Writing

Writing about one’s travels is not a new idea.  It’s been done well, and it’s been done poorly.  I want to do it well.  I figure my odds of getting something published are about one in six, but in order to increase those odds I’ve been reading well-regarded travelogues.  Peter Jenkins’s A Walk Across America, William Least-Heat Moon’s Blue Highways, Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods, John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley, and David Grann’s The Lost City of Z all are good.  The first four are mostly voyages of self-discovery.  The Lost City of Z has a historical basis, as will my book, but it also tells of the author’s growing obsession with his subject.  But in each book, there’s a component that I really don’t have: the author’s personal stake.  In each book, the author reveals a part of himself.  And it’s a painful part: the out-of-place disenchantment of a recent college grad (Jenkins), the confidence-crushing loss of a job and a wife (Least-Heat Moon), the softness and complacency of one who has gone too long without outdoor adventure (Bryson), the defiance of middle age (Steinbeck), and the myopic obsession with a lost Amazonian city (Grann).

That spooks me, because I’d rather not be so honest.  But in each of those books, the self-revelation drives the narrative – it allows the reader to identify with the author.  Without that identification, I don’t think a travelogue can succeed.  Writing may be like hot sauce and country music; it has to hurt a little to be good.

The hardest part will be balancing the book’s components: history of the Walker Expedition, the country I pass through, the people I meet, diversions into other interesting subjects (e.g., geology), and self-revelation.

It would help me to get feedback from yall on what types of entries are fun to read and which are boring; which are interesting and which are dull; what you’ve seen too much of and what you’d like to see more.  Email me.  I would appreciate your input.  Duke is a helluva dog, but he’s not much of a literary critic.

Thanks, in particular, to Dad, Mike Melonakos, Katie Sheehan, Kim Harris, Letitia Sikes, and Mike Caplan for the feedback they’ve offered.


POSTSCRIPT.  Right now, I am backpacking in the Sierras.  I will probably be gone on that backpacking trip for a week or more, so this blog entry is one that I prepared ahead of time and scheduled to post in advance.  I’ll start writing “live” posts again when I’m back to my truck and computer.  While I’m gone, there will be no new blog entries for Saturday or Sunday.