Nine times out of ten when it comes to writing a new book my start point is geographic location. It might be a particular country, or geographic area – or it might be a building or a landscape where a story comes to me. This time with my current work-in-progress I am finding inspiration in location – in Kenya. Not for the whole book – just the first couple of chapters – as the scene will then shift – so watch this space for an update on that.

Why Kenya? I’m working on a follow-up to my last Penang novel, A Painter in Penang, which began there.  At the end of the book my main character, Jasmine Barrington, was heading back to Kenya by sea from Penang. Jasmine’s family live there – her adoptive father, Arthur, works for the colonial service. In Painter Jasmine hates living in Nairobi and can’t wait to return to Penang. Now, a year later, and after her dramatic experiences during the beginning of the Malalayan Emergency, Jasmine has changed in so many ways and I thought it would be interesting to find out how her feelings about Africa have changed, before I send her off into the next phase of her adventures.

I have only visited Kenya once and it was a long time ago. I did a safari there in 1991. It wouldn’t be feasible now to make another trip – nor justified for a couple of chapters – but it is important to get into the mood as I write and recapture the sights, sounds, and smells of the place. So I dug out my old photo albums and used those to help inspire me. As well as seeing incredible wild life, I visited some local villages and decided it would be a good thing for Jasmine to do that too.

When I transferred the old analogue photographs to digital so I could reproduce them here, some of the vivid colours were lost but it was enough to help me get in the mood. Here’s a brief extract:

The children, like their parents and regardless of gender, all had closely shaved heads. Their beauty was entirely reliant on facial features. They were laughing, chasing each other around the boma, small sticks in their hands, like the spears their fathers carried. The mothers sat apart, gossiping as they pounded millet in stone bowls. They had no need of hair to be beautiful – their big white teeth and huge smiles, the decorative hoops dangling from multi-pierced lobes, were enough. Their clothing was bright, a vibrant contrast to the dull earth tones of their surroundings, so that they stood out, bursting out of the canvas of Jasmine’s mind. Vivid oranges, ripe ruby reds, sunshine yellows.

As she shifted her gaze constantly between her subjects and the paper she was capturing them on, Jasmine wondered now why she had disliked Kenya so much before. She had felt what amounted to an illogical resentment of the country, simply for not being Malaya. Now she saw it for itself, celebrating its different qualities with every mark she made with her pencil. She needed to drink it all in, fix it, not only to the paper, but imprinted on her brain, to offer sustenance, stimulus, inspiration, once she got to Paris.

Using photographs, as well as helping me recreate visual memory, also brings back memories of sounds and smells and these can often find their way into the story too. All this helps create atmosphere and – i hope – transports the reader to the location too. Here’s an example – the opening lines of the book (at the moment!):

The girl took a deep breath. The smell of Africa was unique. The scent of animal dung in the bomas – the corrals where the natives lived and kept their livestock – mingled with the smell of dusty parched earth, the aromas of cooking, of firewood burning under pots.

Enough about writing about writing – now it’s time to get some more writing done! But before I go I’ll leave you with a couple of lions!