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ATELIER LMNO
Exploring Your Own Backyard
Discovering a wealth of material right under your nose by wandering around familiar ground
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As writers, we love a good travel story because it gives us an opportunity to explore strange new worlds and interact with the enchanting characters who reside there. A small town in rural Texas is an exotic treat compared to life in New Jersey or New Zealand, if you’re unaccustomed to small-town America. Unfamiliar is often just enough to jump-start our curiosity and lead us to explore the mundane as long as it feels new to us. Anything out of the ordinary becomes spellbinding because it gives our minds something to scrutinize and dissect — something to play with.
I have often considered traveling to far-flung locations for the sole purpose of writing about them, and that’s fine, but I would argue that you don’t need to go anywhere to find compelling subjects to write about. You just need to open your mind and employ a greater focus on discovering a fresh perspective for your imagination.
I believe that the true advantage that travel brings to a writer, is that it forces us outside of our comfort zone. We don’t know the landscape, the customs are unfamiliar, the people…
