Ten thousand words before I sleep
Posted Monday, March 05, 2007, 6:54 PM by Lonely Planet
Carolyn McCarthy ponders the glamorous life of a travel author as she goes into serious write-up mode for the new Central America guide...
I woke up this morning still grasping for the words to describe that hotel I saw in my sleep. Charming has been banished, yet it still pops stubbornly to mind. Infused with personality? Relaxing and innovative?
Welcome to my world. In the past month I've written 94,000 words of guidebook prose and now find I'm doing it in deep dream phases. One hand types while the other slaps myself free of cliches which come at the eleventh hour to taunt and tempt me.
Descriptions - the details travellers need to know come in clean, immaculate and spotless, but get to be so repetitive that I savour dingy, grubby and unkempt. But those are a last resort. If a description need be so terrible, it needn't be in the guide, right?
This is what happens to a former Comparative Literature major stricken with wanderlust. My prose might have lost its poetry, but I am now able to deconstruct (a la Derrida) your basic hotel description...
A few months ago I was travelling with a friend in Central America and she suggested one hotel. I bristled. She wanted to know why. To her it sounded adorable, charming, woodsy.
'It says rustic, that's all.'
And what do you know? The charming, rustic lodge is hidden under overgrown foliage. Talk about character - the cabins have rough-hewn wooden beams, wicker rockers, splendid views. But the bath tiles are practically grouted with mold, the mosquito nets gnawed into Swiss cheese. It is a certifiable dump.
Guidebook writing will surely ruin me. 'Tell me about yourself,' a date might ask. And in 35 words or less...
'Popular with artists and neighborhood pets, this eclectic charmer is one of the best bargains in the 'hood, her strong suit being a sturdy double bed and a.m. French-press brew that could strong-arm Schwarzenegger.'
Luckily, for now I don't have to worry about personal matters. Or a personal life. I'm off on one serious Multinational Mildew Inspection. I ask you, is there anything charming about that?
Labels: Inside Lonely Planet, Travelsnitch
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3 Comments:
Wow! Your writing style is one which I'd love to own a collection of. It would be the perfect collection of stories to read during long haul train rides for the solo traveller. I connected with it immediately and it put a smile on my face. Hope you consider publishing a book one day of your works.
You can read more about what Carolyn has written here: http://shop.lonelyplanet.com/author_detail.cfm?authorid=1634&
Carolyn, this is a great peek into the life of a travel writer, which until now, I thought was all crisp white sheets and leisurely jotting down notes while sipping a cappuccino at a cafe. Alas, you've revealed the less glamorous side. Still, I loved these insights, and now I'm dying to read your "guidebook prose"...even if I'm not yet traveling to any of the places you write about. It'd be fun just to see how long you can abstain from using the word "charming," a word that sucks me in every time.
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