I lead a very adventurous life. No, I’m not an Olympian or a
soldier. I’m an actor with a bad case of wanderlust, a willing husband, and a
love of writing. I’m incredibly fortunate to have a job that allows me to
travel for work all the time. I’ve spent three summers in Alaska, toured the
country on a bus, and right now, I’m performing down in Southwest Florida.
Being able to travel has always been a huge source of
inspiration for me. My husband and I managed to run away to Thailand for a few
weeks in January, and I came back bursting with so many ideas, I now have the
rest of my writing year planned out. But what do you do when beautiful scenery
meets an epic idea and the details need to be perfect? Research.
For The Tethering
series, the research I did was mostly travel times from one place to another,
geography and topography of specific locations, including a nice (and slightly brutal)
hike to the top of a mountain, and looking through a lot of legends of magical
creatures. Perhaps a little extreme with the hiking through the wilderness, but
standard research.
For the ballet novella I released last Christmas, I was able
to draw upon the years I spent in pointe shoes and leotards as well as my
experience as a professional music theatre performer. And the gaps I needed to
fill I pulled from a college classmate who is now a professional ballet dancer.
But the new project, the one that complicates it all, is a
little more difficult. I needed to learn about plants, and greenhouses, and
conservation, and a dozen other things. Not that I want to describe to my
readers exactly how to pollinate plants in a closed environment, but it’s
little details like that that solidify world building.
I’ve been to atriums, bio domes, and even the greenhouses of
Disney’s Epcot, trying to make sure that the smell is right and the light feels
right in the book. And I’ve loved all of it. I will never be a botanist or an architect,
and I’ll probably never create my own underground irrigation system. But
getting to learn the details of creating suitable environments for exotic
plants is so cool! And now I really want to build a vertigrower and grow plants
without soil just because it’s possible.
Maybe somewhere deep down I already knew that sustainable
living within a bio dome was a fascinating subject and that’s why the story
came out. Maybe greenhouses are just super cool. But having the opportunity to
research a new field or world is one of the greatest things about being an
author. Even if it’s just a fantasy, I can create a greenhouse for my
characters to live in. And I have a new obsession that may eventually turn
edible-hobby to boot!
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