I recently saw this post on Twitter: I wish my passport kept a record of all the places I’ve traveled in books. I’m not sure who said it, but we would get along famously, especially in these days of fear-of-COVID travel.
I haven’t traveled abroad as much as many I know, despite having been to all 50 states plus Puerto Rico. But I’ve lived in eight states and worked in Washington DC, which has helped when it comes to crafting my Other Worldly novels. Yet, through reading books, I’ve experienced more foreign countries, and time-traveled to various historical periods.
This spring, when I couldn’t revisit Great Britain as research for my most recently released novel, Being Alien, I found a path to reach my destination via words on a page after traipsing through internet ether for locale details.
Books, whether reading or writing, offer adventure, escape, intrigue, and exhilarating immersion we might never encounter in real life. Perhaps that’s why I’d always longed to be an author.
Of course, in my novels travelling via orb or flying saucer is so much more convenient and speedy than commercial aircraft, and my dog and cat are content to come along for the ride. Not to mention the alluring alien aviators.
In Alienable Rights, book one of the Other Worldly series, protagonist Rowan Layne lives not quite so happily-ever-after in a small-minded rural Nevada town. To periodically escape, she drives through the Sierra Nevada to favorite spots on Monterey Bay and in Napa Valley. Rowan enjoys an excursion to Las Vegas despite the harrowing drive home, and visits family in Portland, Oregon, and friends in nearby Washington State.
I’ve been to those places many a time, but for readers who have not, I hope I did them justice so that they might wish to travel there for their own adventures. And maybe they’ll encounter a UFO or two on those windswept, winding roads.
In book two, Feeling Alienated, Rowan moves to Las Vegas. Hence, the story focuses on the surrounding area, including the Strip, but also Mount Charleston, Red Rock Canyon Conservation Area, and most predominantly, Valley of Fire State Park. Its vast and vivid red rock terrain makes Rowan think of Mars, or what she imagines it must be like, and she envies Red Orbiter aliens who reside there.
My greatest literary challenge so far has been sending Rowan off to the moon—with a quick side trip touchdown for red-rock collecting on Mars—in book three, Aliens Abound, because I haven’t actually been in space.
Trying to change one’s earthbound perspective to describe in prose what it’s like to gaze upon our planet from outer space is tricky, and an experience likely to never be stamped in most of our passports.
In Aliens Abound, Rowan also returns to her childhood stomping grounds of Arlington, VA, and to Capitol Hill in Washington DC, which presented its own emotional challenges—not to mention drafting a speech for Rowan to give to Congress. I haven’t actually been back to that area in more than ten years. Various issues addressed in my novels pretty much explain why, but Rowan returns there in Being Alien, as well as in book five currently in the works, Alien Sensation, now that the political climate is somewhat safer.
Being Alien recently launched in late September, right about the time heather blooms in the Highlands. The story begins in London’s Buckingham Palace and includes visits to Parliament, ancient forests, and a post-midnight tryst at Stonehenge with a super alien.
Rowan will encounter more ancient stone circles in Scotland as she travels to Stonehaven and the Dunnottar Castle ruins on the North Sea, as well as to Edinburgh and St Andrews. Rowan does not golf, but there will be a bit of action taking place on the Old Course at Swilken Bridge.
In the Highlands, Rowan and her family visit Urquhart Castle on Loch Ness in Inverness—can you imagine what they might encounter lurking in the mist? She spends time at Rogie Falls in Contin Forest, and along the shores of River Ness and Loch Morar, making her way to the Callanish Standing Stones on the Isle of Lewis.
I have not yet physically traveled to that Outer Hebrides archipelago, nor to the Isle of Skye in the Inner Hebrides, where Rowan is tickled that everything seems to be named for fairies. But when I do finally venture forth beyond the pages of Being Alien, I know where I’ll be staying and dining, and partaking of the mystical magic of Scotland.
Where will the next novels take me, so readers can also get new literary passport stamps? Alien Sensation opens in Salem, Massachusetts, but Rowan will return to Earth’s moon and Mars, and perhaps a distant exoplanet called Proxima Centauri b.
She will likely revisit Scotland in book five or six, and other European locales. And then there’s the possibility of travel to Mercury, Venus, or Jupiter and one of its moons, where Rowan can glean a bit more about the makeup of her DNA and the abilities these origins bestow.
In books, you can always take the road less traveled, and venture to places roads don’t lead. Bon voyage!