Zee Monodee on Writing and Living on a Tropical Island

Hi, all. KevaD here.
Zee Monodee is a truly nice person and wonderful writer.
She also lives on a tropical island.
No, I don't hate her. I'm just a tad bit envious and hoping the earth shifts its axis to make her island one of the poles.


Until that unlikely event, here's Zee and her forty degree winters.
Brrrr.


Oh, yeah....She's also discussing her latest books, which are really, really good. =)

                              

                                Hi everyone!

Wonderful to be here today! DA’s been nice enough to let me hop here, and he had a strange request when he accepted to host my guest post – Did I believe whether spring weather was more conducive to writing than icy winter?

This got me thinking, and also analyzing how my reality, and consequently the weather, will be a lot different from most of you US folks. 

You see, I live on a tropical island called Mauritius, located in the southern Indian Ocean. Before you start cursing me for living in a scenic paradise, let me just tell you that life on a tropical island is not always the postcard sunny, warm, and uplifting weather most people associate with the tropics. If you live on the coast (and are super-rich to be able to afford a house there and be able to pay the taxes!), that might be the case (but anyway, here – you need to so filthy rich to even be able to have a house on the beach that money is not a problem for you. And we all know, money isn’t happiness but it makes things easier, lol!).

But if you’re like me, one of the 1.3 million inhabitants simply toiling away to get on with day to day life, you most probably happen to live inland, in the big towns on the upper plateaus. There’s also a slew of villages scattered on the lower plains, but the biggest concentration of the population lives in urban areas. And urban areas mean upper plateaus, where, the farther up you go, the more you move into clouds and rain catchment areas.

Where I live, the highest inhabited point inland, a town called Curepipe – well, let’s just say they could’ve shot Twilight here. No vampires would’ve sparkled. We almost always have rain, wind, mist. Occasionally, in summer, we can get bright, sunny days. Temps are on the lower side, topping at 85F in summer, dropping as low as the mid-40F in winter. Not terribly cold, by you guys’ icy standards, but winter weather here seeps in, because our houses are built to withstand heat, not cold.

Each one of summer and winter brings with it a load of adaptation. The summer heat, since we’re so not used to it, drains much of our energy and make our legs feel as heavy as lead. Winter is so cold and drafty your bones hurt, and all you wanna do is curl up and sleep. Hibernate, in other words.

Neither extreme is exactly conducive to invite your muse to let loose on your WIP. But the trick is, if you’re a writer it’s your job to write. Sun, rain, summer, winter, heat, cold – it’s all a day’s work for you.

But that being said, I do find the muse and inspiration more cooperative when the weather is between those extremes. For example, I wrote Before The Morning (Corpus Brides: Book Two) between the months of September to early December. This is pretty much spring, and early summer – the brunt of the heat happens in late December, January, and February. About 105,000 words in 3 months for that one.

Comparatively, Once Upon A Stormy Night, my latest release and part of the 1NightStand line at Decadent Publishing, is a short story just shy of 11,000 words. It took me close to 4 weeks to finish that one. Why, when it’s so short and should’ve been a piece of cake? It’s because I wrote this one in the late weeks of December, during a heat wave, on days when I considered it a feat if I could string two thoughts together in a way that makes sense.

So, yes – I suppose the weather does influence a writer’s output. But still, nothing quite beats the order to “park your arse in the chair and write!” *grin*

Thanks for letting me ramble here today, DA! Dear readers, I hope I haven’t made you mad now.

From Mauritius with love,

Zee

Bio:

Zee Monodee

Stories about love, life, relationships... in a melting-pot of culture

Zee is an author who grew up on a fence - on one side there was modernity and the global world, on the other there was culture and traditions. Putting up with the culture for half of her life, one day she decided she'd stand tall on her wall and dip toes every now and then into both sides of her non-conventional upbringing.

From this resolution spanned a world of adaptation and learning to live on said wall. The realization also came that many other young women of the world were on their own fence.

This particular position became her favorite when she decided to pursue her lifelong dream of writing - her heroines all sit 'on a fence', whether cultural or societal, in today's world or in times past, and face dilemmas about life and love.

Hailing from the multicultural island of Mauritius, Zee is a degree holder in Communications Science. She is married,mum to a tween son, & stepmum to a teenage lad. 

Buy Links:

BEFORE THE MORNING (Corpus Brides: Book 2): An action/adventure, romantic suspense tale on the backdrop of a clandestine espionage agency - come read the story of Rayne, a spy who leaves that life in the name of love, & Ash, the man who changes her world! https://www.nobleromance.com/Books/420/Before-the-Morning

WALKING THE EDGE (Corpus Brides: Book 1): Currently FREE - A romantic suspense novel, wherein an amnesiac woman is on the quest for her forgotten memory... Escape from London all the way to Marseille, France, and discover the secrets, deceit, danger, & the powerful love, she uncovers during her search! https://www.nobleromance.com/Books/304/Walking-the-Edge

ONCE UPON A STORMY NIGHT (1NightStand): On the paradise island of Mauritius, British billionaire Lars Rutherford isn’t looking for a woman, & corporate law executive Simmi Moyer isn’t looking for a man. But when a matchmaker pairs them together on a blind date, both face open doors towards a future they refused to contemplate... until now. http://www.decadentpublishing.com/product_info.php?products_id=553&osCsid=joff4lkh610umgtpmk3mg4qvr4 

Contact Links:

Blog: http://zeemonodee.blogspot.com/

Facebook & Goodreads: Zee Monodee

Twitter: @ZeeMonodee