My dream job, I've often said, is to be a travel writer. I don't see it as some far off pipe dream, but something tangible based on the fact that I continue refining my craft and making myself into a better writer. And with confidence in my skills comes the confidence to approach those possible employers who might hire me to write. At first my travel writing will have to be self-funded.
The idea of becoming a professional writer can be daunting at times. Sure, there are many great writers out there, so what is unique about me is my authenticity and genuine connection to my subject. Only when connected to my subject with my own unique perspective can I hope to surpass what's been done before. Only by feeling genuinely first can I hope to write genuinely.
Some of the experiences I've written about include places I've traveled to and concerts I've attended. Of all my writings this is the most extensive collection and the primary kind of writing I continued to do even when I abandoned most other forms. Reading and studying the travel articles and music reviews from magazines such as Outside, Rolling Stone, Spin and Backpacker have always been ways of tuning into new styles and perspectives. It has helped me liven up my vocabulary and change my sentence structuring.
The Best American Travel Writing series is one of the best forums for great travel writing - the best being those pieces that highlight the not so lovely side of a location - the whole in the wall eateries, the dark and twisted bordellos and backalleys, the near-arrests and interrogations that occur when a Western writer tries to ask the wrong questions in a country where freedom of speech and the questioning of authority is off limits, the up close confrontations with soldiers and border patrol men, and with the sick and dying and poor. Not all travel writing is hotels and pina coladas and four star restaurants. The best occurs far away from those places with roads unpaved, in locations not yet gentrified, and not sanitized for the typical tourist.
The consequence of exposing a new location is that a travel writer destroys the sanctity of those places, opening the door for those that will inevitably follow, trying to replicate this original "bare bones" experience. As tourism begins the local economy and people are forever affected, and so things rarely stay the same. The unknown places we write about today can never stay the same, for we are bringing attention to them in ways that will forever alter the indigenous culture economically and culturally when those seeking the same experience arrive.
Any great writer is first a great reader. One of my favorite local travel writers is Thomas Swick who writes for the Sun Sentinel. Here are some excerpts from his short story "Have Book, Will Travel"
About the fact that most Americans do very little reading - "for this, too, travel writers are much better prepared. We tend not to enter MFA program, teach at universities, or live in New York City, so we are in constant touch with the great unread. From our hours spent in airports we know that most Americans, when presented with large chunks of free time and removed from demanding home entertainment systems, will still find almost any excuse - a cell phone, a laptop, another bag of chips - not to pick up a book. To travel is to be continually reminded of the growing homelessness of the written word."
More on the lack of American readers and the blogger age - "Tell a writer you write and depression set in; tell a writer you read and gratitude blossoms. Especially now, in the Blog Age, when it seems that more people want to write than to read (not realizing that you need to read in order to write anything that is worth reading, or hasn't already been written). But this is the inevitable result when a culture prizes self-expression over learning. It is the written equivalent of a room in which everyone is talking and nobody is listening."
Many people have blogs now - probably many of them writing more than reading all the other blogs out there. Who are we really writing to then, if all the people who might be reading our work are busy blogging themselves?
I met him once. He came into my English class.
ReplyDeleteThe funny thing about blogging... no one finds you randomly. It's all about marketing. At least the ones I follow. Give aways and contests and such. Silly actually.