Writing a Travel Piece

Writing magazine articles used to be as easy as ABC for me. I used to do it with my eyes closed. That’s the kind of thing I did back in 2006 through 2007.

But, you know what, I have to admit. Now that I never do it anymore, writing for magazine feels harder than writing my hundreds pages thesis.

How could I lose the ability to write for magazines?

It’s been a while since I last wrote for a commercial publication. In fact, I can’t even remember the last time my writing got published.

A couple of weeks ago, my colleague, an editor at Cleo Magazine Indonesia, asked me to write two articles for the franchised magazine: One 4-page travel story and the other one is a 2-page opinion piece.

I was so excited to have the opportunity. And I thought, “This will be easy.” Turns out, I was totally wrong. Writing a travel piece is not as easy as I thought it would be. Not only should I give a lot of information, I also have to include the reader in my journey as well. And that’s the hardest thing.

How can you include someone in a journey that involves places he/she might have never been to? Now, that, to me, is the key of travel journalism: To make readers feel as if they are travelling with the writer, to make them feel how the writer feels, and to be well informed about the destination about which the writer is telling a story.

It’s too big a task for me. I’m not experienced enough to write such thing. But, I pushed myself to the limit, and I think I sort of nailed it. Although, I must say, it’s not my best piece ever. It’s worth-reading though.

I wrote a story about my 10-day trip around the United Kingdom, to four big cities there: London, Edinburgh, Manchester, and Liverpool. It’s a total of 6-page long article, but I cut it down to 4 pages, as requested.

I spent too much space on visa application and financing the trip, while the main idea of the column is a travel article. I had to spill out more about the attractions rather than visa and financial matters. My bad. I fixed it though. I just thought that, if I were a reader, I’d be more interested in knowing about the amount of money to spend and how to get the visa.

Anyway, it’s done and the past is the past. As I said, I’ve fixed it and the article was filed already. I’ll post the rough file in this blog if I’m allowed to. But, please, if you’re in Indonesia, kindly get a copy of the March issue of Cleo Magazine Indonesia for yourself. Read my travel article there and tell me what you think about it!

Cheers!

Esutoru
Pentagon City Apartment, Arlington, Virginia
Saturday, January 9, 2010

Countdown: 79 days left and 73 one-page writings to go!

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