The Big Whole Wide World by Valarie Budayr

My flight number is being called over head. I’m happily getting ready to board. This time I’m going to Paris, last time I went to Sweden, and last week I made a wandering car trip on the back roads of Tennessee. It doesn’t matter where I’m going it only matters that I’m going.

Something happens when I get into travel mode, my daily life gets shut away and I live in the inspiration of the planet, the people, languages, cultures, and nature of this big wide world.

Traveling with me is always my trusty dusty notebook. When I’m in a tin can of an airplane is when most of my creative ideas come. For those 2 to 9 hours, my brain is completely flooded with ideas, creative moments, camera angles, music scores, book ideas, film ideas, and so on.

When I get off the plane or out of the car, I’m in a different world. A world of discovery. Everything is electrified, important, and a clue to one of my next creative endeavors.

Bringing Ideas to Life.......... 

When not on the road, I pull out all of those creative travel journals as well as all of my travel guides and get back into the zone.

Oftentimes I can recall the smells, what I ate, who I spoke with, what inspired me at that moment.

Once back in the travel zone it’s time to get creative. I make a cup of coffee, and start working on the next big project which has called my soul.

When we talk about our place while we are creative, my creative canvas is the big whole wide world and I am happy.

Valarie Budayr is the founder of Audrey Press and the award-winning and best-selling author of the book The Fox Diaries: The Year the Foxes Came to our Garden and The Ultimate Guide to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. She is passionate about making kid’s books come alive and you can find her doing that on her popular blog and website, Jump into a Book. When she isn’t being bookie, she is very happily the mother of three uber creative children, married to a wonderfully patient man who has come to love yarn, and caretaker of one adored cat. Other creative interests are music, travel, knitting (a bonafide yarn harlot), and gardening. She loves living a daily creative practice, where even a good cup of coffee is art.