I’ve never been overly interested in travel writing, but since studying travel writing at university, I’ve found myself increasingly drawn to it. It’s especially interesting to see how techniques of travel writing overlap with other genres, and how to set them apart. For instance, travel writing in first person could be mistaken for a memoir, which is why it should focus on description and exposition of the location.
Not being a well-travelled person (I’ve literally never even been on a plane), it may seem like I don’t have too much to say on the topic. But travel writing can be about a hometown, or more simply a journey. For my travel writing assignment I’ve written a short story (2,000 words) about walking up the road.
While I don’t know – practically – how one becomes a travel writer, I think I’d like to intentionally write travel pieces outside of university.
I don’t mean I’m going to fill my blog with hotel prices and cafes. I mean having creative short stories about places I’ve been to, even just a paragraph or two about the beach. Once this unit is over, I’ll be able to post my short story assignment on my blog, so stay tuned for that.
Maybe I’ll be like this every time I study something new: I’ll want to write that genre and forget the others.
But I don’t think that’s bad; I’m excited to be learning new writing techniques and exploring genres I haven’t considered before. So yes, maybe next trimester I’ll start writing children’s stories and never go back to travel writing. For me that’s part of the point of university; to learn and to write and see what I’d like to pursue as a ‘career’ while gaining the qualification to do it; whether that be travel writing or children’s books or articles. (I say ‘career’ because it’s possible my writing will never reach that stage.)
But right now I’m keen to see where I can go with travel writing (ha, see where I can go) and will bring this blog with me.
Sarah xx
the softest words 