Travel writing

I love writing when I travel. I'm not talking about restaurant or hotel reviews. What I love is setting stories in interesting places. For example, I wrote a big chunk of Sacred Hearts while I was visiting friends in Mexico. So when this spring I got a chance to visit Spain and Portugal, I decided to set a novella there. I'm home now and still in the midst of the first draft, but I'm savoring the memory of sitting in the sun in a courtyard in Lisbon dreaming about my characters roaming the city and falling in love.

Place plays a big role in my stories, maybe because I've lived lots of places or because now I'm up here in Northern Wisconsin, which is beautiful but can feel isolating. The astrologer I lived near as a kid would tell you it's because I have a Taurus moon. A shrink might say I never put down proper roots. I think an unusual setting simply makes for an interesting story. 

The new book doesn't have a name yet, or an ending, but it's got some fabulous places. Here's Amsterdam, where the story begins. I'll post more photos as this story moves along the journey from pen to published. It's always an adventure.