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| Two titles in my contemporary travel romance series |
I love traveling. I started by moving from the Philippines to Utah
at age 15 and I haven’t stopped since. We have been blessed as a family with
opportunities because my husband gets to go on a lot of conferences (and I get
to tag along), we choose to invest in travel, and we are able to schedule the time
off.
This past summer, we were able to go to Morocco for five
days, as part of a Southern Spain/Morocco trip. I had fully intended to collect
enough material to put into a book, and I did. For about two weeks, I knocked
out a 20k word romance novella, Saffron Summer. Next, I plan to write A day
in Paris, which is based on a literal day I spent with my husband there
for our 22nd wedding anniversary. Other places I plan to write about: Seville,
Spain; Ireland; Aruba; Grenada; and the Philippines. My bucket list
for both travel and books: Italy, South Korea, China, and Greece.
If you’ve ever thought about turning a vacation into a book (fiction or non-fiction), here are some things that are cool about it:
It’s tax-deductible. Our accountant says we may be eligible
to write off 20 per cent of our trips' expenses because I base my books on them. If you write a book within a
certain time period, I believe it’s either one or two years, you can write it
off. (Be sure to check with your accountant.)
It is easier to conjure up a book cover. I am not a pro
cover artist by any means, but I like dabbling in it. I have hired pro artists
before, and ultimately, I give them an idea that works for my cover, so I
figure, why not save the money and try to make it myself? Especially for mock-ups.
For the third book in the series, I am thinking of setting “An Irishman’s
Promise” in Ireland. Having been there, some cover elements came to mind
easily: rain, umbrella, doors (Dublin), lush green, rain boots.
It gives you license to imagine "what could have been" in your
vacation destinations. Once, when we went to Grenada, an older man gave me
shells from his shell collection. I’ve always wondered about his own personal
story. Now I can imagine it via a novel.
You pay more attention when you travel. When I go someplace,
I like being up at sunrise and pay attention to sensory details. I remember
little things like the prayer call in Morocco five times a day and the pealing
of church bells in Sevilla. At the end of each day, without fail, where I’ve
stayed up all night if need be, I write in my journal for hours, so that I
could remember the experience, and it’s been invaluable to helping me with the
setting for my novels. Even my historical novels benefit from this.
Going someplace is tons more fun than Internet research.
I am not knocking Internet research, because it’s amazing what is out
there. But if you’re going to write about churros dipped in chocolate on a
street side café in a Spanish enclave in North Africa, why not go there in
person?
You meet interesting people who make great characters in
your books. Nothing reveals someone’s character better than traveling with
them nearly 24/7. We’ve gone on several guided tours with people whom I have
based characters on. It’s a great opportunity for people watching.
It’s a great way to relive your trip. As I wrote about
Morocco in Saffron Summer, memories rushed
back. It was as though I was there again. When I sat down to read the manuscript
all the way through, I had so much fun. I am excited to relive the first time I
saw the Eiffel Tower in A day in Paris.
You learn a lot. This is obvious, but until you get out of
your comfort zone and experience other cultures, you don’t realize how little
you know about yourself, the world and how other cultures live. Since I never
know what material I will need I tend to be one of those slightly-pesky
tourists who ask twenty questions on guided tours so I am usually overflowing
with facts about a place.
You are contributing to the world’s travel knowledge. Even
though what you might write is fiction, if it is couched in truth, you are
revealing some neat things about other countries and cultures to your readers
who might, by choice or opportunity, not be able to travel to the places you’ve
been.
