How Do They Do It?!

Travel writing, as it turns out, is an incredibly challenging endeavor. I am convinced the only souls capable of putting travel to paper are those too stubborn to quit, or too blissfully ignorant not to. How do they do it? How can someone condense a million images he sees surrounding him, each unique, each hiding a story, each worthy of further exploration and investment, into words? And not just words, but crisp, to-the-point kind of words that manage to accurately tell the story but also do so concisely? And then, to make the task all-the-more difficult, how does one make that appealing to others? It is a monumental task, to be sure.

Over the past year or so, my mind has consistently settled upon a desire to document and share my copious travel experiences.  I'm not sure why I feel this inner desire to write. I've never been much of a writer before. I suppose I feel incredibly blessed to have been so many places at such a young age and, seeing the lack of wanderlust and travel experience in those around me, desire to share my blessing with them.  The challenge, of course, is beginning. Moments of pure inspiration will come to me at the most inopportune times. Driving in bumper-to-bumper traffic always seems to open the flood-gates of travel-writing inspiration. By the time I reach a computer to document my now-finished brainstorming session on the I-405, the thoughts have stormed away, rarely to be found again. The moment my fingers grace the slick surface of this keyboard, my thoughts fade away, and distractions creep in. If only there was a thought vacuum to capture my moments of inspiration and save them for a later, more convenient time. If anyone manages to invent such a device, I would really appreciate the heads-up.

The largest roadblock I face, and this could be entirely self-imposed, is finding my "voice." I love travel literature. Reading these books provides me with an insatiable appetite to write down my memories, but it also leaves me feeling terribly far from writing anything resembling the works I read. Bill Bryson is by-far my favorite author. He is endowed with an absolutely mind-blowing ability to relate his experiences in a self-deprecating, honest, humorous, enlightening, informative, and descriptive way. His passages are concise enough to be readable, but descriptive enough to make you feel as if you are riding along with him on his shoulder. Clearly, Bryson has found his voice. J. Maarten Troost is remarkably blunt, delightful, and ingenious in his works. Andrew Evans manages to make his travels personal and pertinent to those reading. While reading his writings, you can almost picture yourself engaged in conversation with him. His words are so real and simple that it makes reading pleasantly enjoyable. I don't know what my style is yet. And that is incredibly frustrating.

Rarely have I ever desired to be ignorant. But in this case, in my personal pursuit to write about and share my memories with others, I sincerely hope I become blissfully ignorant of the difficulty involved in writing about travel. May I bumble along foolishly in my quest to write! May I become 1/100th the travel writer that Bill Bryson has become! May I find my voice! May I press-on in my passionate pursuit.