As a writer, I’ve always felt it important to open myself up to new experiences. I mean, not like sky-diving or swimming with sharks but experiences that will intrigue and excite me… rather than scare the life out of me. By doing this, I find I am able to fill my head and my heart with new inspiration and insights.

In her book, The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron suggests something similar. She instructs the reader to go on ‘artist’s dates’, on which you take yourself off somewhere new for an hour or two to focus on experiencing something you wouldn’t day-to-day.

Joanna Penn of The Creative Penn website also regularly talks about the importance of filling the creative well (I’ve followed Joanna for some years now, and can recommend her website if you’re interested in writing and/or publishing).

With all this in mind, I didn’t put up any resistance when on the 2nd of January my historian of a husband suggested a ride out of London in the direction of Rochester. Though I was yet to return to the laptop in an official capacity, I understood a new environment would be the perfect stimulus to kick-start my creativity in 2019.

Once we’d made the short hop from Victoria, we spent a good while roaming the passage ways of Rochester Castle, which boasts a 12th Century stone keep.

Over the last couple of years I’ve started writing murder mystery novels – or cosy crime novels as they are now perhaps better known. While wandering the stone steps and corridors of the castle, I started to think about what a great chase scene you could have in a story if you set it in a relic like this one.

Inspiration isn’t just to be found in the grandest places however. My fourth novel, which I’m currently in the process of writing, happens to be rather concerned with bookshops. I’m sure you’ll agree then, the importance of me visiting as many bookshops as possible in the name of research. Rochester definitely delivered on this score. I wasn’t going to walk past ‘England’s largest rare & secondhand bookshop.’

I may have come out with one or two volumes under my arm, for it is said that authors can never read enough. I also overheard an endearing conversation between a father and daughter who were trying to solve a riddle set by the bookshop. When you unraveled it, you found the shop’s hidden ‘fairy door’. I didn’t go on the quest to uncover this gateway to the fairy world myself but, who knows? One of my characters might in a future story or poem.

The current protagonist I’m working with is a tea-obsessed, crime-solving librarian so it may come as no surprise that this sign hanging outside Mrs Tickit’s Pantry caught my attention. It also seemed like a sign from the universe that it was time to sit down, eat and drink. I’m always looking for signs like these but just as in the case with the bookshop, it is all in the name of research as I have to make my character’s visit to tearooms and similar places seem authentic. Sssh. Yes I do.

The last portion of our day was spent exploring Rochester Cathedral. I was particularly taken by the curves and the arches of their crypt and spent quite a bit of time photographing the different patterns and shapes the beams made. Story-tellers are always looking for intriguing interiors where they can set some dialogue or action. I’m not ruling out a chapter set in a crypt in some future adventure on the page. I don’t know if or when I’ll use this experience but there are some experiences in my journal that have sat for almost twenty years before coming in very handy in one of my creative works – there is no expiry date on these things, I’ve found.

Circling and weaving through Rochester’s enchanting architecture, more than a hundred ideas for characters, interactions, dialogue, settings and feelings zipped through my mind. I captured some of them in my journal and ‘threw some fish back for another day’, as we say round our way. Due to the dwindling January daylight we were in Rochester less than six hours in total, but as you can see the experience was rich and inspiring.

If you have creative aspirations for 2019, I wholeheartedly encourage you to find even two hours a month to go somewhere new and fill your creative well. It could be as simple as walking home from work via a different route, going to a free event organized near you, going to see a film you wouldn’t ordinarily go and see or visiting an area of town / coffee shop you’ve always meant to go but never quite made it to. It doesn’t have to be expensive or in fact cost anything at all but taking your mind to a new environment and sparking your curiosity often makes our creative hearts beat faster.