Reading the competition (Part 2)

I have finished reading Billy Connolly’s Route 66 book. And though I admit there were some parts that I skipped (like Billy’s visit north of the Mother Road to meet some guys who’d worked on the atom bomb – like that has anything to do with Route 66), I must say, albeit grudgingly, that there are parts that are quite readable. For me, they are the parts where he visits places I’ve been, landmarks I’ve seen and towns that Simon and I passed through along the way.

In true competition feeling, I marked all the places in the book where he talks about something that I have in my book. At first I thought he’d missed out a lot, although I look at the book now and I can see there are actually quite a few bent corners. So I’m making my way through both books together, comparing descriptions and references and making sure that my book just has a different feel. It’s not easy. After all, there’s only so much you can say about certain things. But I’m determined that my book shall fill a slightly different gap in the market; Route 66 written by a woman, travelling with just one companion and discovering some of the history of towns and societies that we passed through.

This was, I feel, something that lacked in Billy Connolly’s book, although by no means am I suggesting I have it all figured out. It’s just that when Billy visits the Amish community, or those guys who did atom bomb-related stuff, or Monument Valley, it’s as though the production company couldn’t find enough interesting things to with Route 66 itself, so bulked out the TV programme and the book with random visits. Apart from our visit to Las Vegas via the Hoover Dam, Simon and I really lived Route 66 for 11 days. There was little about the road we didn’t enjoy reading about or looking at or discussing late into the night. For us, it truly was a discovery of this famous route and we didn’t need to veer off the track to find excitement.

So I feel slightly better having read the whole of his book. By no means is it an exhausive account of life on the Mother Road. There are more than enough landmarks along the route that don’t feature in his to make my book a realistic alternative. I am excited again! Today I shall compose my letter to agents and I shall get it posted off to the first on my list next week.

The journey seeking publication begins anew – regular updates to follow!

Folds in Billy’s book where he mentions something that I also mention.

Reading the competition – inspiration and what-not-to-do

I’ve been all fired up recently, about continuing my quest for publication through my Route 66 book. This is mainly thanks to my other half, who purchased a book about a woman who travels by motorcycle through the Americas. Lois Pryce, in her book Lois on the Loose, tells a great tale of people triumphing over adversity as she rides from Alaska down to the southernmost tip of South America.

There’s nothing like reading a travel book to give you that itch.

I’ve been a fan of travel books for many years, once the shelves began to be full of writers I saw as “not too old” with a witty way of writing that lured me in. Bill Bryson is a classic, although not all of his books are to my taste. Others I enjoy are Tony Hawks and Tim Moore, but I’m always on the lookout for more. I think Lois’s book appealed to me because she’s a female travel writer. As someone who regularly scours the shelves for more, I can state that there are not many humorous female travel writers out there. So it’s a pleasure to know that there is a second book by Lois, already sitting on my bedside table for my reading pleasure. Hers is the kind of writing that I can take a lot from; frank, open writing, detailing the people she met and her own reactions to situations. As a result, I’ve decided to re-insert some characteristic traits about my Route 66 travel companion, which I’d removed on the advice of a friend. I just think that a little artistic license is allowed if it makes the story a little more amusing.

I also decided to buy, perhaps against my better judgement, Billy Connolly’s Route 66 book. I know, I know, direct competition. But I did buy it through a second-hand seller on Amazon. Admittedly, I was curious. What did Billy include in his write-up of this famous road? Are our ideas too similar? How much of his feelings does  he include? How funny is it?

Now, I own that I’ve only read 40 pages so far. But it’s already difficult reading for me. Yes, I’ll admit there’s a jealousy there that  he was actually approached by a publisher about doing another book. It’s any author’s dream. However, there’s a boastfulness and a prima-donna-ness that come across in buckets. Why else would he write “It’s my bike. The production company might have bought it at enormous expense, and the film crew might be filming me on it, but it wasn’t our bike. And it certainly wasn’t their bike. It was my f**king bike.” (No stars in his version, obviously.)

If they bought it, doesn’t it belong to them?

Anyway, there’s more like that and I began to feel happy that my trip, my wonderful adventure, was just me and a friend, driving along on our own, doing what we wanted. We experienced a genuinely unique, life-changing experience. Billy says, in the first chapter, he wanted to “experience proper emptiness – the sense of being the only human alive for tens or even hundreds of miles”. And yet he had a film crew in tow the whole way. At least Graham and I can honestly say that there were moments when we felt as though we were the only two people in existence. It was us against the world.

So I shall struggle on through Mr. Connolly’s book. And I shall try not to be prejudiced. He does, after all, sell many more books than I do.

But with my real-life, self-changing adventure to write about, maybe one day that will change.

Getting ahead of myself.

Word count: 11,852

Well, another week and being at work has just shown how little work I get done usually. I have been busy with planning and marking and thinking about a million other things to do with being a teacher, so that my writing has fallen by the wayside  a little. But I am excited about how it is going!

I have done a little travel writing research (thanks partly to Malc for playing Devil’s advocate!), and found some interesting facts… There are very few diaries of a Route 66 journey. Most ’66’ books tend to be photographic, coffee table-type books or merely plotting the history of the route.  There are lots of travel writing books about a) cycling and b) France. There are not many young, funny, female travel authors about. Billy Connelly is publishing  a Route 66 diary in September this year.

Now, most of this seems to go in my favour when it comes to thinking about being published. Although, as Malc says, perhaps there aren’t many published, young, funny, female travel authors around because they don’t sell. However, judging by the amount  of books about cycling or France, I can’t believe it’s only French cyclists who buy travel books, so that doesn’t mean young women don’t read travel writing. Also, I feel that the new book by Billy Connelly can only count in my favour; get the book finished in the next couple of months, send it off to an agent, they look for a publisher in the autumn and use the great sales of Billy’s book to spark interest about mine. It could happen, right?!

So I have been thinking lots about what to do once the book is finished. However, you can probably tell by my word count that I’m only 5 chapters in and I’m on Day 2 of 11 Route 66 driving days. I’m still in California!

I’d best get on the case, or this Sunday will go and I won’t have written anything. Today’s goal? To write another 5,000 words. Wish me luck!