Writing fiction with a strong sense of place is my passion.
My birthday is in November which makes it an ideal month to so something special for myself. Taking vacation from the day job, traveling, and writing fiction are my November birthday traditions. My stories take place in places I visit. I daydream as I look about me and imagine my characters inhabiting my surroundings.
When I wrote my zombie love story (yes, really) about a New Orleans man that devised an un-dead alternative to honoring his terminally ill wife’s euthanasia request, I visited New Orleans. I spoke with an authentic Voodoo priestess and let her sell me griss-griss to help me write. I had coffee and croissants in a little courtyard café where my fictional couple rested early in my story. I looked at real-estate listings to find their home. It was a charming house in the garden district. I visited the shop in the French Quarter where the terminally ill woman bought the bedsheets and pajamas I found there. I walked through the cemeteries where her zombification took place. I walked down the steps where she fell having lost most of her reflexes in the process of loosing most of her soul. I couldn’t have written that story the same way without that trip. Writing fiction depends on details like this. The place matters.
This November, I’m writing writing fiction again. This year’s story is a fantasy which presents a few obvious problems. Where does one go to experience the sense of place for a fantasy world? Fairy Tail Road in Germany? Glastonbury Tor in England? (sigh) It’s not that kind of fantasy. I need ancient carved stone walls and architecture based on triangles. (The number 3 is deeply significant in this fantasy world.) I need hidden caverns and magical pools. I need exotic birds and animals and plants and rocks that get confused between what is animal, vegetable and mineral. Where can I find that?
I’m going to Tulum, Mexico.
Stay tuned! Mayan pyramids and ruined cities with carved stone symbols and writing are just what I’m looking for. The warmth, the sun, the jungle will all find their spirits translated into my fantasy. And the cenotes! weird underground pools of cool fresh water absorbing and refracting the light from high above is the perfect magical setting for this November’s characters.
I’m ready. Tickets, reservations, and tours are all arranged. All I have to do now is show up and WRITE!
Read ~ Write ~ Wander
~Angie
Have you ever taken a trip specifically to research a novel or to inspire your writing? Where did you go?
(Dearest took the picture of me with Priestess Miriam and the picture of me with the croissant in New Orleans. He also took the picture of me in the ball court of Chichen Itza. The pictures in the second collage are all in Chichen Itza. I’ll take pictures of Tulum , Cobà and cenotes when I visit them next month.)