Travel as a muse
Stepping into a new land or vista is like entering a novel, a world imagined by someone else. It jolts the old grey cells and unleashes a storm of sensations that beg to be put down on paper. This article in the New York Times about Nabokov’s travels reminded me what a great muse travel makes.
Freshly returned from a trip to St. Petersburg, my head is buzzing with the grandeur of czars and czarinas, glorious palaces blazing at night despite the white nights, and cathedrals soaring over soil stained with spilled blood. How can this heady experience not sneak into writing…after all, humans and human emotions are the same everywhere, it is only the setting and context that changes.
Travel is the greatest education there is, the best teacher of all, and a most powerful muse. I have a feeling that St. Petersburg will play a significant role in the final part of my Spy, Interrupted trilogy 🙂
Happy travels!
Photo credit: Kumar Doraiswami
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