Be Open to the Unexpected

We took advantage of an unusually warm day by strolling through Central park.

This past weekend, my family took one of those trips that we will remember for a lifetime. My son recently turned 16, and since his older sister still drives them to school and sports and we don’t need a fourth car, I suggested we take a trip to a place he’s never been before in place of a gift. Now, he was hesitant at first because he’s a homebody and he felt like that would be “too much.” My daughter is 18 and she was all on board. We took advantage of them being out of school last Thursday and Friday for teacher workdays and booked our flight and a modest hotel in the Garment District. 

As I’m sure you can guess, not everything went as planned. My husband and I have never traveled together to NYC and we’d never ridden the subway. But my son is a huge NBA fan and we bought tickets to see a Brooklyn Nets game the night we arrived. This meant we had to navigate the subway to and from the game. Don’t laugh, but I’d watched a few YouTube videos on how to purchase a metro card and use it for our family of four, and we used Apple Maps to tell us which stop to get on and off. It made for a long night, but we did it. We were proud of ourselves but then accidentally boarded the subway going in the wrong direction the next day trying to get to the World Trade Center. We quickly hopped off once we realized it, the attendant let us pass back through to get to the train going in the right direction without paying again. 

The trip took us out of our normal comfort zone, but through trial and error, we learned how to balance the inexpensive meals with the expensive. We saw how magical a Broadway show was (and my son kept joking he would probably nap through it. Spoiler: he didn’t). We stumbled across an experiential "Stranger Things" store and had a blast taking photographs. We marveled at the architecture in the New York Public Library. We shopped in Soho and Times Square and visited all eight floors of Macy’s just to say we did. My daughter, who also loves to write, said she can now realistically write what it’s like to ride on a subway. Because I’ve read so many books set in New York over the years, I was able to share factoids with everyone else about the different districts and history. 

The whole trip made me think about how our writing projects sometimes take us to unexpected places. The very first book I ever wrote was an 80,000-word novel that featured adult characters and chapters detailing their teen years. I eventually cut it in half, deleted all the adult scenes, and focused in on the teen storylines. A trip to the Ringling Museum in Sarasota, Florida one summer inspired me to sit down and write a short story about a famous circus fire in one sitting. It can be easy to develop tunnel vision with our projects, but I encourage everyone, including myself, to stay flexible and follow your heart. You never know where it might lead you. 

Renee Roberson is an award-winning writer and editor who also produces the true crime podcast, Missing in the Carolinas. Learn more at www.FinishedPages.com.