How to Turn Travel Memories into Travel Stories

by Jerry Camarillo Dunn, Jr. Here’s a useful technique for all kinds of writing, although it works particularly well for the travel genre.

Close your eyes. It’s dark now, like being in a theater when the lights go down. See the white screen inside your head and let it fill with a mental movie of a scene or incident from your travels. As the scene envelops you and details grow sharper, look around. What’s nearby?

Remember, your mind has not only an eye, but also an ear, a nose, and skin to take in what’s around you. Listen to people’s voices (kids giggling? cab drivers arguing?), smell the air (roses? diesel fumes?), see colors (sand, watermelon), and feel sensations (the Greek sun burning the tops of your bare feet).

When the movie ends – and it will naturally just fade out – it’s time to capture your impressions. Without coming out of your quiet state of recollection, jot down phrases that describe what you experienced, capturing the details before they fade. Later, these impressions will help you create a scene for your story.

Here’s an example from an article I wrote early in my career for the “Los Angeles Times” travel section, about buying inexpensive air tickets in Bangkok:

We were standing in front of “K. King’s Made-to-Order Suits and Travel Agency – Once Tried, Ever Trusted” at 119 Sukhumvit Road, quietly melting away in the sun like sticks of butter, when a round Sikh with black eyes and an electric blue turban leaned out of his shop.

“You want cheapest air fare?” he asked, his eyebrows shooting up and down suggestively like Groucho Marx’s. “Come in, come in! Call me Jimmy . . .”

My job as a travel writer was to make this encounter in Thailand come to life for the reader. To accomplish this, I mentally replayed my memory “movie,” wrote down the details, and employed them in writing the scene.

Here’s a promise: Use this technique, and you’ll soon be writing travel stories so real they jump off the page – and into the reader’s head.

Jerry Camarillo Dunn, Jr. teaches the SBWC travel writing workshop. His work has received three Lowell Thomas Awards, the “Oscars” of the field, from the Society of American Travel Writers.

Memoirs, Truth, Opinion

by Rebecca Robins

The New York Times mentioned recently that a slight brouhaha was brewing. After Joyce Carol Oates’ A Widow’s Story, a memoir of her life following the death of her husband of many years, came out, Julian Barnes complained that it was “a breach of narrative promise” for her not to reveal that she’d remarried a little over a year after her first husband’s death.

Ms. Oates, in response, said the book was meant to be about the immediate experience of widowhood, but suggested in future editions, she might add an appendix to bring her story up to date.

Her editor, in response to them both, said Ms. Oates’ memoir was about losing her first husband and her second marriage was inappropriate information because it ruined the integrity of the experience she described.

One book, three opinions, and it got me to thinking about how one chooses what to include in a memoir, and what it means ‘to tell the truth,” something I often say to writers.

What I’ve always meant by that is pretty simple -- you have a choice about what you want to write, but once you make that choice, tell the truth about it if you want your work to have integrity. There is the expression: warts, and all. You get to choose the wart, but once you have that wart on the page, it’s your responsibility to tell the truth about it.

Now I’m pretty sure, given Ms. Oates, that whatever she wrote about her immediate experience was as close to the truth as she was going to get. I am also pretty sure that if she had sifted how she felt immediately after the death of her husband through the filter of her future marriage, it would have distorted the truth of the experience lived. She would have been looking back through a future knowledge she didn’t have when she lived those moments.

But I’m also pretty sure that Mr. Barnes, short listed multiple times for the Man Booker prize, and quite the heavy weight novelist, felt the novelist’s burden to tidy up the story. Even if only the frame he wanted it presented in. But, and this is important, that wasn’t the story Ms. Oates chose to tell.

Just as you have a choice.

If Ms. Oates deprived the world of Mr. Barnes’ narrative promise by her choices, that only meant the world would be in for the satisfaction of a turn of events separate from the text and a little farther down the line -- what, already remarried? -- which, if you think about it, approximates more closely for the reader the sequential experience of the two separate events: widowhood and remarriage.

It really is your story. You get to choose.

Santa Barbara Born Novel Returns Home

by Zoe Ghahremani When I exchanged a dental practice in Chicago for a typewriter in California, I had already finished the first drafts of two novels. It was hard to believe that from then on, writing would be my life and that I no longer had to search for a free moment to do what I had always believed was my vocation.

I enrolled in workshops and extension classes at UCSD to make sure I was on the right track, but it wasn’t until I joined SBWC that I became a committed writer. Ten years ago, I packed my manuscripts, sharpened my pencil and drove to Santa Barbara. Having lived at home during college, Westmont was my first real "college experience." As a mother of two college kids and having taught at Northwestern, I was familiar with dorm rooms, cafeteria food, and lines of students waiting to use the computer room. How alluring were those scenes now that I was once again the student.

I had no idea as to which of the many workshops and classes would be best to attend, but soon realized that it didn’t really matter. After sitting in a couple of classes I knew that I’d benefit from each and every one offered. By the second day, I had met students of all ages, who had come from around the country. Some of those friendships have lasted to this day and their support and camaraderie has seen me through years of struggle. It was one such friend, who encouraged me to stay up at night and join one of the “pirate workshops.”

That night, a few hours after dinner, using the flashlight she had brought along, we walked through the wooded campus to the to east side and entered the den of ‘pirate writers.’ People of all ages sat wherever they could find a seat and their conversation filled the large room with a pleasant buzz. Shelly Lowenkopf was in a wing chair at the top of the room. I knew his name because I had pre-submitted a portion of my manuscript for his preview. He was busy talking, a large dog at his feet.

A young girl held a clipboard and went around to take down names. When she reached me, I wrote mine and had no idea that was the list of volunteers who’d read that night. Looking back, I recall many of those writers’ names, including some who were already established, such as Monte Schulz, and am amazed that I had found the courage to read a few paragraphs. It was the first time I read my Sky of Red Poppies to a crowd and I felt as if I had just revealed my biggest secret to complete strangers.

Throughout that first conference, a Mark Twain quote echoed in my mind. "Don’t let schooling interfere with your education." I was determined to receive the education that my schooling had deprived me of. My writer’s life had just begun and SBWC was at Westmont College to make sure I was educated. I had arrived with a bag full of rough drafts and a heart heavy with uncertainty. Little did I know that on the drive home I would carry enough hope to see me through years of hard work.

The legendary Ray Bradbury taught me to seek knowledge in the library, Shelly Lowenkopf said, "You were born a writer." Sid Stebel found the point where my story should begin, and John Daniel helped me to hone my prose. Yvonne Nelson Perry taught me to be "visceral". Later, she also made sure I understood punctuation. "You’re allowed ONE exclamation mark per lifetime!" Her loving, caring ways helped me to pass a few more steppingstones long after the conference. Marla Miller taught me to speak up and present myself. And so it was that at the conclusion of the following conference they called my name and I walked upstage to Cork Milner and received my first award for "Excellence In Writing."

After a short absence I now return to Santa Barbara, but this time I’m not empty handed. My born-in-Santa-Barbara novel is going back with me to celebrate its triumph over obstacles such as education, motherhood, career, even age. There is much to learn and many more books to write, but this time I won’t simply absorb and dream. In a way, I envy the newcomers because what is now an expectation to me will be a most pleasant surprise for them.

Too many teachers and fellow students have touched my life and I won’t ever be able to thank them all. So I hope they hear me when I say, "I’m bringing you the first harvest of the seeds you sowed, Santa Barbara Writers Conference, because Sky of Red Poppies is as much your novel as it is mine. "

The Myth of Loneliness

by Shelly Lowenkopf

Among the many myths associated with the activity of being a professional writer, none is so epidemic and fraught as loneliness. I’ve heard some writers and want-to-be writers go so far as to construct an entire calculus in which the degree of authorial depth of skill is directly related to the agony of loneliness a writer suffers.

He or she who is gregarious, has a life filled with friends, the myth goes, is doomed to a life of rejection slips or, at best, a choice spot on the remainder table. It takes a trail of broken relationships and estrangements to make it to the backlist of the publisher’s catalog; nothing short of a hermit-like existence and shabby personal habits gets the writer a choice spot on the frontlist.

Bologna. The sausage, rather than the city.

Most writers would give up their latest bug-free edition of Microsoft Word or iPages for more time apart and, indeed, this becomes one of the reasons why writers who do manage to get time away from friends, family, and associates for composing their latest work often have reputations for being inconsiderate, uncaring, and cold. Some writers—amazing persons—have learned to manage their work while babies or mates are napping. Others still have found ways to turn off the individuals in their surroundings and work in spite of not being lonely, wishing all the time for loneliness.

Not far down from loneliness on the Ten Things You Thought You Knew about Being a Writer is the idiotic trope that writing books, short stories, essays, and op-ed pieces presents the writer with the freedom of choice and expression dictated by their own conscience and creative self. This may work for the dilettante or hobbyist, otherwise—welcome to the world of publishing, where there are literary agents, acquisitions editors, content editors and copyeditors, not to mention publishers, salespersons, and publicists. Each of these worthies has a semblance of a career tacked on to what you propose to do, and don’t you forget it.

Good luck finding a literary agent who will represent you when all you wish to do is write short stories and the occasional prose poem (whatever the hell that might be.) Better luck yet with getting a manuscript into type without “notes” from an editor or that bugbear for consistency of usage, the copy editor.

Unless, of course, you chose to self-publish. Some possibilities of loneliness for you when you take your self-published work into a book store, or show it to a literary agent, or do manage to buy your way into a “book tour” in which you address potential audiences in strange venues that seem to attract large crowds of motorcycle tourists.

Writing is one of the least lonely of activities. When you hear a writer complaining of the time spent in isolation, away from his or her fellow humans, devoid of the human foibles that so infuse writing with heart and content, it is because he or she—that very filer of the indictment of loneliness—wants your ear to complain about the injustices visited from reviewers, agents, editors, booksellers.

Even if you have not come close to approaching the plateau of stature you wish in your writing, the mere fact of you being on the learning curve will have the effect of lifting a rock after a rainstorm. Individuals, some of them complete strangers to you, will be only too glad to send you their latest work for a reading, or perhaps you have some pointers for their son, daughter, husband, cousin, who also wishes to join the community of writing voices.

If you are serious about wishing to forge a career in writing, you will experience many things, ranging from abject humiliation to those embarrassing moments of being congratulated for books you did not write nor have any wish to write, to flights of the sheer satisfaction a bird must feel when a thermal provides it a lift skyward or a dog feels when its nose wraps around an intriguing scent. But lonely? Not likely.

June Newsletter

Nine days left until opening night at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference 2011! It’s almost time to look up from our keyboards and be reminded of the community of writers ready once more to get together for a week of hard work, inspiration, and lots of smiles. The conference is filling up; we’ve got 20 spots left, if you can believe it. Don’t wait until the last week to sign up!

Good News: Hotel Mar Monte is celebrating their 80th Anniversary, and to celebrate all lunches and dinners at the hotel will be 25% off during the week of the conference. Yum!

The Graphic Novel Panel is scheduled for Tuesday June 21st at 4pm. Panelists include: Joyce Farmer, Sammy Harkham, and Tim Hensley. Joyce’s graphic novel, Special Exits, was recently awarded the National Cartoonists Society Award.

Announced at BEA in NY: Writers and Their Notebooks, an anthology workshop leader Diana Raab compiled and edited with a Foreword by Phillip Lopate, won the 2011 Eric Hoffer Award.

Sad News: For the first time in 39 years, Ray Bradbury will not be joining us at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference due to complications with his health. Ray has attended every SBWC since it’s beginning 1972 and has inspired hundreds of writers with his talks on love and writing. In Ray’s place, Clive Cussler will speak on opening night.

If you’ve been wondering, What is the pirate workshop? Check out this video (Thanks, Lisa Angle!). For those of you pirate veterans, you’ll enjoy this, too.:

MUSEOLOGY 101

by Mary Hershey

If you want creative help from your muse, here’s an important insider secret. Start working first. It’s a lesson that I forget at least two to five times a week. Muses, turns out, are agents of the active, not the idle. In order to lure one to your table, your canvas, your novel, poem or blog, roll up your sleeves and get to work. Dive, doodle, journal, collage, whatever— enter boldly into the world of artistic expression. Then, just watch and wait to see what happens! Quite often, NOTHING. (Whaa-a-a-t!) That’s right. Sometimes you sit for hours and end up with nothing newer than a raging red hangnail. So you stop, and then try again the next day. Nada. A recorded message plays close to your ear. “All Muses are busy, please stay on the line for the next available goddess.” The minutes, hours, days tick away and your hangnail has now born several offspring. Still, nothing. At this point, I want you to congratulate yourself for being an artist, a writer, and a laborer. Way to go. Just keep showing up. But you might want to put some gloves on. Those hangnails are getting scary. Some writers (as in ME) expect muses to be gentle, encouraging, effusive, beautiful, devoted, lavish, at your service, day or night. Picture Meryl Streep on a deep velvet chaise sipping Hibiscus tea spouting poetry and prose. In this vision, the lovely muse serves as the true speaker, and you only a mouthpiece. This is how it should work, right? The muse that I’ve been assigned looks like actress Kathy Bates in a ketchup-stained waitress uniform with a nametag that reads Wanda. When it comes to our partnership, she wants to roll out of her support hose, put her feet up, and give me a hard time. I’ve tried to turn her back in for a kinder model, but no dice. Turns out we each get issued one muse, and it’s a “for better for worse till death do you part kind of thing.” According to the Pausanias (I think they’re from Jersey), there were three original Muses: Aoide representing song and voice, Melete of practice or occasion, and Mneme, goddess of memory. Together these three make up a complete picture of the preconditions of poetic art. In later times, additional Muses joined the team and each was assigned their own field of patronage. Enter Calliope (Chief Muse), Euterpe, Clio, Erato, Melpomene, Polyhymnia, Terpsichore, Thalia and Urania. If these chicks wanted another gig, they could make a truly sick (as in completely cool) all girl band, don’t you think? Why the herstory lesson? I’m moving toward my important point at lightning speed now. These poor goddesses are bone tired. You try being in charge of charge of comedy, epic song, or bucolic poetry for a few thousand years! It is really exhausting work. I forget when it was exactly— sometime after their big project with Milton’s PARADISE LOST, they unionized. They’d had enough! Channeling their gifts day after day, only to net a small byline, if any, in all the great works of literature. The Allied Muse & Goddess Union (AMGU) sets standards and guidelines for their collaborations with artists and writers. Beck and call work is strictly forbidden. Direct channeling allowed under certain conditions. Missed appointments are costly. Repeat missed appointments may be fatal. Muses must be treated with the proper god-like respect at all times. Gum popping in the presence of a muse is forbidden. Only Calliope and Euterpe, the muses of epic and lyric song, will allow iPods during a session. Artists must keep their own creative wells filled. Muses will not work in a room where handhelds, or cell phones are left on. And there you have it, Museology 101. Now get to work. Show up. Keep your tank filled. Shut out the distractions. Hydrate. Easy on the caffeine. Breathe. Stay in a place of gratitude for your gift, however raw it might be at this point. Show the muses you mean business. Who knows? You might get a good one! And if you do, uh, mind if I borrow her?

Mary Hershey is an author for children and young adults and a certified Personal & Executive Coach. Her first book My Big Sister is So Bossy She Says You Can’t Read this Book was published by Random House in 2005. Her three subsequent books have equally long titles that barely fit on the book spine. She has a very nice editor that doesn’t mind one bit.

The Lonely Writer’s Companion

by Lisa Lenard-Cook

How Do You Get Yourself to Your Desk?

E. B. White circled his office, straightening the pictures on the wall until the work waiting on his desk demanded his attention. Toni Morrison, a mother of three, set her alarm and brewed a strong pot of coffee so she could work before the kids got up—and continues to do so even though those kids are grown. Victor Hugo had his valet hide his clothes, forcing him to stay in his office until the day’s work was done.

Whether much-published or new to the trade, every writer has a ritual for getting to the desk. I do a lot of desk-rearranging (much of it now on the MacBook, of course) before I sneak a look at what I’m working on. I tell myself I’ll just read a few paragraphs. Then, before I know it, I’m once again immersed in the work itself.

Why such elaborate ruses? Because good writing (and by good, I mean writing that connects with readers) is a daily exercise in psychic terror. In From Where You Dream, Robert Olen Butler asserts that our daily practice requires us to delve deep into the darkest recesses of our memories, to go to the dark places where the best writing resides. No wonder we need rituals to help us.

What gets you to the desk? Do you have a pre-writing ritual?

(This article was originally published as The Lonely Writer’s Companion on Authorlink.com)