Choose To Write What You Love

On the eve of leaving for a trip to Morocco, I have this to share with you.

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Seven months ago I decided--with a push from a mentor, Molly Fisk, and a group of thoughtful, wonderful writers and editors at the annual Book Passage Travel Writing and Photography Conference--to call myself a writer. It happened after submitting the first piece of writing I'd ever tried to submit, edited hastily in my car on the morning of the conference. That scribbled story got first prize at the conference, and it changed my life. Instantly. It was a euphoric experience, one that took awhile to settle into my bones.

It was difficult to go from writing just for me, in my journals, to writing for others. I opened up to everyone who asked to see my work , sending it off willy-nilly to be critiqued by anyone who asked to see it. You see, I did not know any better. Nor did I know that there were different levels of writing: I thought everyone who called themselves by the name "writer" would understand my words and stories, and that they would all be more experienced than I was. After all, they'd been writing longer. Or at the very least, identifying with being a writer longer than I had!

My second attempt at a submission was a few weeks later, to the annual Traveler's Tales Solas Awards. I worked on a piece about sorrow and reunion for the contest and then sent it off to anyone who asked to see it. Some people loved it; others sent critiques back with angry red lines. They said I had lost my voice, my style, was trying too hard. I was completely confused and shattered, and wondered if my essay win at Book Passage had been just a blip, a mistake. My euphoria ended and I fell into a depression.

Having severe dyslexia, I was always hesitant to show my journals to anyone, let alone try to read my stories out loud. My writing process was to visualize the story in my mind, sentence by sentence, followed by moving these same lines of words around in midair until they "looked" right. Then I would group these into paragraphs, and adjust them until they lay like flattened dominos. Perfect. Aligned. But still, I never knew if they really were perfect--I was simply guessing. So the critiques I got back about my second essay really hit hard: I imagined line after line of simple mistakes, apparent to the reader but invisible to me.

By some sweet miracle, I persuaded myself  to submit the essay anyway. I threw the critiques in the trash, and simply stared at the essay until the words stopped floating randomly. I cast the words of others out of my mind and instead visualized the piece in 3-D. I decided to send it as it was, without a single correction. I ignored the  people who told me it was not my voice. I knew that it was mine, and that is all that mattered.

Then I forgot all about it. I was busy with my job, my writing, my life. I was just happy I sent it in, and expected nothing. The Book Passage essay win had been enough of miracle; the odds I'd win for the second thing I ever submitted in my life seemed preposterous.

But I won. This last week, the news came that I had won Gold in the category of Love and Romance, for my story From Lost to Loved In Bihar. It redeemed me: it really had been my voice, my style, my words.

But it wasn't all redemption that night, it was also gratitude. Huge waves of thanks for the award coming at just the right moment, just before I was about to make a huge decision about my writing life.

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I'd been considering the title "travel writer" for awhile. After all, my stories are almost exclusively about things that happen to me when I travel. I'd been to the Book Passage conference and two other wonderful classes on travel writing taught by Don George and Larry Habegger (both amazing editors, both amazing classes!). My stories seemed to fit very nicely under the very large umbrella of travel writing, although I did not feel like that described my work precisely.

On Facebook and through other social media outlets, via email and Skype, I tried to discover what the words travel writer meant. From all my research, it seemed like travel writing had two schools, intermingled: the Literary bunch, who wrote long essays or books, and the Service crowd, who wrote pieces which were quick reads, informational, or designed to sell a place or feature. But there was no fine line: each side wandered over to the other, quite regularly. In fact it was expected that in order to be successful, you would want to take on lots of different projects.

So I did. I pitched things--tried to "sell" a story I wanted to write about this or that. I was surprised when editors came back with a "yes" to my ideas, incredulous that I was now going to write about A or B or C and that it might be read in A Very Important Magazine or Website.

Not all of my pitches were a success--some editors didn't give me the time of day, while others replied with such a maze of "have-to's" that I needed to do first that I lost my nerve.

The end result was that a week ago, I had eight lovely pitches accepted, just in time for my trip to Morocco! This trip would be my first trip as a "real" travel writer! I was successful! I was diversifying! I was excited and a bit frenzied, preparing my stories and research. It was going to be a wonderful trip, glorious.

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Then a funny thing happened: an editor whose writing style I enjoyed finally answered my emails and messages. He took the time to kindly and clearly explain what he looked for in a writer for his publication. How happy I had been that he was talking to me! (He didn't have much choice as I had practically begged!) He gave me a list of writers to read who wrote for him, and I obediently went and read everything they'd written for him in the last few months.

I expected to feel excited as I read their writing, but I didn't. In fact, I felt worse and worse, a dread feeling moving through my body. Oh, the writing was good, the topics were interesting (I certainly got loads of wonderful ideas of where to take my fiancé on mini road trips in America, something we've been longing to do!) but I felt flat about writing such things myself.

I knew by the following morning I could not write those sorts of stories. Other people would write them, but not me. Not only that, they could write them much better than I ever would.

I realized that I couldn't write such stories because service writing, stories in newspapers and travel magazines etc. leans heavily on what the public wants.  They have their place--in fact, I think they are the key to getting people out into the world. For example, I had never traveled anywhere until I began reading informational articles on how to travel alone as woman. Let's face it, without such writing most of us wouldn't go anywhere on the weekends at all, let alone decide to travel the world on our own. But I couldn't write them because that voice I have developed over all these years of private scribbling is my best asset and I didn't want it to change. Not even a little bit.

But if I wasn't going to diversify, what would I write? Where could I publish it? Who would read it? These questions were all I could think about over the next few days, as I called every editor who had agreed to work with me. And yes, to answer your question, there were a few awkward conversations where I felt embarrassed to have taken something so far and then decided to let it go. But in between the large helpings of humble pie were a few encouraging words, often mixed with "gutsy" and "you'll do well". By the time the phone calls were finished, I knew what I was going to write. I would choose to write what I love.

And then the Solas award showed up. Joy.

Those few days seriously contemplating what style I would write in and for whom centered around two things:  my voice in my writing and  what I wanted to say. What I decided is that what I've always been drawn to-- the human experience, through connections with people and culture--is what I do best.  I don't do stories about lux hotels and pleasurable spas. I do stories about the maid of my hotel room, who has told me her life story over a shared lunch.

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Here's what I've decided to write:

1. Literary essays and short stories in the long narrative tradition, for this blog and select literary sites and journals/anthologies, travel and memoir

2. Books, one of which I've already been working on for a long time on living with an Ngabe indigenous group in Panama (scheduled to be finished in August), and a second book about living in Calcutta and working with the sisters of Mother Teresa for an extended period of time.

Here's what I've decided to (continue) being focused on:

1. Stories which tell the stories of the poor. Not because I want to glamorize poverty, but just because you are poor doesn't mean you don't have a good story to tell. And I get tired of stories of pleasure trips and rich people, which are really only the tiniest fraction of real life. I want to know the average man and his experience, and I want you to know it too.

2. Stories which make a point of showing the similarity and common values seemingly different people and cultures have, closing the gap and tearing down fences that are artificially there in the first place.

3. Stories which demonstrate that social awareness and justice can be woven into their themes.

4. Stories which do not find the typical in destinations or landscapes, but instead find a shadow world which needs to be shown.

5. Stories which illuminate the world to the reader, showing them a window to God, whatever that may be for them. Everything interwoven, with grace.

6. Stories which are open to serendipity and possibility, and show the world to be a gracious and inviting place.

7. Stories which are vulnerable, real, and connect.

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Will I be commercially successful, writing such stories? Possibly. Maybe not. But I think if I work very, very hard, I have the chance of writing good books. Moreover, I have the chance of moving people, which is what I want most of all.

Will I be poor? Most likely. But then that just means I can only travel to places I can afford, like India, Sri Lanka, Cambodia. And those are all my favorite destinations anyway.

Will I be happy? Yes, I will. I already am.

And, now, I am off to Morocco, where I will be free, free to write whatever stories come my way, free to let the words do what they do best: whatever they please. Perhaps I will even begin to lay the groundwork for another book and future visits.

So I choose to write what I love.  I care about beautiful words, well placed.

Thank you to all my guides and mentors, of which I have too many to list here. But seeing how each of you navigates though such decisions has contributed to this choice of mine. Grateful for you.

There's an open door when you have such freedom. Here's mine. I'm going in.

Amy Gigi Alexander

(Please leave comments after the photo or the usual likes. I love it when you like!)

Photo Delia Hernandez