Tag: humility

Day 41 Reflection: Travel

I don’t do tourism well. 

Sightseeing overloads me with buildings, paintings, terrain with no context. A whirlwind of “I have to see the Mona Lisa” and “You haven’t visited here until you’ve seen the mountains.” I see things without understanding their context, and I drift along from thing to thing.

When I travel, I want to engage with my destination. I want to learn, to make sense. I want to experience the destination with all my senses and make sense of it in my mind. 

I want my tour guide to take me to the mountains and point out the flora there, explaining to me what plants make good tea and honey. I want them to show me the restaurants where the locals eat so I can get a feel for their lives, to set me up in an artsy coffeehouse so I can observe people. Tour guides aren’t equipped to do that, so I have to do it myself. Travel becomes a research project, but that’s okay.

My biggest preparation as a traveler, however, is internal. I prepare myself for the cultural differences and adopt humility, because I am the outsider and will make mistakes. I open myself up to gratitude for the experience. 

Travel without gratitude, in my opinion, is hardly worth the time spent. 

In praise of competency

I’ve always had a good imagination. This gave my parents and school psychologist a turn when I told them “the monsters are my friends!” (I was ahead of my time. Nowadays monsters are all the rage among little kids).

When I write, I get to make my imagination real, after a fashion. Not flesh-and-blood real, but living an existence in my pages. My monsters are now preternatural beings and people with special powers, but others can now see them.

I’ve always had a great vocabulary as well. In fifth grade, I used the word “flabbergasted” to describe my reaction to a classmate. When my sister protested my use of fancy words, my mother pointed out the value of the right word: “I was surprised when my classmate gave me a present. I was flabbergasted when he dropped his drawers in front of me.” Obviously, I got my love of vocabulary from my mother.

What I didn’t have, as a beginning writer, was competence. Things I thought were stylistic quirks were taking people out of the story, and I didn’t recognize that. I could have found out if I’d sent my manuscripts to a developmental editor, but I didn’t know I needed to. I thought a utilitarian query letter would work. I didn’t utilize beta-readers, because I didn’t think I needed those either.

I had ideas, I had imagination. I had the drive to be published. What I didn’t have is competence in the skills needed to make the story understandable and engaging.

I’m working on those with the help of developmental editors and beta readers and diversity editors and publishing coaches. I’m learning from them and incorporating it into my work. This gives me competence — enough, I hope, that I will get published.