Inspiring Holidays

by Meryl Brown Tobin

Holidays are important for anyone.

They get you away from everyday concerns and allow you to disconnect, unwind, relax and refresh. Unplugging and focusing on what you want to do––travelling, beachcombing, bushwalking or whatever––is good for your mental health, stops you feeling overwhelmed, improves sleep, as does increased physical activity. According to research, spending time in natural environments, as I do, is especially good for your brain. 

As a writer, I get an extra benefit in that holidays are also field trips where I consciously and subconsciously gather material for my writings. They provide me with inspiration and material for my travel writing, poems, short stories and novels. However, it gives any worker the time and energy to think about things and to enhance their creativity.

My holidays have included extensive camping and campervan trips throughout Australia, and motel, hotel and cabin tours in Australia and overseas. My husband Hartley and I and our family spent his first long service leave on a trip around Australia. A few weeks before we were to leave, Hartley was so busy with all that was involved he wanted to call it off. I refused. For the first week we were away, he didn’t stop thanking me.

His first two long service leave trips and other holidays resulted in my book, Exploring Outback Australia, for which he did the photographs and maps.

Broome, a cosmopolitan Outback town in Australia’s isolated North-West attracts many holiday-makers, including us. We love it so much I set my debut novel, Broome Enigma, there. 

A goodlooking young man dressed only in jeans and sandals and working as a maintenance man in an Outback caravan park inspired the hero, Joe. As the man's damped-down personality did not seem to 'fit' his lifestyle, I played the What If... game until I came up with a backstory, parts of which related to my own experiences in Broome. 

The characters soon took over and sometimes I couldn’t wait to get to my computer in the morning to find out what happened next. Apart from their own personal problems with coming to terms with a strong attraction which might lead nowhere, Jodie and Joe come up against serious situations, involving dangerous adversaries.

Gantheaume Point, Broome  [Ph Meryl Brown Tobin]

When walking alone in remote country with Joe, Jodie asked herself, What are you letting yourself in for, you silly girl? Jodie mightn’t have known it then, but she was letting herself in for a wild ride.

Here’s the blurb, which summarizes the novel.

On a working holiday in Australia's cosmopolitan Outback town of Broome in 1986, Jodie, a young book designer and artist is open to romance and adventure.

At the holiday village where she is staying, she meets Joe, a young man who works there. Despite the strong attraction between them, the many unknowns about his earlier life keep them apart. To try to uncover his mysterious past, they travel to Perth and back to Broome and are drawn into not only bizarre but also dangerous situations.

Is Joe the person she thinks he is, or is he some alter ego? Can Jodie and Joe stop their relationship from developing until they have answers and know if he is free to love her?

Excerpt

A big gust of wind rocked the van and flung Jodie hard against Joe. He pushed her off.

“Joe, it’s me, Jodie! Wake up, wake up!”

“Jodie, is that you?” He threw his arms around her and buried his head in her chest.

She brushed his hair back from his sweating face. “Take it easy, Joe. Take deep breaths. It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”

He stopped shaking and pulled back from her. “What’s happening?”

“It’s the cyclone. Don’t you remember?”

Another huge gust shook the van and sent Jodie sprawling on Joe’s bunk and into the wall. “Ow, that hurt!” She picked herself up and rubbed her head. The van rocked violently again. Joe and Jodie grabbed for handholds.

“Quick, come into my bed with me, Joe. It will be safer there.” Tripping and feeling their way along the wall, the two made their way to the double bed and clambered in.

Her breathing coming in short spasms, she lay on her back and took deep breaths. The storm whined and screeched about her, and the roof creaked and scraped. “Oh, my god, the roof’s going to take off any minute!”

Joe’s arms enveloped her. “Hush, everything will be all right. But will you be okay if we have to make a run for it?”

“Yes.” She let out a sob. “But I like our chances better in here than out there.”

Joe kissed her forehead. He pulled her closer and they lay locked against each other while the storm raged around them.

Buy links

1. Amazon.com: Meryl Brown Tobin: books, biography, latest update

2. Broome Enigma eBook : Tobin, Meryl Brown : Amazon.com.au: Kindle Store

3. Broome Enigma by Meryl Brown Tobin | Goodreads

Webpage and Social Media Links

https://sites.google.com/view/merylbrowntobin-author

https://www.facebook.com/meryl.tobin.18

https://amazon.com/author/meryl-brown-tobin23

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6422807.Meryl_Brown_Tobin

https://bsky.app/profile/merylbrowntobin.bsky.social

https://broomeenigma.allauthor.com/

Broome Enigma is not my only novel inspired by my holiday travels. More are in the pipeline. One is set mainly in North-West Australia north and north-east of Broome and two set in Australia’s south-east.

Ever thought of writing up your own holidays and travels, either in a journal for your own pleasure or as inspiration for poems, short stories or novels?

Writers love readers to review their books. If anyone would like an ARC in the form of a PDF of Broome Enigma, I have a limited number available.  Email me at merylbrowntobin@outlook.com.

Best wishes to you all for a lovely holiday over Christmas and New Year.

Meryl Brown Tobin is an Australian writer who writes children’s and adults’ fiction and non-fiction, particularly on travel and the environment, poetry and puzzles for all ages. Her published work includes 22 books, including a novel, a travel book, puzzle books, blackline masters books of educational puzzles and workbooks, a children’s picture storybook and poetry books. Hundreds of her poems, puzzles and articles, scores of short stories, and some cartoons and comic strips have appeared in more than 150 magazines and newspapers in Australia and other countries, including India, Japan, Malaysia and Singapore, New Zealand, the Philippines, the United Kingdom and USA.

She has also edited several books and co-ordinated and co-edited a haiku book and an anthology of prose and poetry for The Society of Women Writers Victoria Inc.

A member of the Australian Society of Authors Ltd and The Society of Women Writers Victoria Inc, she is a former President.