Meet The Member Sabine Barclay
Meet SoCalRW member: Sabine Barclay (and her characters)
How did your background influence your writing?
I have a strong background in research, and I was an educator for nearly a decade and a half. Having taught literature and composition, I figured I would give writing a chance, even though I hadn't taken a creative writing course since middle school and didn't study literature in college. I was also a history teacher, so it's important to me to get those aspects correct in my Historical Romances and my Mafia Romances. While I take creative license and rely on a suspension of disbelief, I also spend a lot of hours looking up things to incorporate into my stories or for my general edification. Since truth is stranger than fiction, there's always something for me to pull from.
What does your writing routine look like?
I've started incorporating new things into my routine this year to encourage me to be more active. It's easy for me to go ten hours without getting up and not realizing it. I'd certainly grown far more sedentary than I was before becoming a full-time author. I now put on 90s and early 2000s hip hop each morning and dance while I read the previous day's work. I have to make sure I don't get too distracted singing along. Then I go for about a four-point-four mile walk through my neighborhood and dictate pretty much the entire time. If the day's schedule allows it, I try to squeeze in some yoga too. But both of those activities allow me to get into the flow of writing and get a lot of words in while still moving around.
What themes or messages do you hope readers take away from your book?
There are central themes you'll get in all my books regardless of whether they're Celeste's Hist Rom or Sabine's Mafia. If you picture a wagon wheel, family (bio or found) will always be the hub. Love, loyalty, honor, and duty will always be the spokes. I incorporate other themes into books like friendship, betrayal, self-identity, lust, forgiveness, and so forth. But the wagon wheel moves every story forward.
