T is for Travelling

Travelling is a real issue for me. I'm agoraphobic, which doesn't mean I can't go out in the open but is more to do with crowds and queues and people. I have a passport but I haven't been out of the country (except Ireland but that doesn't really count). Going to Winchester for my MA and walking into a classroom took some doing, and travelling to London to meet an agent was extra stressful because it meant a number of hours on a train. It follows that I haven't been anywhere, so either my settings have to be centred on the places near my home, or I have to do a lot of research. Thank the gods for the Internet!

Stef Penney wrote The Tenderness of Wolves, set in Canada, about a pioneer family trying to survive in a new wilderness. She, too, was agoraphobic, and her main character is as well. So, Stef did all her research from the security of the library, and created that snowy wilderness for her readers entirely from research.

I'm travelling, imaginatively, through the landscape of Transylvania, hundreds of years ago. There's no-one to tell me what life was exactly like back then, we only have historical snippets to work from, but I felt the book deserves the closest representation I can come up with. Provided it serves the story, of course. 

I still hope, one day, to travel further afield. I managed to get to the Lake District a couple of years ago, maybe Scotland would be fun but ultimately, I'd like to give that passport a run out, especially as it took me so long to get.