How do you refill the creativity bank?
Meet the Red Reines
♠️ Home away from home
I am a homebody who loves to travel. There is nothing better than seeing the world, meeting new people, braving new experiences, and then dropping back into my own bed. Luckily, this is possible with an RV and a husband who is willing to drag it across the country and deal with...let’s call it plumbing.
On a recent trip, I bravely crossed a 956-foot drop over a very small river—okay, it only looked small—in Southern Colorado. I’m terrified of heights, but I did it. I even passed a few people who had frozen up on the wind-pummeled platform. At some point, I will absolutely use the experience—or at least the feelings it generated—in a book. For now, I’m enjoying the sensation of being very brave and planning my next adventure from the comfort of home.
❤️ Get out there!
For me, I need to experience things in a first hand way to refill the bank.
Feel that breeze, take in that aroma of freshly baked goods, hear laughter, etc. That’s what refills my sensory writing. (I got to do a bit of that these last few weeks in France...this pic is from the market place in Cadillac, France)
Plus, it means I’m not chained to my desk with only a lace-covered window as a means of looking at the outside world. (Yes, I have adopted the French tradition of lace in the windows....pretty and practical.)
Also, it means I get to taste said baked goods...
Alas, it is part of the job. ;-)
♦️Experience and explore!
I love to travel and get out there. We live in such a pretty place, it’s practically a crime to not enjoy a hike once in a while, a new restaurant, a ski excursion, or a museum. I rarely go somewhere with the intention of working--though I do bring a notebook at minimum, just in case, because inspiration always strikes in the oddest of places.
(Yes, that’s me in the picture. No, I wasn’t injured. No, I did not hit the tree--the powder was deep and I think I was actually going too slow to stay afloat. I was laughing, though, especially when my husband got a pic before helping me up. I would have done the same to him.)
♣️ Down the Rabbit Hole ...
To recharge and refill my creativity bank, I consume! New streaming shows, old movies, crime TV (The Dead Houses of Pennsylvania), Yahoo news - especially science and health stories. Did you know the link between the Zika virus and microcephaly isn’t clear? And that Colossal bioscience DID NOT de-extinct the Dire Wolf? But they did make a cute mammoth mouse. I listen to podcasts to harvest new words (procrustean, deliquescent, abnegation) and learn about new things - like the violence that led to unions (Matewan, West Virginia, 1920, Big Trouble by Anthony Lucas, Dashiell Hammett, and Red Harvest) - or the lost Q source and the found Gospel of Thomas. I love going down that rabbit hole and learning, then rolling the information into my fiction. Oh! I’m late! On to the next story!