Written with Veridion Smart

There are some things writers will do for a story that make absolutely no sense to normal people.

We’ll drive for hours to look at a building that may only appear in one paragraph. We’ll stand in the middle of nowhere taking pictures of rocks. We’ll walk through old towns, abandoned buildings, museums, cemeteries, battlefields, and places where absolutely nothing appears to be happening and think, “Oh, my God. This is perfect!”

Texas is the most amazing place to set a story. It has five different climates, two time zones, and gulf coastlines to the south, gorgeous hill country and vineyards to the center, ranchland and canyons to the north, desert to the west, and cotton-growing plantations to the east. So, pick your poison and plan your story – anywhere in the great state of Texas. Personally, I can't think of anywhere better - and I've been all over the world!

As you may have heard, Kevin and I are planning our final research trip at the end of October, 2026, for Book Two in the WHISPERS THROUGH TIME series, JOURNEY OF THE HEART. Somehow, I found myself reserving an Airbnb in the rather unattractive town of Lubbock (birthplace of rock’n’roller Buddy Holly) so we could spend a couple of days there and travel about forty miles to see a place few people (even Texans) have ever heard of: Blanco Canyon.

Forty miles.

Just to see a canyon.

Now, a perfectly normal person might ask, “Why don’t you look at pictures of it? Why don't you just go to YouTube?” 

Because I’m a writer, that’s why.

There’s something different about actually standing somewhere your characters might stand. You see things a photograph or even a video can’t always show you. You notice the smell of the air, the way the light falls, the color of the landscape, how far one place really is from another.

In other words, you begin to understand the setting instead of simply describing it. And sometimes you discover something you never expected to find.

That’s one of the things I love about writing. Research isn’t always about finding facts, dates, or obscure individuals that no one’s ever heard of. Sometimes it’s about letting a place, a person, a piece of history or even a completely unexpected moment get under your skin.

Then, months later, you’re writing a scene and suddenly you remember what that road looked like, or how enormous the sky seemed, or maybe even the silence. As for me, I love memories. So, I might remember something Kevin said while I’m standing alone in a field or overlooking a canyon, or how we laughed when the rain caught us by surprise, or maybe even how it felt when he held me close under General Sam Houston’s spreading oak tree in Gonzales, Texas. When you remember things as personal as that, the scene you’ve begun to build in your mind becomes very, very real.

On the other hand, there’s a downside to all this romantic research, and that’s money: Gas prices. Airbnb prices. Food prices. Basically, everything has a price. At one point, as I was planning our itinerary, I told Kevin that we were both going on enforced diets during this trip because we couldn’t afford to eat. 

He wasn’t nearly as amused as I was.

But that’s what we do for our books. We travel. We research. We take pictures. We accost strangers and ask questions. We spend money that we probably shouldn’t. And occasionally we find ourselves staying somewhere we never imagined we’d stay just so we can see something that may eventually become part of a story that we haven’t even thought of.

But, when you love the story you’re telling, you want to get it right.

So, here’s the thing: I don’t want JOURNEY OF THE HEART to feel like I simply made up a place and dropped my characters in it. I want the places to feel real – because I know it was. I want the history to feel real – because it is. And I want my characters to walk through a world that existed before they arrived and will continue to exist after they’re gone. And if that means Kevin and I have to drive forty miles out of our way to look at a canyon in the middle of nowhere…

Well…

Anything for our books, right?

  *Rosetta Diane Hoessli has written two novels, WHISPERS THROUGH TIME (2021) and TIP THE PIANO MAN (2024), and is working on a third, JOURNEY OF THE HEART. She’d love to hear from you, and you can contact her at thompd2011@gmail.com, on this website (https://www.rosettadhoesslibooks.com),  or at https://www.facebook.com/RosettaDianeAuthor or https://www.facebook.com/Ronni.Hoessli. Check out her new TikTok page at https://www.tiktok.com@Ronniwrites. Have a blessed day!