On the Road Again

“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only a page.”                                                                                                                                   – St. Augustine (Thanks, Hope, for introducing me to this quote)

What a difference four months makes.  In a post in June, I was commenting about staying put for a while. Wondering how that might affect my writing.  Seems I won’t know anytime soon.  Since that post, I’ve moved back to Charlottesville for a few months, been awarded a November residency at Hambidge in northern Georgia, and signed on for the Key West Literary Seminar in January.   And I’m heading to Michigan soon for a quick trip to see family.

I have to admit, while I love Charleston and miss it and am looking forward to getting back down there, my feet were getting itchy.  I’ve been even more antsy in Charlottesville, though Virginia is a beautiful place to be in the fall, and I love it here too.  But the road is calling me.  I’m ready to remove myself from familiar places and immerse myself completely in my novel again.  Ready to eat, sleep, and breathe writing.

Don’t get me wrong.  I write when I’m not traveling.  But there is something about picking up and going that makes me want to move forward in my work, too.  New environments make me rethink the way I look at things, make me notice more. And of course it doesn’t hurt that many of my travels are writer-centric.

It also doesn’t hurt that I’ll be in a cabin in the woods in beautiful Rabun Gap in November and hanging out in warm and wonderful Key West in the most miserable month of winter.  There are some perks to this nomadic lifestyle, after all.