My people hail from the edge of Midwest, prone to dying in the same place they were born no matter how far asunder they may venture. I’ve had many relatives break the chains of their upbringing to seek their fortune in the world, only to find it, live and love it, and then, for some reason unbeknownst to the rest of creation—and certainly not fathomed by it—forsake it to return to the land that spawned them. The consensus of their reasoning? It’s sort of like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz…there’s no place like home.

Or is there?

When I travel, which is often, I try to absorb as much as I can of the people and cultures I encounter just because I never know if I will pass that way again, and this includes regional locales as well. I come from a matriarchal line, one that runs high to dominant, opinionated females, and grew up sandwiched between a grandmother who insisted she never left anything anywhere and therefore never had to venture forth to find said imaginary object, and a mother who dreamed of being a flight attendant and traveling the world and being anywhere but here, imaginary objects be damned.

A product of such a conflicted environment, I am as eager to get on the plane that will fly me into the unknown as I am to wake up naked in my own bed. Each is equally its own adventure. I will make any excuse to travel, and writing affords me many. I’ve been to dozens of writers’ conferences in cities ranging from downright scary to breathtakingly glorious, and also managed a few side trips to indescribably beautiful paradises. These all somehow manage to end up in my stories in one way or another.

I never traveled much when I was younger, because, like Hellcat (my grandmother), I just never saw the need. But my mother’s insatiable desire to go, go, go rubbed off on me, and during an impromptu road trip to Canada in 1989—the sordid, delicious details of which will only be revealed upon my death or adequate bribery—I discovered a wanderlust I never knew existed buried deep in my soul. I also discovered, contrary to popular stereotype, Canadians will only tolerate so much, and I heartily apologize for…well, never mind.

Anyway, as a writer, I now view every trip as research, although some are just plain inspiration. For example, I visited my sister in Long Beach, California, and discovered, quite by accident, the location for the novel I’d been contemplating. Pleasure 2035, a cyberpunk erotica released by Ravenous Romance, would be set in a futuristic city, that much I’d planned, but I had difficulty conceiving the details of it. I knew I wanted something gritty and urban bordered by something more pastoral, almost like the scenes in paintings from the Romantic Period.

As my sister escorted us around Long Beach and the surrounding areas, I realized I’d found the model for my berg. The beaches there are geologic wonders, an odd combination of rocky shores, huge boulders, and tide pools teeming with life, but there’s also quite a bit of an industrial influence, including oil derricks and a refinery belching blue flames. The overall effect is beautifully eerie, especially when the orange sunset dips into the gray night sky and glows like a mushroom cloud over a tiny, distant island off the coast. The orange in the sunset contained both the subtle hue of a Romantic painting mixed with a neon orange reminiscent of the cyberpunk genre. What better place for a reformed vampire to mate with an exotic dancer posing as a life-sized sex toy?

For more inspiration, and because I am addicted to the ocean, my husband and I take cruises whenever we can, and these trips to Mexico and the Caribbean have inspired, oddly enough, one of my favorite books to write as well as my least favorite, a coming release from Ravenous Romance, which I like to refer to as the Novel from Hell.

Disappear, released last year from Changling Press, takes place on the Mist of the Seas, an enchanted cruise ship carrying all kinds of otherworldly beings in addition to clueless humans. To get the details of the ship right, because my memory and notes are not as reliable as they used to be (at least that’s my excuse), I had to spend time enjoying life at sea so I could make the ship in the novella seem as authentic as possible. Otherwise, my story about Lorelei, a warrior witch denying her heritage, and her shape-shifting warlock lover, Maxim, who is trapped in the dream dimension, might not seem believable. :)

My newest release from Ravenous Romance, Prince of Betrayal (aka the Novel from Hell, but that’s another story), combines the pathos of a writers’ conference with my one true love…the ocean. I set the main action of the story on the cruise ship Majestic Royale traveling to Mexico, where literary agent Esme Pharris is pursued by Nick Wingate, an illusionist who works magic on Esme in more ways than one. Nick, a Zytherian shifter who’s disavowed his ability, has tracked Esme, his brother Jace's initiate, for years. Convinced she was part of Jace's failed rebellion, Nick is intent on burying his past betrayals by tying up loose ends, and Esme is as loose as they get. Wait, that didn’t come out quite right, did it?

Providing an authentic experience for the reader is always paramount to creating a great read, and I keep that in mind as I visit places near to and far from home. Each one has the potential to inspire me and to give me story ideas, so the trips are not all taking notes and wrangling details. Life experience, enriched through meeting others in different places, is really necessary to craft a good book, so even if I don’t remember all the minutia, I do come away with something or someone that’s changed my life and will hopefully change the life of anyone who picks up one of my books. Whether the adventure is far away or right in my own back yard, that alone makes it worth it.