Sunday, August 03, 2008

August is National Travel Writing Month...

Christine over at Almost Fearless has come up with a great idea to help either kick start your travel writing career or put back some omph into your sagging travel writing career.

She's running the first ever National Travel Writing Month (NaTraWriMo), based along the same lines as the yearly National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).

Christine calls the National Travel Writing Month a travel writing social experiment aimed at pushing each writer's boundaries. The goal - to send 31 query letters between August 1 -31, 2008.

To get people on board and provide guidelines, support, assistance, and encouragement, Christine has set up the NaTraWriMo Forum where you can sign up. There are threads for introducing yourself, getting started, posting daily updates and success stories, as well as tips on how to write queries, and publication guidelines.

Of course, this quickly caught my eye and I headed over to Almost Fearless to ask Christine a couple of questions.

WT: How did you come up with the idea of a National Travel Writing Month ?

Christine: I wanted to overcome what my husband calls "paralysis by analysis". I had spent so much time thinking, researching, reading, and planning to write for all my favorite publications, that I had put off sending submissions for far too long. I asked myself, "What would happen if I just buckled down and queried somewhere new everyday? Would I get published more often? Would I crack the secret to the perfect query? What's the worse that could happen?" So like any good writer, I decided to drag anyone I could into it, and from there NaTraWriMo was born.

WT: What do you hope to achieve?

Christine: I hope that the daily practice makes for better writing, and that the community aspect allows everyone to learn and share. There are some amazing, well-published writers participating already, and I'm honored to get a glimpse at their process.

WT: Any tips for those who want to participate.

Christine: Keep it simple! You live somewhere... write about it. A query letter writing isn't magical, it's just a communication to another person about your idea. Don't stop yourself from trying simply because you're not sure you can do it perfectly.

Unfortunately, this has come at the worst possible time for me, otherwise I'd be right in the thick of it.

But for anyone who needs a some encouragement, support, and incentive, this sounds like a great idea.

You can sign up here.

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6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have joined in, and I am fired up!

I've had a dozen "dying to break into" publications listed on my whiteboard in my office for MONTHS. Literally.

Slowly, I am crossing each one off -- not that I've gotten an assignment (!), but that I've sent out a query letter.

It is so fulfilling, and inspiring (the satisfaction of sending one query letter encourages me to write more!) to get those ideas out of my head and off my hard drive and out into the world.

Liz Lewis said...

Hi Kara,

I'll be keeping my fingers crossed for you that all the queries you're going to send out will bring good results and lots of work and bylines...

Anonymous said...

Hi, brilliant idea - creative people aren't mean't to be able to sell - so need all the help we can get, which is why I now run Selling Freelance Features workshops for freelancers in London
(see www.susangrossman.co.uk). The group is small and everyone motivates each other and gets commisions within a week. Good luck and get pitching.

Liz Lewis said...

Hi Susan thanks for the link. I like the sound of your workshops --

Anonymous said...

I joined too, and already received one "Yes!"

Such a great idea.

Liz Lewis said...

way to go desert mama...you shoud have a look at the link in the latest weekly top 5 -- it's on airline magazines...might have a place or two for your next query letter...

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