All those years of squeezing everything on to the back of a postcard are finally starting to pay off. I sold my second tiny piece to a travel newsletter out of Ireland. I’ll start the next one in a few weeks. I’m very pleased – not just for the sale, but because this one was about sledding in Switzerland, one of my favorite travel adventures, ever.
I’m enjoying writing for this publication because the required word count is really low: 400 words. I can’t ramble on and on. Every single word has to have value. I’ve been offered a little more breathing room for my next piece, but in spite of the fact that it pays more, I’m going to try to stay the 400 word window. Writing these little vignettes is a brain bending exercise. I can’t say “really” in front of my adjectives. I can’t divert from the essentials. I can’t toss in some “meanwhile, back at the ranch” anecdote. Focus, focus, focus. Oh, and I can’t repeat myself. It’s really improving my writing. Really. Meanwhile…
Conde Nast and Travel and Leisure have lots of sidebars and blurbs… after writing a handful of compact stories, I’ll have excellent clips for going after the small pickings from the big game.
ah but you always make every word count Pam! really.
Where can we go to read your tiny travel stories?
They’re available to subsricbers of International Living’s newsletter. Because they’re owned by IL now, I’m not supposed to reproduce them here. It’s hard to let them go, but nice to see them out in the world.