My problem is that studying takes time—productive time unfettered by fibro and RA fatigue or by chores like doing the laundry and shopping for groceries. At most I have two to four hours of free productive time a day.
With that time, I want to learn about travel writing. As my cameras shrink in size due to my diminishing strength and my time in the field shooting shrinks correspondingly, I want to expand the writing I do. I can write on my laptop or in my i-PAD or with a pencil, or I can dictate into a recorder. I want to take notes while we travel on photo-shoots, then structure the notes into stories—creative non-fiction essays and stories—travel writing.
For example, you’ve read the two posts I wrote about our Brazil trip. What you didn’t see was
- A Franciscan monk meditating on scriptures as birds fed on the seeds he’d scattered.
- Or my spouse giving the guide one end of his walking stick before he unwittingly slid down into the water. To free his hands and help himself out, my spouse let go of his end. The guide fell backwards onto high ground waving the stick at the sun.
- Or me sitting in the back of a boat trying to see jaguars through man-sized bodies while under strict orders not to stand up. (I obeyed because if I fell into the river, I might well feed the piranhas.)
So much of that story has yet to be told. So much of the story cannot be seen solely through the photos we took or the poems I wrote.
I am going to suspend this blog until the first of the year (2016) so that I can study travel writing from themes to voice. I want to organize my memories using our photos as reminders of earlier stories, to list the reasons people travel, and to study how to write personal essays. Finally, I want to study how other writers incorporate these facets into their travel pieces.
Early next year we’re going to India and later to the Louisiana bayous. I want to be ready to write those travel stories.
☻ Happy Holidays ☻
