When you read this, the Bride and I are with Joy and John Gilstrap in France. I hope I can get an idea to use in a novel and write this trip off. John might. He has a history of visit different places and setting his Jonathan Grave books there.
Much of my travel within the states is for research. The Bride and I have visited Alpine, Texas, and the Big Bend region several times, and each of those trips provided settings and information that wound up in all four of my Sonny Hawke thrillers.
I’ve been up and down the Rio Grande and Red River here in Texas, to get an idea of what the world looks like on both sides of the borders. We’ve been through East Texas, in order to see the country I planned to write about and that trip also showed up in a Sonny Hawke thriller.
Within the next month or two, we’re heading up into Eastern Oklahoma to see where the Comanches lived, and to visit a number of sites I’ve read about. Most of that will be go into the western horror series I’m working on.
A year ago, Joy and John Gilstrap came to Texas and we took them down through Fredericksburg where Germans settled and brought their culture to the developing territory over 150 years ago. From there, we traveled down into the Big Bend region to soak up Marfa, Alpine, and Marathon. It wasn’t a surprise when parts of John’s Zero Sum were set in that hot, dry country.
Besides that, I believe he also mentioned the heat, and flies, something an armchair researcher might miss. Especially the flies.
The purpose of all this is to urge writers to get out and see the world, then use what you’ve discovered to flavor your books.
It doesn’t have to be international travel. This is the first time we’ve been across the Pond, but we’ve been to Mexico and Canada, and those memories are right there, waiting to be plucked out and used in a novel someday.
Will I set a novel in Paris, Normandy, or the Champagne region? I doubt it, but maybe someone I’ve met there will spark a character, or a benign incident on a train can be reimagined as a thrilling scene.
Just think. Texan. Hat. Barn coat. Lucchese boots. France.
Mix well. Maybe it’ll fizz over.
I’m sure John will come back with ideas of his own, and the stories will unfold.
Decades ago, Bill Fries and Chip Davis wrote a spoken song that was recorded by C.W. McCall (he recorded Convoy). Since I’m short of time and packing for the trip, I’m posting this fine piece of writing entitled Aurora Borealis. I wish it was mine.
“One night, many, many summers ago we were camped at twelve thousand feet up where the air is still clear, high in Rockies at Lost Lake, Colorado. And as the fire down burned low and only a few glowing coals remained, we laid on our backs all warm in our sleeping bags and looked up at the stars.
“And as I felt myself falling out into the vastness of the Universe, I thought about things. I thought about the time my grandma told me what to say when you saw the evening star. You all remember:
Star light, star bright, first star I’ve seen tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight.
“The air is crystal-clean up there; that’s why you can see a million stars, spread out across the sky, almost like a gigantic cloud.
“I remember another night, in the black canyon of the Gunnison River. And we had our rubber boats pulled up on the bank an’ turned over so we could sleep on ’em. And we were layin’ there lookin’ up at the stars that night, too, and one of the guys from New York said, he said, “Hey! Look at all that smog in the sky! Smog clear out here in the sticks!” And somebody said, “Hey, Joe, that’s not smog; that’s the Milky Way. It’s a hundred billion stars. It’s our galaxy.”
“And we saw the Northern Lights up there once, on the summit of Uncompahgre, fourteen thousand three hundred and nine feet above sea level. They were like flames from some prehistoric campfire, leaping and dancing in the sky and changing colors. Red, gold, blue, violet… Aurora Borealis. The Northern Lights. It was the equinox, the changing seasons. Summer to fall, young to old, then to now.
“And then everyone was asleep, except me. And as I saw the morning star come up over the mountain, I realized at last that life is simply a collection of memories. But memories are like starlight: they live on forever.”
Wish I’d written that. Life is just a collection of memories, and we’re making them with a writer friend I met the very day I got into this business.
Y’all get out and travel!
Being an old dog and, as an indie author, being responsible for every aspect of my book publication processes, it’s hard to remember that just because I don’t like something doesn’t mean nobody else does. I’m not talking about the writing. Everyone finds the system that works for them. Plotter, Pantser, or Plantser? Nitty gritty or beautiful words? How much violence? Profanity? Look at any best-selling book’s reviews on Amazon. There will be one and two star ratings along with the fours and fives, so you’ll never please everyone.
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