Fast Updates:
Wishing you all a safe and happy March!
We met some amazing creative folks and had a blast at the event we participated in during the month of February!
Added Events: Lafayette Mighty Con, St. Charles Quad Con, DarkHistory & Horror Convention Champaign, and Kokomo Quad Con.
I have created new bookmarks to share at events:
Also:
readersfavorite.com will have three of my available books listed as prizes in the monthly book giveaway. If you are interested in winning some amazing books by great authors you can check out the monthly giveaway here: book giveaway /Rise or here for The Warning Signs: giveaway/the-warning-signs and here: book-giveaway/combo.
Upcoming Event Reminders:
2024
On March 17th we plan to participate at the St. Charles Quad Con! This event is set to take place at the Steel Shop Event Center in St. Charles MO
Concealed Realms is scheduled to return to Saluki Con! This Eclipse Con will be held on April 6th and 7th.
Concealed Realms is scheduled to be at the Oz-Stravaganza! This event takes place May 31st – June 2nd in Chittenango, NY.
Concealed Realms plans to participate in the Kokomo Quad Con taking place July 20st and 21st. This event will take place at the Markland Mall, Kokomo IN. (Unconfirmed)
We are scheduled to participate at the DarkHistory & Horror Convention. The con this year will be August 31st -September 1st, at the Orpheum theater in Champaign, IL.
Concealed Realms plans to participate at the inaugural horror fiesta in Peoria IL on September 14th. This event is set to take place at the exposition gardens opera house.
We are scheduled to participate in the Lafayette Comic Con, Mighty Con on October 26th. This event takes place at the Tippecanoe County Fairgrounds, located in Lafayette, IN
Quotes About Travel and Inspiration:
“Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way.”
– Edward de Bono
“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.”
– St. Augustine
“Wherever you go becomes a part of you somehow.”
– Anita Desai
“Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.”
– Terry Pratchett
“A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.”
– Lao Tzu
“I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.”
– Robert Louis Stevenson
“The traveler sees what he sees. The tourist sees what he has come to see.”
– G.K. Chesterton
I read; I travel; I become”
– Derek Walcott
“Every dreamer knows that it is entirely possible to be homesick for a place you’ve never been to, perhaps more homesick than for familiar ground.”
– Judith Thurman
“I am not the same having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world.”
– mary anne radmacher
Definition of globetrotter:
Dictionary.com
verb
“travel throughout the world, especially regularly or frequently.” – www.dictionary.com
Merriam Webster.com
Verb
“ a person who travels widely“to say things intended to be humorous” – merriamwebster.com
Travel and Inspiration
In past posts, I have written about shifting creative outlets for inspiration and I have also shared some of my favorite travel experiences, so I thought it would be fun to write a short creativity post about traveling for artistic inspiration. Of course, there are other scientifically proven benefits to be gained from travel, including stress relief, increased physical activity, and even enhancing language skills, but for this post, we will focus on a few ways that we can use travel for inspiration.
New Surroundings
Exploring new environments and immersing yourself in unfamiliar cultures around the world can be stimulating in beneficial ways. The brain craves challenges, so I recommend that you travel whenever you can to wake up restless minds. You do not necessarily have to travel far to draw inspiration from a trip, anyplace that’s new to you can have similar benefits for unlocking creativity.
Science shows that when we experience the unfamiliar sights, sounds, tastes, and textures of environments our brains process a barrage of new information, making connections between novel stimuli. Novel sensory stimuli elicit adaptive behavioral responses. In other words, when your brain processes unfamiliar stimuli, it works harder and faster, so that you can better adapt to your new surroundings.
Experience
Take advantage of this increase in brain function, by not just seeing the major tourist attractions. Make sure that you immerse yourself in the whole experiences of the new place. Visit locally owned businesses, participate in smaller local events, talk to the people that live there, and take time to examine your natural surroundings. Whether you are an artist, author, or engineer, you will benefit from all you see.
You may not have time to keep a specific record while you are traveling, but if you do, writing notes, making sketches, or creating a trip journal, could help you call up important details later. When I travel, I like to take a lot of photos. Thousands of them. They may be of people, places, animals, things, or even textures that I find interesting or unique.
Expression
Later when I am working, and I want to incorporate a specific experience, I can use these images from trips, to enhance the pool of knowledge that I draw from. I find that for me, they are very useful for later memory recall of not just specific days and sights, but of the finer details such as smells and emotions as well.
Don’t get me wrong, I love research and you can read about a place or thing to get the information necessary to write about it, but you may not have as much enthusiasm or emotion attached to it, so the output may be quite different. The travel experiences will influence your artistic and creative expression.
Example
For instance, when I was in Arizona this January, I took a tour of a candy factory. It was a lot of fun, learning about the production of chocolate and taffy on site and even tasting the candy. Now if I ever have a desire to write about such a factory, I will be much more adept at bringing the experience to life in written words by describing the smells, feelings, tastes, and even the people that may be working there.
The encounter also offered me a change in perspective. No two experiences however similar are quite the same. Before that day, I had never been on a tour of a candy factory, but I had participated in two different chocolate tours. One was in Costa Rica several years ago, and another in Oahu about ten years in the past. They may have sounded like the same tours on paper, but being in very different surroundings, the production process and history were vastly differing and the only real similarity that stands out was the smell of chocolate.
Tips
Immersing myself in new experiences is one of my favorite ways to find inspiration and influence. The allure of exploring different cultures, customs, and unfamiliar landscapes has the power to ignite that creative flame. Perhaps that’s why globe-trotting has long been a source of inspiration for creatives.
- Be curious:Be curious: Ask questions, explore, and take time to really examine your natural surroundings.
- Journaling: Keeping a travel notebook, making recordings, sketching, or taking pictures, not only preserves memories but helps with later recall of finer details.
- Go off the beaten path: Visit less known or uncharted spots. These places will often be less crowded and can offer a more meaningful experience.
- Talk with Locals: Hear their stories and get their perspectives.
Final thoughts
Travel doesn’t have to mean going far from home, but rather experiencing something new and using it as a lesson for the senses by immersing yourself, so that later you can recall it in detail, enhancing your work.
If you have never climbed a tree in a forest, walked a cobblestone path, followed a stream, or flown in an airplane, as long as you can do them safely, they are all equally beneficial to your creativity. So, climb that tree, walk that path, watch the stream as it snakes through the land on its way to the sea, pay attention at takeoff, and look to those fields as they shrink until they resemble little more than patchwork quilts.
I want to thank you for your continued support. I hope that you enjoyed this brief post!
Want to read more Articles on how travel can reduce stress and inspire creativity?
Check these out:
sciencedirect.com, repository.ubn.ru.nl,sciencedirect.com/2,paintedbrain.org,culturetourist.com
Check out these sites:
mightyconshows.com
QuadCon
Peoriacon
Reedpop.com
DArkNovels
iowa-icon.com
Oddmall
Jump to:
Rise
Reviews
Lost
Contact
Book Trailers
Illustrations
Acknowledgements
About The Author
