Travel Writing Archives - Writing Like a Dancer

WRITING YOUR TRAVEL MOMENT II

Posted on April 4, 2015 by writ7707 Posted in Anecdote, The Writing Life, The Writing Muse, Travel Writing, Uncategorized, Writing Inspiration, Writing Muse Leave a comment

Writing Practice and Finding Your Muse

Writing Leap #52

Hi Writers,

Back to Paris, this time in my imagination. It’s been hard for me to leave behind all the writing inspiration I find there. And my daily indulgences like pain au chocolat and an afternoon café au lait that fed my writer’s spirit.

Here’s another Paris moment, brought alive back home in front of my computer by a series of photos on my phone. While my notebooks and pens were always in my bag, ready to be scribbled in, I was too immersed at this particular moment in what I was hearing and seeing to take notes. Quick photos would have to do.

We stepped out of our courtyard onto the Rue Dauphine into the round full sounds of a jazz saxophone. It floated down our street from the next corner and the glorious notes slipped around my ears. I was so happy to be here, to be walking single file down this narrow street with tiny sidewalks towards the music.

“Woody Allen,” we both said, “From ‘Midnight in Paris.’”

By the time we reached the corner the deep bass had jumped in, as well as the plunk-plunk of the banjo, the birdcall of the clarinet and the low, velvet sounds of the trombone. A small crowd was gathered around five musicians of a certain age and no one was talking. Everyone was smiling. All eyes were on the five men caught up in the joy of their mellow music. They were clearly seasoned professionals, the music was that good. I stared. The melody, the riffs, the sunshine filled me up. I grinned like a happy child. I felt an increased admiration for Woody Allen, a kinship. A pride to be an American too. Spectators were tapping their feet, clicking their fingers. Some were nodding, Aaaah, Wood-y All-en. Accent on the last syllable. Sensationelle.

Woody Allen, it seems, loves Paris. He sees Hemingway there, and Fitzgerald. Corny? Not for me. So do I.

So Writers, Pull out your phone, capture something great, and WRITE ABOUT IT.

LINKING THE ARTS

A Good Word: Jazzy, as in lively and spirited

A Favorite Book: A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway.

I liked it even better the second time. He doesn’t always write in short, clipped sentences.

WRITING THE TRAVEL MOMENT

Posted on March 3, 2015 by writ7707 Posted in Anecdote, The Writing Life, The Writing Muse, Travel Writing, Uncategorized, Writing, Writing from a detail, Writing Inspiration, Writing Muse, Writing the Vignette, Writing What You See Leave a comment

Writing Practice and the Muse who is ALWAYS THERE

Writing Leap #51

Hi Writers Out There,

We were recently in Paris for three weeks and near where we were staying there is a papeterie, a tiny store that sells newspapers, pens and glorious notebooks of many kinds. You can find all sizes stacked on shelves, some lined, some plain and my favorite, notebooks with graph paper.

I carried three in my bag and tried my dear husband’s patience when I pulled one out at most street corners to capture a moment or a glimpse of something. “You wouldn’t see this, or hear this, or feel quite this way back home!” I would say.

With your writer’s sensibility to “stories” all around you, notebooks for grabbing the freshness of a moment while traveling are essential. Later when you are back home you can fill out your stories from your authentic first impressions and not just from your memory or photo shot.

So Traveling Writers. Lots of pens and lots of notebooks.

Here’s one of my moments, expanded from a few scribbled lines.

I stared at the Louvre across the Seine. It stretched the length of three quais. Hundreds of beautiful tall French windows. Poor Louis XVI and the thousands in attendance to him whose home this was. Beheaded with his wife Marie Antoinette because of all his high-ceilinged rooms gilded pure gold, his walls covered in silk brocade, his powdered wigs, his delicate lace cuffs–all given to him and him alone by God himself.

A woman draped in a dreary shawl picked something up from the sidewalk and approached me.

“Madame, excuse me, but look at this ring,” she said. “It looks like real gold.” She showed me some markings on the inside of the ring. “Sadly, I can’t wear it.” She began to try it on her fingers to show me. Her accent in French was foreign and she mumbled. I wasn’t sure if she said it was too small for her or that it was against her religion to wear it.

“I want you to have it,” she said and held the ring out to me. “You should have it,” she said. I saw kindliness in her face. I looked at her and smiled back. I had an impulse to accept it and actually took it in my hand.

My friend coughed in her glove and threw me a stern look. “No, no,” she said. “Just put it here on this closed up book stall. Come on. Right on top.” I gave the ring back to the woman and she walked away.

Then she turned back and said, “Please, just a few coins. My children are very hungry.”

My friend and I hustled on. “Do you suppose that was a set-up?” I asked. “Rather,” she said.

But I was wondering what the woman’s name might be. Maybe we should have given her something.

A few days later on a boulevard in another Paris neighborhood, a man leaned down and picked up a gold ring off the sidewalk. He offered it to my husband and me.

LINKING THE ARTS

A Good Word for Writers: Wallop, as in “Writer’s Wallop.” Feeling a moment in your gut and getting it down fast before it loosens its hold.

LITERARY TRAVEL WRITING

Posted on April 26, 2013 by writ7707 Posted in Literary categories, Literary Genres, Literary Travel Writing, Personal Writing, Travel Writing, Writing, Writing Inspiration, Writing Muse 2 Comments

A Writing Blog About Playing Around with a Story Line in Different Literary Genres and Different Literary Modes

Writing Leap #20 Literary Travel Writing

Hi Writers and Travelers,

Trying your pen at writing in different literary genres and sub-genres (there are so many!) is great writing practice. Try it and you may discover you are a poet when you thought you were a novelist, an essayist when you thought you were a playwright. Or a travel writer!

Try something new. It may end up in a literary magazine.

Literary travel writing is really about the experiences of the writer in a certain locale, rather than a straight forward guide or itinerary. It’s writing that aims to seduce the reader into wanting to go there, or not, and can be fiction or non-fiction.

A little caveat if you try this. Forget everything you have read about your travel destination and write about your own experience. This is a good place to practice showing not telling. Put your readers there without clichés or superlatives (tricky if you have fallen in love with a place) and let them decide what they will.

Story Line

Cultural Differences

Here’s my literary travel piece. Not to ever compare myself to Woody Allen but I am inspired by the way his camera makes love to his favorite cities: New York, Paris, Rome.

La Place St. Sulpice Paris

An Elegant Parisian Woman of a certain age shocked me the other day during a recent stay in Paris.

She had short straight gray hair and was dressed in a slim suit, her scarf poofed out in that mysterious french way that only les parisiennes seem able to manage, insouciant and perfect. She wore very high heels.

She walked through the Place St. Sulpice, a quiet corner of Paris on the Left Bank in the 6th arrondissement, where a group of young boys were running and kicking a soccer ball around. Bang! The ball came straight towards her. In a blink the woman lifter her nylon-stockinged leg and gave the soccer ball a mighty kick back to the boys. She didn’t look at them. She just walked on towards the church ahead.

I took out my writing pad, delighted.

Come sit on the bench with me here in the Place St. Sulpice. But first, come with me to the patisserie Pierre Hermé around the corner at 72 rue Bonaparte. Parisians and everyone else wait in line outside the shop for Chef Hermé’s renowned “edible jewels.”

Which morsel will you choose? My treat! The raspberry, litchi and rose petal macaron, Chef Hermé’s signature flavor? Or a dark, decadent, chocolate sable cookie?

On our way back to the bench on the square, our taste buds transported and our sense of well-being heightened, we pass the Café de la Mairie on north side of the square. It’s a simple little neighborhood café where to me even the decaf coffee is strong and sublime. Not to mention the tartine, a half baguette with just the right crunchiness in the crust and fresh country butter at room temperature.

We pass the newsstand on the corner of the square and I nod to the vendor. He is so grouchy, that man, but I have a fond feeling for him.

The Eglise de St. Sulpice sits solidly on the east side of the square. It’s a clunky-feeling church, I find, somber and still inside with massive columns and small chapels. Standing beside the columns is grounding and leads one to daunting philosophical thoughts like, “Where do I, an infinitesimal breath of being, fit into this Universe?” Delacroix’s masterpiece mural, “Jacob Wrestling with the Angel” is right there in the first chapel on the right, now obscured by scaffolding for refurbishing. It’s dark too, like the church. Leaving the church into the brightness of the outside I am always saddened by the raggedy gypsy child on the steps outside. His mother pushes him towards me for alms. His huge eyes are hard to forget.

Back to the bench to contemplate the looming Fountain of the Four Bishops. They have a kindly air. The whopping, big stone lions who protect them are comforting too, as far as lions go. It’s April and the Chestnut trees that surround the square are just about to bloom pink. Not quite yet. It’s still chilly here.

There. You like it here too, right? I see that you are bringing out your book to read and are settling in. Bonne Journée.

Happy Writing Everyone,

LINKING THE ARTS

A Good Word

Contentment As in a feeling of well-being. For me sitting on my bench, writing or reading, savoring that certain feeling of Paris-ness.

Travel Literature I have enjoyed and St. Sulpice