Writing Advice on Pinterest

After initial resistance to yet one more combination of user name and password, I have started playing around with Pinterest.

One of the nice functions for my purposes (and, perhaps, for yours) is the ability to share images, ideas, information, and inspiration for/about writing in a more organized way than, say, StumbleUpon or any of the other social media platforms I use.

I’ve just set up a “Writing Advice” board and will be pinning articles and other resources I consider worth sharing.

Have you read anything lately that has inspired you as a writer? Please share your recommendations in the comments.

Notes on men and women in writing & journalism

1. I should have known not to trust him when he dissed Mary Oliver.

2. What is the telephoto lens for the male photojournalist? For the female photojournalist?

3. I never see an obviously pregnant writer in the field. (That does not, however, mean they are not there). Why?

4. If I had a dollar for every time a man asked me, “He [your husband] lets you go away so often? AND you have a child?”… well, you know what I’d be.

5. Suede bucks are not superior to or more professional than sandals, especially when you are in Belize. Even if you are chasing a prince. Just wait ’til you get outside. Then we can talk.

6. “We can’t put a woman on that assignment, you know. It’s just too dangerous.”

7.

"Women" "writing"

and

"Men" "writing"

8. An editor asked me why, on Facebook of all places, there were so few submissions from women.

9. “He wanted me to write it ‘more like David Foster Wallace.’”

10. In the round-ups, the woman is typically a token, as in “Oh, right, we should probably add a woman.” This list is an exception, but will we ever stop tallying?

11. Oh, I could tell you some stories….

12. I have wanted to write this for a long time. I have wanted to talk myself out of writing this for a long time. I have wanted to say, “Aren’t we post-sexism-post-feminism-post-misogyny-post (in short)-all-this-fucked-up-gender-stuff?

13. No.

Gabriel Orozco on art & disappointment

[I find a great deal of inspiration in the other arts. I came across this 2009 review of Gabriel Orozco's retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art and found so many of critic Peter Schjeldahl's ideas profoundly thought-provoking. Here are a couple excerpts.]
**

“Crisp diagrammatic layouts of exfoliating circles and arcs, on white grounds, the paintings have few fans among critics. I sure don’t like them, although Orozco’s patient remark in their defense gives me pause: ‘People forget that I want to disappoint.’ That strategy, targeting the ‘expectations of the one who waits to be amazed,’ has worked well for him. I vividly remember being outraged in the proverbial manner of a philistine exposed to modern art when, for his first solo gallery show in New York, in 1994, Orozco displayed, on the walls of the main room… nothing but four Dannon yogurt lids. I recovered, by and by, to take the artist’s point, which amounted to disappointment as aesthetic therapy…. Are they art? No. They are Dannon yogurt lids. The art part is a triggered awareness that the world teems with vernacular loveliness. If you overlook that, it’s sad for you….”

Excerpt from Naomi Shihab Nye’s “Never in a Hurry”

“When my eye picked out a town named Nye on the map near Pendleton… it became suddenly imperative to visit it. Only twenty-eight miles off the interstate–I didn’t care how far it was….

I couldn’t stop imagining it. Maybe there would be a Nye Cafe. We could swivel on stools at the gleaming counter, ordering cocoa in thick white cups, or vanilla milkshakes. When people looked at us curiously–you here to visit someone?– we’d say the best thing possible to a lost little place in America: ‘No, we just came here to see the town….’”

The first thing my husband and I ever did together… was stare at a map of Texas and pick out a little village called Sweet Home. We drove there in the first excited flush of our togetherness, simply to see what could be at a place called that. All day we sat in a pool hall with the regulars, at a metal-topped table inscribed with the name of some beer. An older woman with a gravelly voice showed us her gold wedding band. ‘Lemme tell ya, I waited,’ she proclaimed. Waited?

‘Met Randolph back high school days, but wasn’t no way he was going to stick around this little old place after he was through. He took off, off, and I stayed here in Sweet Home, with my mama and daddy, all my relatives was here, did farming, my daddy fixed those kinda old tractors nobody uses anymore. I was just a small-town girl, ya know? But I don’t marry no one else, no matter who comes along, I keep thinkin’ a Randolph and I say to myself, Randolph’s the one fer me. Well he marry somebody else, up some bigger town by Houston, and they stay married all her life but God bless her she died. And one day last year Randolph come through here just to see how we all turned into nothin’….

Had Sweet Home changed much in fifty years? ‘Oh yeah. Went downhill completely. But we still love it.’

Discuss: The difference between top performers & mediocre ones

“In The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement (Random House, 2011), David Brooks makes a… point. In a section about what separates virtuosos from amateurs, he writes, ‘Top performers spend more hours (many more hours) rigorously honing their craft…. [But] it’s not just the hours, it’s the kind of work done…. Mediocre performers practice in the most pleasant way possible. Great achievers practice in the most deliberate and self-critical way. Often they break their craft down to its smallest constituent parts, and then they work on one tiny piece of the activity over and over again.’”

-from “Writer Envy,” by Maura Kelly, in the March-April 2012 issue of Poets & Writers.

Thoughts?

Interview with Nellie Huang, founder & editor of WildJunket Magazine

Nellie Huang, founder & editor of Wild Junket Magazine

I love this picture of Nellie Huang, which I took on a trip in the Pyrenees. We were on a train, headed into the spectacular Valle de Nuria, and Nellie was being characteristically Nellie: fully engaged in the conversation around her, while also fully engaged in the world outside.

Nellie’s good at doing many things at once, so it wasn’t much of a surprise when she told me she was launching a digital magazine, WildJunket, to complement her existing blog of the same name.

I sent her some questions via email to learn more about her latest project:

What gave you the idea to start a subscription-based digital magazine, especially in an “economic climate” that’s so dismal?
As a travel blogger and journalist, I face a constant need to innovate, improve and keep up with new trends and changes in our industry. I wanted to expand my brand over at WildJunket.com; while everyone else was producing e-books, I wanted to be different. It was actually Alberto, my husband, who proposed the idea at the beginning of 2011 – he’s since left his full-time job to focus on building our magazine.

With the arrival of the digital era, readers now favor digital publications to print media, so it seems like the perfect time to launch a digital magazine. Many online publishers are producing e-books; we wanted to be different. And since I’d already built up a substantial readership on wildjunket.com, Alberto and I decided to take the plunge. We spent months researching, weighing our options and considering the feasibility, but everything seemed to point in the right direction and we decided to go ahead with it and haven’t looked back since. The magazine has received plenty of attention so far, but we want to take things slow and not be overly ambitious.

What void are you hoping this magazine fills?
While there is definitely no lack of travel magazines in this industry, we definitely found that there are not many publications that provide in-depth coverage of off-grid destinations and unconventional travels. Most magazines tend to generally cover a wide spectrum of travel styles and destinations – in contrast, we have narrowed our scope to specialize only in lesser known destinations and we dig deeper than most other publications. Our features tend to spread over 10 pages, covering many aspects of a destination, allowing readers to get a good sense and understanding. In the first issue, we’ve covered far-flung destinations like Oman, Namibia, Macedonia and the Arctic.

You’ve been a solo travel blogger for three years. What is the transition (or addition!) of editor-in-chief like? What sorts of skills are different for an EIC role?
The two roles are definitely very different but I’d say that the difference between being a travel blogger and writer is even bigger. As a travel writer, my main responsibility is to simply research, investigate and write the story. But as a travel blogger and editor-in-chief, all the responsibilities of writing, investigating, editing, photographing and marketing fall on my shoulders. Although it’s much more challenging, nothing beats having the freedom to be creative and producing work based on my own travel ideals and interest.

But to answer your question, an EIC role definitely requires some new skills that I’ve had to learn and acquire – such as attention to details, fundamental knowledge in magazine design, and communication skills in order to work effectively with writers. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the new role so far – while I’m sure there’ll be new challenges ahead of me, I’m sure that they won’t stop me from finding fulfillment through this path.

How did you go about sourcing articles and photos for the first issue?
We’ve been extremely lucky to get the support of numerous writers and bloggers I know in the industry, I’m really thankful to work with talented writers and friends like Candace Rardon, Abigail King and Lola Akinmade to produce high quality content. Several of them write for major publications like BBC, National Geographic and CNN, and I’m stoked to have their voice in the magazine. They’ve definitely set a high standard for our first issue, and we hope to produce equally quality content for the following issues.

How are you monetizing the magazine?
We are concentrating on making profits through selling the magazine on major digital stores such as Zinio, Magzter and Barnes & Noble. Advertising on the magazine is another monetizing channel but we are not going to be splashing advertisements all over the magazine. We are going to make the content our priority and keep the advertising to a reasonable amount.

Are you paying contributors?
Yes, we pay from $50 to $150 per article depending on the length and style. You can find the full details in our editorial guidelines.

What are you long-term goals for the magazine?
As a small startup, we want to take things slow and go step by step, we don’t want to be overly ambitious. For now, we’re happy with the positive feedback we’ve received but we know that it’s a permanent process and we need to constantly improve to reach our goal. We’re still focusing all our efforts on producing quality content. In future, we might expand and hire staff to join our team or publish the magazine in print – who knows?

Free “Become your own boss” webinar: February 28, 2012

I’m pleased to be collaborating with the fantastic professional networking site Brazen Careerist and their online education program, BrazenU, to offer a live webinar about mapping out a move from a traditional 9-to-5 job to a location independent, be your own boss lifestyle. This is a nuts-and-bolts how-to for people who are ready to move out of dream stage and into action phase.

The webinar, which will be held live, online from 8-9 PM EST on Tuesday, February 28, is free. Sign up soon, though; we just opened registration yesterday and had more than a dozen people sign up right away. Register here.

Also, as a reminder, I’m hosting the panel “Social Media and New Media in Tourism Promotion” as part of NYC Social Media Week. This event’s tickets (which are free) went fast and we filled the room, but since there’s always attrition, we’ve bumped up the total number of available spaces to 150. There’s still a bit of room left, so join Megan Wood, Jaume Marin, and myself at the Tribeca Grand Hotel! Details are here.

Q&A: “Do I have what it takes to be a travel writer?”

In this occasional series, I share questions of MatadorU students and Cuaderno Inedito readers, as well as my answers.

Question:

“Do I have what it takes to be a travel writer?”

After spending three to four hours on one of her MatadorU assignments, a student emailed me to ask this question. My feedback on the assignment had been critical and she felt discouraged. She had spent the past four years trying to become a travel writer, she said, but wondered whether it was time to give up. Maybe my criticism signaled that she didn’t have the “natural skill” to be a travel writer.

Answer:
Whether you have “what it takes” to be a travel writer is a difficult question to answer. Travel writing is a broad genre encompassing many different subgenres (service writing, narrative writing, and many others), with at least as many platforms for publishing your work. And even if you don’t have “what it takes” for any of those platforms, you could certainly go the route of creating your own little blog empire, over which you maintain sole rule.

I suspect what you’re really asking is “What does it take to be a travel writer?” That question has lots of possible answers, but among the diverse skills that the different subgenres require, there’s a single common variable: continual practice of your craft.

I know that when you’re slogging through an assignment or a piece of writing that’s not coming easily, three or four hours feels like a massive investment of time. But really, it’s nothing in the bigger scheme of things and it’s nothing compared to the practitioners of other crafts.

Think about a ballet dancer or an actor or an athlete to put this in perspective: they spend all day, every day simply practicing their craft (or, more often, just one element of it), often in anticipation of a single performance. We writers are a petulant lot by comparison– we expect every time we pick up a pen or put our fingers to the keyboard, that we’ll produce something publishable. And we expect we won’t have to exert a whole lot of physical energy in the process.

I can’t tell you whether you have what it takes to be a travel writer or whether it’s time to throw in the towel and pursue a different career. You can only answer that for yourself when you’ve arrived at your own definition of what a travel writer is and what skills of required of one.

Sources consulted while writing Hamptons article for Aer Lingus’ in-flight

Last week, I wrote a post about the sources I used for an article about Manhasset Bay I wrote for the luxury yachting magazine, Longitude. It seemed that readers liked seeing what goes into writing a feature, so I’ve decided to share this kind of information more regularly.

I’ve just completed a 1,500 word feature about the eastern end of Long Island for Aer Lingus’ in-flight magazine, Cara, and I even surprised myself after I took a second look at all the sources I consulted for information and fact-checking. Here they are (and I’m sure I’ve missed some, too):

Hampton Star Map:
If you know anything about me, you’ll know I’m not much of a star-gazer– as in celebrities– so I had to do a bit of background research to satisfy one of the required elements of the story, which was a mention of some of the celebrities who have homes in the Hamptons. And since there are lots of people who are much more into celebrities and stardom than I, The Hampton Star Map got a special mention in a sidebar about resources readers of Cara can access before their trip.

Celebrity Homes in the Hamptons:
As above. I spent far more time on this website than I’d like to admit, mainly because I was intrigued that anyone would even have a website like this.

Wolffer Estate Vineyard’s website:
I visited this vineyard/winery and wanted to recheck some basic facts I’d written down while I was there.

5 different maps of the Hamptons and Long Island:
The inn where I stayed gave me two excellent maps, and those were most important when rechecking street names and whether Sag Harbor was northwest of East Hampton, but I checked some other maps as well.

The Huntting Inn’s website:
This was the inn where I stayed while I was in the Hamptons, and I wanted to reread the inn’s history, which I’d read (but not copied) in its in-room guest book. Since that history wasn’t available online, I had to phone the inn and request that they scan and send me a copy.

A call to The Huntting Inn to request the history page from their guest book:
As above; they sent the requested page via email.

Hampton Jitney website:
Times, routes, average length of trip, and pick-up/drop-off spots near JFK and in Long Island were all facts I needed to confirm, checking these details against a copy of a Hampton Jitney brochure I picked up in Long Island.

Background research about East Hampton’s windmills:
It’s funny how a detail that’s ultimately relatively minor in an article can take up so much time while writing (that’s probably due to my own process; I can fall down the research rabbit hole very easily). I consulted at least three sources to confirm some facts about East Hampton’s windmills, among them:

Easthampton.com

New York Public Library’s Photo Archive

and the book AIA Architectural Guide to Nassau and Suffolk Counties, Long Island

Edible East End:
I was searching for the address of a local farmers’ market in the hard copy of this magazine.

Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center website, plus brochures and printed information from the Pollock-Krasner House:
I wanted to confirm dates and details about the artists, their house, and upcoming events scheduled for the centennial of Pollock’s birth.

A Jackson Pollock biography

Bio of Carolyn Lanchner, a Pollock biographer:
Though I ended up not using her title in the article, I wanted to confirm Lanchner’s bona fides (at one time she was a curator at MoMa).

Sag Harbor: An American Beauty:
The introduction to this book, written by the late Wilfrid Sheed, was exceptional for its precise, evocative descriptions, and I used some of his words (attributed, of course) to help frame the introduction and conclusion of the article.

Montauk Point Lighthouse Website:
Confirming summer hours and some points of historical facts.

New York State Parks website:
Confirming information about Camp Hero State Park.

Montauk Project:
This book is a lightning rod in the controversial conspiracy theories about the decommissioned Air Force base in Montauk.

Various hotel, restaurant, and attraction websites, as well as review sites like TripAdvisor:
These were visited to confirm information, addresses, and phone numbers, as well to get impressions about properties from other people who have stayed there.

Have more process-related questions about writing feature articles? Leave them in the comments and I’ll be happy to answer them.

Social Media/New Media in Tourism Promotion: Panel at NYC Social Media Week

I’ll be facilitating a panel titled “Social Media and New Media in Tourism Promotion” as part of Social Media Week. SMW is a global event in its fourth year and New York is one of several host cities. I’m proud and grateful to announce that the social media-savvy Tribeca Grand Hotel in Manhattan (of Grand Life Hotels) is the site sponsor of the panel. You can follow them on twitter and like them on facebook.

The panel will feature colleagues I’ve worked with over the past year in Belize and in the Catalonian Pyrenees–both writers and tourism marketing and management professionals–and we’ll be presenting our work as case studies that demonstrate the effective use of social and “new”/digital media in promoting countries/regions and tourism industry stakeholders’ businesses. Featured panelists are writer Megan Wood (http://meganlwood.com/  and on twitter) and Costa Brava Tourism’s Director of Marketing, Jaume Marin (twitter). The panelists will also be happy to answer audience members’ questions. Tourism board representatives, marketing and PR professionals, and tourism industry stakeholders are all likely to find this panel insightful.

The panel will be held at Tribeca Grand from 10-11:30 AM EST on Friday, February 17. The event is free but you will need to register, which you can do here. If you can’t make it, but you’re interested in the topic, you should be able to catch the panel via a live stream. Check the SMW site for more information, as the live stream link has not been provided to speakers yet.

If you’d like to follow SMW on twitter, the event’s official hash tag is #SMW12.