Taking a trip can give you new ideas, new perspectives, new ways of thinking about that part of your story where you are stuck. This summer, if you’re going somewhere different use the opportunity to take one piece of work that you are feeling frustrated by AND at the same time bring a notebook to jot down ideas that come to you. Writers don’t get vacation, you know!

I just finished reading, and enjoying, The Girl Who Chased The Moon by Sarah Addison Allen. I flipped over to her website – which is really well done – and thought I’d share this with you. It’s one of her answers to a FAQ and it’s very true, definitely worth keeping in mind.  Click on the paragraph below to explore her writing further.

How long did it take for you to get published? Can you give me advice on writing a book?

I’ve always loved writing, but I didn’t start writing seriously, with the goal of being published, until I graduated from college. It took twelve years writing as close to full-time as I could manage to finally make a living from it. Twelve long years, folks. This is what I know: There’s no shortcut. There’s no secret handshake. You sit down, you write. YOU FINISH IT. You revise and make it the best you can make it. You do your research on where to submit and you submit it. Then you start writing something new. It’s all about the rinse and repeat. I wrote over a dozen completed manuscripts before Garden Spells.

It seems to me that I have great ideas (or not so great, who knows!) when I’m driving the car. I remember when I was a teenager, I used to get in my car and drive through London, deliberately trying to get lost. Getting lost in London is pretty easy, I’d just have to take a few wrong turns, then I’d spend time trying to find my way back home. Now, when I’m stuck in a story, trying to figure out motivations or specific trouble spots, I get in the car and drive. Here in Saskatoon, the landscape is very different from the landscape of London. I’m on a grid system here and I’d find it really hard to get lost. Instead, I drive out into the prairies. Those long straight roads that disappear into the horizon, populated by nothing but wheat and grass, give me space for my imagination to get to work. Big, empty skies and empty roads let my mind wander.

Where do you go when you need to think over a story?