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!
Travel to write–and write off–books (among other things,of course) is something I’ve taken up over the past five or so years. Heather’s Chase was written after our 50th anniversary trip to the British Isles for our 50th anniversary. Cruising Undercover was set on a Croatian cruise, my latest, Double Intrigue follows a tour of the Christmas markets from Prague to Nuremberg on a Danube River cruise. Right now, I’ve started a book that’s set in Copenhagen and the Faroes.
I agree with you that firsthand experiences help enrich the writing.
We’re staying domestic for our next trip, but if I can use a Mississippi River cruise in a novel, you can be sure I’m going to!
oooo! The American Symphony is a new cruise ship on the Mississippi River (saw it docked at Red Wing, MN last weekend). We used to have the paddleboat Queens, but they were bought out and I’m not sure if they’re in commission anymore.
I’ve not been to France. I lived and worked on a Scottish island for a couple of years a while back and return when I can to visit friends and the island again and explore some new places. The geography is beautiful and the public transport (bus or train) wonderful so I can just absorb peoples’ many accents, the sights between Glasgow and Oban, and easily connect to ferries.
Lisa, the American Queen Paddle Boat is alive and well. 🙂
Have a wonderful trip, Rev, John, and the ladies.
The Northern Lights were amazing in Montana two nights ago. Unfortunately I didn’t see them but friends took astounding photos. Apparently a phone camera picks them up much better than the naked eye.
Still hoping…
There very well could be another time soon, Debbie, to see the Northern Lights in Montana. We saw them in May, and I caught a glimpse Monday night, but was unsuccessful Thursday–the clouds may have cleared too late, and there may still have been some high cloud.
Set your smart phone’s camera for its longest exposure. I have an iPhone 15 Pro so I go with 10 seconds. That really brings out the aurora here in our light polluted skies.
Travel definitely broadens the minds, and I believe, heart and soul. My last international trip was to Iceland and Ireland in 2019. What holds me back now is the seemingly dismal state of air travel. I’m considered a train trip across the U.S. and/or Canada instead. My wife and I last did that way back in 2002 for our twentieth wedding anniversary, to D.C.. We rented a car after spending a week in the Capitol and drove to Jamestown, Williamsburg and then the Outer Banks.
Have a fantastic time in France, Rev!
I want to do the fall train trip across Canada! I spent many nights in Natchez for my series set there and fell in love with the town. My plans are to go to Ireland and Scotland in two years, and I can see a book set there.
Interesting stuff. If I had the dough I’d be traveling around but I don’t, and She Who Must Be Obeyed (thanks Rumpole) is something of a homebody with mobility issues so needs must. My travel’s in books.
For my short stories I have to rely on memory for the places I have visited and lived, but it’s wise to avoid too much detail if you haven’t actually lived there or spent some time there or are on intimate terms with someone who has.
I reckon Brother Wortham notes this in his critique of folks who want to write-as they think-about Texas without having spent more than a weekend at some motel in Dallas one time.
Kinda like me and my stories about a rural sheriff in upstate New York. It ain’t all Manhattan or Queens, people. I lived up near the Canadian border for a few years in a “hamlet” of about 400 folks more or less.
Is a hamlet a small ham? Somebody help me.
Authenticity and trueness to place and time and detail is everything in a story. If not, it’s a fail.
Of course the Ford Ranger was on the skids for a couple of years too, and only got mobile in the last few months. I reckon it’ll get me down to Augusta next year as my son the veterano has promised me an epic pub crawl.
Thanks to the internet and the library and Half Price Books and Google Earth, a fellow can scrounge up enough detail and backstory, studiously avoiding that which he don’t know anything about.
Which takes me right back to research.
If I had to plan the ultimate trip it would be the Great American Road Trip, only north to south from the Canadian border to Mexico. Everyone goes east to west or vice versa.