I love to travel.
This is a good thing considering the number of times I’m jumping on a plane each year. My job as a financial editor has taken me to Panama, Bermuda, the Bahamas, Uruguay, and even the U.K. over the past several years. Within the U.S., I’ve been to Seattle, Baltimore, and Durham for the dayjob as well.
And if it’s not the dayjob sending me all over the place, I opportunities where I can to travel on my own.
Earlier this year, I went to Washington D.C. for the first time with my husband. It was just a short two-day trip for a soccer game, but it gave me the chance to visit several national monuments and wander through a trio of amazing museums.
Last week, I was in North Carolina for a series of meetings, but we took a little time out to wander around the city of Durham. It was a quiet town that it starting to show some interesting signs of life following the Great Recession. I got the chance to eat at some great restaurants and chat with friends/co-workers in heat that was somewhat less oppressive than what I’m experiencing in South Florida at the moment.
Later this year, I’ll be heading to Colorado with Rinda for the GRL Retreat and then possibly back to Cincinnati before the end of the year.
Travel for me isn’t incredibly relaxing, but it is a great opportunity to learn about new places, people watch, and just get new ideas for books. I collect hundreds of pictures every year and carefully store them away for future reference for books. (After two trips to Uruguay, I will write a book set there.)
It’s a way of refilling the well of ideas each year. I’ve been known to just sit on a bench and watch people as they pass by, wondering about their lives and what it must be like to live that particular city. Would that person own a car? What’s the commute to work like? What interesting job might that person have? And where does that person hang out at the end of the week?
Stories are just waiting all around us. Just pluck them out of the air.
But for now…I’m home for at least a week and finishing up my last chapters of the first Ward Security book. We are hoping to make some official announcements regarding the book (title, cover, and release date) later in September.
We’re getting close!