Give yourself the gift of travel

 One of my favorite things in life is traveling to new places and getting just a small taste of the great big world that's just waiting to be discovered. As a writer, nothing stirs my imagination more than to find myself walking down a cobbled street in a city where almost no one speaks my language. 

I've often mused that travel is like magic. You wake up one morning, drink a cup of coffee while sitting in your familiar kitchen, and then twelve hours later, find yourself staring up at the Pantheon. How is that not some sort of sorcery?

Another nice thing about travel is that it takes you out of your comfort zone. I think it's easier for people to surround themselves with the security of the mundane than to stretch their horizons and try something different. But as a writer, you have to live a little to build up a pool of ideas from which to pull your next story. 

There's no greater research than actually getting out there and living life. A perfect example is my first novel Buried Schemes. I didn't get the idea for the story until after my wife, and I rented a small cottage next to a 17th-century stone chapel on the Isle of Anglesey in northern Wales. After we returned home, the storyline started to percolate until, voila, I had a full-blown plot to work with. If I hadn't visited Wales and actually immersed myself in the surroundings, I could never have truly captured the feel of the place. I could write confidently about the rocky headlands and the intimate pubs.

I knew I could paint an honest picture that would help people connect with the story. I'm aware that everyone can't spend two weeks in Wales on holiday, but that shouldn't stop you from exploring. Get out, look around, and see if maybe there's a story hiding in plain sight, just waiting to be discovered.