TRAVEL WRITING - ANCIENT FORESTS, BOILED PEANUTS AND ROAD MAPS BY JANICE M. WILSON

My vacation for this summer had already been decided last year. A trip to a military base to watch my daughter celebrate her passage through boot camp became a necessity and everything else took second place. As an avid outdoor enthusiast and a writer this vacation would serve multiple purposes, I determined.

DESTINATION: ALABAMA OR BUST!

Planning Ahead

Excited to break into a new genre, I goggled ‘expert tips on travel writing’ and printed a few out before my long drive to Montgomery, Alabama.  Visions of farms, mountains, and country folk doing a whole lot of front-porch swirled on my mind, so a suburbanite like me needed to capture that laid back feel, which would require unplugging from constant Wi-Fi.  With a little initial pain the laptop got left behind in favor of yellow lined paper and some small notes on the back of maps.  With extra paper, a small duffel bag for four days of clothes and dried fruit snacks with nuts, I headed for the dirt roads west and south of Baltimore.

HOW COULD I NOT PLAN THIS PARK INTO THE TRIP?

Purpose of Trip

This became more than a long drive to support my daughter. More like a quest to show myself that I still had my adventurous spirit buried somewhere under stress, my ability to find my way through a hole in a needle and quite honestly – I needed a long drive to clear my head.  Driving had always been therapeutic for me and I needed therapy in the worst way!

ENVIABLE RAFTING TRIP DOWN THE POTOMAC -
OH, IF I HAD MORE TIME....

Never mind the southern heat. Already trekking a steady path through my own Hades on earth, what would it kill me to endure some heat in the good ole south for a few days? I took the long way on purpose.  I’ve seen the common Route 95, which is a shorter distance but I willed to simply wing it on small roads along the way.  My inner-compass always points to the scenic routes and surprises and real people.   

HARPER'S FERRY - ONE OF THE UNEXPECTED STOPS
BUT WONDERFUL PLACE FOR A HISTORY BUFF!

By the time I reached Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, the once weary spirit within felt as rejuvenated as the forested state.  At a rest stop I started taking notes about the difficulty of grappling my steering wheel off route 70 and turn south on 81.  I looked at my ‘travel writing notes’, shook my head, and went inside the visitor center for a state map, feeding the ‘expert travel writing notes’ into a trash can.

SNOOPY - MY WRITING MUSE AND TRIP NATIVATOR
HOLDING 'ANTIQUE' MAPS - MY PREFERENCE STILL!

From here on in, this journal would be from the heart. (No GPS used until Montgomery city limits.)

In four days I covered 2200 miles, a round trip through 8 states. (No energy drinks consumed besides coffee or coke either!) As I reached each state line I added a new map to my collection, some coupon books, water and a deep breath of new air.  The closer I came to Alabama a more noticeable change in my attitude and peace I achieved. 

PEACE & TRANQUILITY - EVERYWHERE!
(A ROADSIDE WATERFALL IN THE GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS)

Social Media Marketing

After reading about some small places to visit, some of them I imagined would be awesome were (at best) unimpressive.  And vice versa - for places that didn’t call out to me at the starting line were surprisingly wonderful.  Except the Great Smoky Mountains – that was the exemplary star along the way. I became wonderfully lost and added five hours of driving time that day,  with no regrets. 

GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK BYPASS
AROUND AND ABOVE GATLINBURG, TN - A MUST SEE!
(GOOD THING I DIDN'T BRING MY HIKING BOOTS -
I'D STILL BE THERE & LOST ON THE 800 MILES OF TRAILS!)

My phone memory quickly filled up with pictures and Facebook blurbs about Gatlinburg, Newfound Gap, Cherokee, Nantahala Mountain valley, Georgian corn and peach farms in the afternoon sun along the original Trail of Tears, and Alabama’s golden sunset at Cedar Bluff.  I reached my destination way past bedtime - exhausted, enlightened, satisfied, and shared. (now you are seeing it here).

A GREAT SHOT OF NEWFOUND GAP LOOKOUT OVER
THE GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS, TN & NC

Several Articles From One Trip

The next day landed top 5 in life experiences – the whole day!  My goal was to arrive safe and cheer my daughter as she marched in the graduation parade for AF ROTC field training.  In a sea of blue uniforms, our finest young brave cadets pledged to protect their land and people.  Ding! I reached the one of my proudest moments as a mother, and then assigned a new mission of fulfilling my cadet’s request for Mom’s Famous Baked Macaroni & Cheese for her when she came home. Life was on again!  I wrote about my daughter’s decision and sacrifice she made to join and submitted it upon return. And a more personal account posted on Soothingprose.com, my own blog.

A GREAT PARENTAL PRIDE MOMENT - WATCHING MY DAUGHTER MARCH
AMONG THIS SEA OF BLUE WITH OUR NATION'S FINEST YOUNG CADETS!

Acceptance of Diversity and Changes

It seems when we are running from something (even if just taking a break) the journey is usually a lot more enjoyable and satisfying.  The first night driving back was the exception on this trip.  After a long shower and a short rest, I reached Chattanooga, TN before sunset munching on boiled peanuts and drinking Mellow Yellow.

WHEN IN THE SOUTH, EAT AS THE SOUTHERNERS EAT!
BOILED PEANUTS - FOUND AT EVERY CORNER IN THE SOUTH!

Another thing I love about inner compass driving is finding those beaten-path hidden places that you swear were waiting for you!   On a whim, and with the sun still another 60 min. before setting over Chattanooga City and the Dam, I took an exit to try and glimpse Ruby Falls in the hills nearby.  The admissions office just closed when I reached it, but I kept going uphill anyway, discovering a quiet upscale residential paradise, a train depot for touring the mountain, scenic lookouts over TN/GA states, and a bed & breakfast with a convenient ‘vacancy’ sign meant just for me!  

MY OWN VICTORIAN COTTAGE WITH GOURMET BREAKFAST.
THE LUCKY FIND OF THE TRIP!
(THE GARDEN PATH, LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN, GA)

I FELT LIKE A PRINCESS FOR THE NIGHT!

Synchronicity at its finest!  I expected a cheap hotel chain room that evening so finding this garden amongst whimsical Georgian Victorian proved a sleepy traveler’s paradise.   So reasonably priced too, and I could not resist a restful sleep in a posh cottage of my own!  Booked.  Mine.

A WRITER'S HEAVEN - MY OWN PATIO FOR COFFEE & WRITING
& NEW WRITING RETREAT!

Too amazed to sleep at first, I spent a couple more hours on a second wind taking pictures and walking around and writing.  It would also be an insult not to enjoy the china cup of peach herbal tea in my room.  The hidden treasures and tiny charming details lasted through the morning and my breakfast on a veranda amidst bird baths and fountains. 

I COULD GET USED TO THIS - BREAKFAST AT THE INN
ON THEIR PORCH RESTAURANT

Lessons Learned From The Trip

I hated to leave but did I feel like my life sat quietly waiting in New Jersey to suck me back in?  No.  Responsibilities were back there.

Life was here, finding it and living it on a whim on the road. 

RIGHT OFF THE ORIGINAL TRAIL OF TEARS,
I ALMOST DID CRY IN RELIEF - MISSION SUCCESS
SWEET HOME ALABAMA!

The most satisfying revelation - I still had a long distance drive endurance, befriending quirky and loveable people is still fun, and the knowledge of using real (now antique) road maps, my original and still preferred GPS. 

CHATTANOOGA CITY IN THE SUNSET

CHEROKEE CITY, NC

Angle of Story

So far three articles came out of this trip, with another in the makes. And they are all different. Oh, the articles I read and threw out were informative, listing these as important virtues for good travel writing: purpose of trip; angle of story; planning ahead; writing several articles off one trip; social media marketing; acceptance of diversity and changes; what I took from the places I visited; how did it affect me. 

DON'T I LOOK MORE RELAXED? SELFIE TIME!
(GATLINBURG IN THE VALLEY)

I went. I saw. I shared. Got it. All good stuff. Sharing the trip in words and pictures to virtually put a reader there in the passenger seat and keep them excited enough to go there based on your experiences is the REAL mission in traveling writing. 

Until next trip report, visit my other FB page, Get Your Hide Outside.

YA'LL COME BACK NOW, YA HEAR?! ;)

SAMBA OF THE STORY by Janice M. Wilson

(links below pics)

Rise!

If only life came with background music!   I think everyone would be a writer if that was true. 

Soft lullabies woo babies asleep.   A song played and sang with a foreign beat and language puts a mind back to an unforgettable trip overseas, or in the arms of loved ones.

Understandably, certain beats and lyrics playing at a particular scene is the perfect time to write out those feelings!

Music and natural sounds (yes, outdoors at a picnic table) gets me in a ready state of mind for writing better than any movie or television show could possibly approach. 

Music is a universal language we all feel 

and move to no matter who we are. 

Music affects almost all of the brain at the same time, connecting thoughts and feelings that would normally stay in different lobes which stirs up creativity from exciting different emotions or soothing over the world’s noises or our personal problems we are experiencing.

I can believe it.  Just put the jams on all day and it’s very likely I will write (start to finish) a lengthy piece by the end of the day.  Thank God for those great collections of all genres found on Youtube.com, iHeart, Spotify, Pandora, satellite radio (so many others) to be played for hours in just one click!

Focus on the place

Music often transports me to another place, most often in a balmy beachy place but I can be entranced to dream of a cool shady forest as well.  The right beat can ease my writing mind into leaving sandy foot prints on the pages much better and often for a longer duration than an inspiring picture. If I play something like Brazilian Bebel Gilberto’s Tanto Tiempo, at the very least I want to drag out my second novel which started with the Florida Keys as a backdrop.

Bebel Gilberto shares Samba da Benção

Speaking of place, playing the music of where your characters need to be in your novel is where it starts to get interesting.   Yes, gaze at that picture with the right music and – you’re there in spirit!  Your refreshed description will transport your reader there as well.

Who doesn’t speak Jamaican when we hear Bob Marley’s Jammin’?  There are not too many folks who are not immediately affected by some great reggae music!  Pass me the margarita pitcher, please!

Bob Marley's Jammin' (Live)

Focus on the senses

I heard The Boys of Summer in the car the other day and couldn’t wait to get home to write.  Why?  I felt 17 again!  I could smell the Giorgio perfume I was wearing those days, Miami Vice jackets on the guys (oh, that young Don Johnson set the heart on fire!)  Right there in the prime of life, I was young, slim, tanned and very hopeful for a gorgeous life ahead!   

The Boys of Summer (Don Henley)

What did I work on that day?   My young adult novel, remembering how everything was so new and the world so big an exciting, and I couldn’t wait to dip my toes in it.   I wanted my characters Jim and Bess to experience that too in the novel – and my young adult readers.

RUN by Snow Patrol

One song can transport a person’s mind all the sensual delights from a particular time and live it again in your mind. 

This is a great time to jot down some 

showing details for your work in progress. 

Find out what song does that for you and play it a few times.  Then tell me if you don’t itch to recapture those delicious details on paper!

Focus on the mood

So I come across a pivotal danger scene or a big lover’s quarrel that needs to jump off the pages.  No problem normally.  Except that day I was in a particularly happy and sexy mood.  THAT’S a big problem.

Do I stop current project at that scene or skip ahead and write out some lovey-dovey steam scenes? Sade helps me out with that, or Whitney Houston. 

Whitney sings I Will Always Love You

(I would certainly feel safe in his arms, too!)

Classic jazz will always put me in that mood, especially.  Love those happy songs that were played before the tv era, cheering everyone up during the wars!   I do enjoy writing out a good vibe for a little while because who would want to kill off a great mood?  But if I’m not sure where the scenes are going, I might pull out another work for that kind of mood and let the lovers have their way. 

In The Mood - Andrew Sisters

In nostalgic moments, I fiddle with nature writings as John Denver shares some of that Rocky Mountain High through the speakers.  Listening to Chopin or Beethoven skillfully strummed out of my speakers and I’m mentally driving down a windy country road in autumn.  The mood is set.

Chopin's Nocturne Op 9, No. 2

But back to the epic drama scene I can’t put off forever.  If I need instant anger, let me pull out some songs that remind me of some less than favorable love affairs and breakups. For some reason, the soundtrack from Braveheart or a few of those sexy James Bond theme songs can bring out the fightin’ Irish within.  Then – I’m ready! (ding!)

FREEEEEEEEDOMMMMM !!

Focus on the inspiration

I have this novel sitting impatiently aside waiting for a good editor (and money to pay an editor – LOL) which was written towards young adult Christian folks, with hopes to inspire thinking first before making impulsive actions, among other things.  That required a lot of action and drama to keep the young readers interested (includes smoke jumpers and big deadly fires) to show consequences.  This time I needed some pretty hip fast action music. 

One Republic came to the rescue just in time with Counting Stars. 

Counting Stars (OneRepublic)

I couldn’t type fast enough and finished it in record time with the positive youthful vision and energy.   

Eddie Vedder’s solo-project Into the Wild soundtrack also gave some good insight. 

A Big Hard Sun (Into The Wild Soundtrack)

I will write for hours on their positive vibes.  (Getting better at singing it too!  Lol)

Focus on the moral

My personal blog (soothingprose.com) is usually about Christian moral lessons and integrating grace into real life using the memories from songs I had gleaned from prayer and prior life situations.

Also – when I get sick of the world and its violence and politics sometimes I seek shelter under some fabulous old hymns, both at church and home.  There are so many great messages in them and no contemporary Christian music moves me like the messages of faith and hope as the old songs can. 

How Great Thou Art by Carrie Underwood w/ Vince Gill

Maybe your moral isn’t from a religious influence but you have one of love & revenge, justice, or grave injustices just the same.  A strong song can set that mood to write out the anger, the pain or the joy of seeing justice done.  You may be up all night writing on that tune.

Even flowing sounds that blend into each other and pique our dreamy minds (impressionists/ New Age).  It is a proven fact that playing clear and transparent (classical) music while writing or studying sharpens our memory and our logical thinking skills.   

Repetitive chords help us focus.

What else works for me is playing something patriotic - that sets my heart immediately in the right place! 

Alan Jackson's Star Spangled Banner

Focus on the impact

As far as the science of musical effects on our brains, a slower beat is considered anything under 60 BPMs, and exciting ones to invoke energy is over that.  

The best creativity invoking music is 

suggested between 50- 70 BPMs.

Songs are often written through the blood-sweat-tears experiences from musicians, and that’s not much different from us.  We put it on paper so the reader can sing and sail right through the imagines we create in their minds.  Musicians assail through their fans’ ears.  They also have to write all the words down and say so much more in such less space and time to convey their message.  This forces them to keep it a certain length for each genre of music, repetition, and the appropriate mood-invoking beat.

Eddie Vedder singing Guaranteed (live)

That point right there can be accomplished for writers by listening to that music the musician artists wrote and composed.  Focus on the point of the story and your impact by allowing the music to create a sensual and heartfelt (or exciting and dangerous) world for your reader.

Honestly, I don’t know many writers who don’t use music (before, during or after) to help their creativity soar.  Here are a few famous authors and what they listened to as they wrote their best sellers:

David Dobbs – a lot of Bach

Haruki Murakamih – Beach Boys/Springsteen

Gabriel García Márquez – The Beatles

Stephen King - Ryan Adams, Wilco, Alison Krauss, and Bob Dylan, LCD Soundsystem

J.K. Rowling – The Beatles, The Smiths

Doris Lessing: Phillip Glass

Who wouldn’t be inspired by this, one of the most popular romantic operas of all time:

Music of the Night sung by Gerard Butler

I know, I know it’s just a beautiful man’s picture but he does sing!

Please feel free to share what music you listen to when writing, and what is inspired from it.

KEEPING TABS - THE BENEFITS OF KEEPING A JOURNAL FOR WRITERS by JANICE M. WILSON

Gentlemen, it’s been a wonderful day. 
But I have to get back to writing now.

Time Capsule

How did I start writing?  I’ll share. 

I was that quiet teen in the corner writing in a notebook.  I had moved around so many times in my life by then that I had become accustomed to being that quiet new girl.

Don’t get me wrong.  I had friends, and we regularly exchanged notes and stories, critique, exchange back, then write more.  We all grew up and apart, which is not uncommon. Or I would move again and we’d lose touch.  But I could not stop the writing. 

It called to me at night, with a good set of colored pens and empty paper tablets wooing me to fill up those ruled lines into the dark hours.  Then one year I finally got a typewriter for Christmas (I just aged myself, didn’t I?!).  I still used a lot of paper when away from home, though.

We Have To Stop Meeting Like This

Keeping a journal was my therapy, trying to figure out the who’s and why’s of my life so far. I began to notice how some of my ideas and passions regularly showed up in my dreams, along with people I interacted with or made an impact the most that day.  So for fun, in the mornings before school I made a habit to recount my dreams on paper.  I kept a dream journal for many years, to see if there was a relevant connection with my dreams and real life (there is, by the way!)

How does this pertain to writing?  Much!

That was a good story – I mean dream!

I would not have realized the good habit of daily descriptive writing and exercising the creative muscle if I had not started journaling!

Keeping the Log

Keeping company to that therapeutic outlet, I read a lot – mostly romance and nautical adventures (my first love was the sea!) Over the years I noticed in every historical adventure, romance, epic series and good ole explorations there would be two things the captain would guard the most to his heart.  Was it his grog?  His women?  His ship? 

No – those two items were his log book and his musket.  The gun for obvious protection against the mutineers that we know will appear sooner or later.

DON’T TOUCH MY DIARY!

But every captain – even Captain Bligh – always insisted on taking his log when set adrift, or he staunchly defended against its theft.  WHY?? Every single day, before the infamous mutiny, he was required to write in the log where he was, who he interacted with, reporting any round robins, red skies, red flags, or even red stars to navigate by.  He could justify based on the details of that log his decisions to discipline his crew, then to re-hunt Fletcher Christian for many years later.   Bligh also escaped some heavy duty disciplinary action from the British Navy for losing his ship based on his detailed entries. I’m sure he blew out some steam into the harrowing ordeals he faced as well and managed to keep alive for months in the open boat at sea.

We also know what happened to Fletcher Christian and the mutineers because of some of his own log writings and tales later found on Pitcairn Island. What a story (and movies) that whole true journey of youthful lust, hate and revenge that turned out to be – from a diary!

Why defend some written diary entries to the death?  It’s our naked souls there – the ugly truths of our lives, secrets we’d rather keep hidden – however naughty or stifling they are.  

Or it can be your 

.....alibi.

It’s all good!   It’s all story fodder!  Captured details & photos!

Oops…Had I really done that way back when?

I have to wonder just how much is truth behind the full-figured hit, Bridget Jones Diary; or a journal to an unwanted child in Waitress. And what was the ideal behind using a fake diary as a criminal setup devise in the new psycho-thriller, Gone Girl?  These novels used the premise of a diary in different ways to keep the yarn going (and going well!)

Best Friends

No one knows you like your diary – they are the soul mates who read the script, nod their head and reenact your life on blank pages.  Like best friends, they listen and help sort out thoughts, hand you a tissue, become that shoulder to cry on when no one else offers or cares.

Sometimes you just have to write out your own selves onto paper.  It can be poetic or shockingly raw to the extent it even surprises the writer – a revelation of what issues you are obsessed with.

What trouble did you cause this time?

What first pours out of our pens first flows through our veins like ink, bringing tears and fears with it?  The dark reaches of our controlled and uncontrolled urges.  A wish to fulfill.  Maybe the need to feel loved and needed.  There’s also fear or longing for death of self or someone you thought you knew.

You already know this character so well. Even if it’s about someone else in the story, it eventually comes back to you - somehow. 

Write like no one is reading

Journaling is freeing.  Like the saying ‘dance like no one is watching’, for writers it equates to ‘write like no one is reading’. 

Stephen King advised, “Write the first draft for you……..you can always edit later.”

Right there you forgo the edits. Forget the rewrites. No need for outlines or synopsis.  Stop beefing up the story or flipping it just for a moment.

You do that already in your diary....

there’s a potential draft 1.  

In your journal you can dress up or down for the occasion, or not dress at all.  It’s not like standing naked for all to see and know you.   No one has to know right away, not until you’re ready.

Is that tight enough for you, Miss Scarlet?

You don’t need to impress anyone else in your own personal book, except yourself.   Without the pressure of deadlines and “Wow ‘em” plots, you can waltz around in the book any way you wish.

Oh …..Am I still in mourning?

 Just Getting Warmed Up

A writer can get comfortable with real selves in a diary, take off the civilian shoes, pull up a blanket and look at life and observations on the page.    

You have already been practicing, making stories out of your own troubles in the diary first, triumphs of those you love.  Writers write what they know, right?   You did not acquire all that knowledge overnight.

Oh Ashley!  Kiss me like how I wrote it!

You write it to immortalize incredible physical, mental attributes, or the great or foul deeds people have done to you.  Or..... what you have done to other people.

The details are juicy,incriminating,

shocking,natural and 

……admit it…….sexy.

That’s good practice, foreplay for the real deal – your novel!  Read your old diaries and see some stories unravel; I guarantee there will be quite a few things you had forgotten  and maybe want to forget (but your readers will salivate to read about!)

You need to be kissed, and kissed often……..and by

someone who knows how!

Tales of revenge will emblaze the pages, shocking the readers that someone could be that sadistic to another soul.  And you know it to be true! 

What did you write about me in your diary this time?

In journals, a writer exposes characteristics and interactions 

without an intentional plot.

 Things just happen to people.  

Another writer basically put it this way. But add an intention plot around characters you inadvertently already created - and there’s a story. 

Closet Writers

Consider your present work in progress.  How much of that character’s life (or characters) was influenced by your personal experience in life?   Be honest.

Take an argument you still seethe over and rewrite it into dialogue.  Okay, change the names, but you have a story brewing right from the start.  For your novel, try writing out the whole real fight as if a dialogue in novel.  You already wrote out the emotions in your journal.  Write the same thing in a different kind of style.

As God as my witness I will never be without

ideas to write again!

Now you can filter and share it with other writers to get approval for putting our blood, sweat and tears onto the web limelight for all to see.  You’ll write blurbs to sell it, have blogs to dip your toes in the literary life, and profiles explaining who you are as if that should explain why the story was written.  

Whatever the syntax it is, the idea for the story still started in your head and heart.  From cover to cover, those stories are hemmed with love – or hate -  from deep within.

Take pen in hand and begin a sojourn with the real character. - You.

Fiddle-dee-dee!  They have nothing on me! 

Oh wait – they have my diary. My bad.

Frankly, we might give a damn!

Some famous writers have kept journals for many of the reasons described above, even swore by their journals for transcending the craft of writing. 

Henry David Thoreau

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Anne Frank

Virginia Wolf

Oscar Wilde

Susan Sontag

Anaïs Nin

Madeleine L’Engle

Allen Ginsburg

Victor Hugo

There are cases of lifting tales from the diaries of others, such as (rumor has it) Margaret Mitchell’s reading and unauthorized usage of her Aunt Sarah’s diary that was the whole idea behind her novel, Gone With the Wind, winning her a Pulitzer Prize!

How absolutely scandalous and extraordinary! 

 ME?  Stolen?