Keep a good journal. Nuts-and-bolts facts are fine but they are readily
available from guidebooks and tourist office brochures. Rather than
cluttering my journal with that stuff, I record the unique, quirky facts that
convey authenticity and give a real sense of place or people.
Keep track of
emotional reactions to experiences as well as actual expressions used by
people with whom you talk. I often make drawings to help capture what I see.
Keeping a good journal trains the traveler to notice. My book, Traveler's
Tool Kit, was greatly enriched by the dozen or more journals I had available
from which to draw.
Train yourself to be a competent photographer and take lots of photographs
and slides as you travel. An article about chess may not require photos, but
without visual images a travel article will never get off the runway.
Amelia's story about Bali, since she has few photos, has no future beyond the
church bulletin.
Read books by fine travel writers. Train yourself to appreciate their style
and content. Everyone has their own favorites, of course, and here are some
of mine: Tim Cahill, Bruce Chatwin, Joseph Conrad, Isak Dinesen, Peter
Fleming, Tom Friedman, Nadine Gordimer, Graham Greene, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala,
D. H. Lawrence, Norman Lewis, Beryl Markham, Peter Matthiessen, Dervla
Murphy, Wilfred Thesiger, and Evelyn Waugh.
Read travel publications: magazines (for writing quality, Outside is my
favorite), guidebooks, newspaper travel sections, and articles on the best
Web sites (such as GORP).
Read at least a couple of books that specifically teach travel writing.
Learn to write an effective query letter. Take a look at Writer's Digest magazine and the writing section of your bookstore.
To establish credibility, build your list of published work. Write for your
neighborhood association newsletter and the county agricultural roundup.
Forget about the money and publish anywhere that will have your work. Train
yourself to write for a specific readership, to polish your writing, and to
meet a deadline.
To make it a career, plan to sell each story several times. One woman I
know won't write an article until she's lined up five places to publish it.
Each article has a different emphasis, but they all stem from the same basic
research.
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