Kaliningrad. Standing on the same Baltic coastline that sparked my first novel three years ago.
The fortress walls look exactly as I remember them, but I’m seeing them through different eyes now. When I wrote Northern Rift, this place felt mysterious, full of secrets waiting to be uncovered. Now I understand it was never about the location – it was about learning to see stories in ordinary spaces.
Walking through the amber museum where my detective character once chased clues. The exhibits haven’t changed, but my relationship with narrative has evolved completely. Back then I was hunting for plot devices. Now I’m interested in psychological architecture – how spaces shape the people moving through them.
The interactive map from my debut feels quaint compared to what I’m building now. Those simple choice points were training wheels for the complex decision trees waiting in The Maw. Every technique starts somewhere.
Been photographing street corners and building facades, not for nostalgia but for comparison. How does your perspective shift when you return to foundational places? What details emerge when familiarity drops away?
A young writer might see this trip as sentimental journey. But it’s research. Understanding how memory layers over physical space, how our internal maps change whilst the external world stays static.
The Baltic still crashes against those medieval stones with the same rhythm. But I’m listening for different frequencies now. The sound isn’t romantic anymore – it’s geological time grinding against human ambition.
Three years ago this coastline gave me my first book. Today it’s confirming what I’ve learned since: places don’t contain stories. People do.
The circle completes, but you’re never the same person who started walking it.
Daria Ryzhikova Writer