s complete to see what I’ve done well, what I learned and where I could do better. Part of the mixed blessing of being a Virgo is an endless quest for perfection. Clearly, I’m never going to meet that ideal goal, but I like to think I make some key improvements on the relentless journey in search of that personal grail. In analyzing my process for The Pleasure Trip I realize that walking my heroines’ path gave me so much more than setting details for my story. Getting out into the real world for a few days and actively seeking hints to my characters lives was more crucial to my story than anything I learned about cruise ships and the Caribbean. Quiet, reflective down time was a crucial element to producing a book I’m proud of. My husband would say I owe it all to sun, fun and margaritas– and he’s probably on to something there. I don’t know that I can walk in the footsteps of all my future characters, but I’m definitely going to build in a little more play time to future stories.

And if there happens to be a beach nearby, maybe that’s all the better.

Now, let’s talk! The discussions below will run for two weeks. Join in, and you could become the lucky winner of a hibiscus covered tote bag packed with tropical getaway essentials including a Land’s End beach towel, sunglasses and a great beach read in the form of Joanne’s February release, THE PLEASURE TRIP.