"So have you been to India?"

This was one of the first questions my editor asked me when I met with her about publishing Girl in Shades. This question arose from the fact that a latter section of my novel is set in India, and I had worked pretty hard to create an authentic experience of visiting the country.

The answer to my editor's question however, was "No, I have never been there." This led to me telling a story of a good friend who spent three months traveling around India, and after arriving back in Canada came directly to my apartment. The smell she brought with her—a strange mixture of dust, sweat and incense on her clothes, her luggage, herself—was something I will never forget. So, to my editor I said that, "I have never been to India, but I have smelled India!"

The real question is: is smell enough to adequately describe a country? I have to admit that I was a bit nervous when the book was released that people would question how I represented Maya's trip to India. Don't get me wrong, it was very thoroughly researched and was (I feel) an important journey for the character to make. However, are there subtle nuances of any environment that can only be learned by actually setting foot in said environment? Can we never really know a place until we've visited there?

I suppose if this were true, then authors would be limited to writing scenes that take place in areas they have actually been to; which seems a shame in terms of the creative experience. Perhaps instead, it is about finding that one little insight—a smell, a token, a picture, a story—that opens that new world up to the writer in a meaningful way. It's also about giving ourselves permission to explore that new place using our imagination instead of our passport, and knowing that the experience could be just as rewarding (plus, no jet lag!).