Traveling as a Writer: The Only Question You Need to Ask

On July 21, 2021July 21, 2021 By nancystohlmanIn Craft Essays, flash fiction, retreats, The Writer's Life, Uncategorized, workshops, writingLeave a comment

You already know I love to travel. AND you probably know I interpret travel very loosely. Yes, I love sitting in a sidewalk café on a gorgeous sunny day with my notebook! (Yes, please!) But I also love driving alone across Nebraska, meditating on corn, clouds, and cows. I love to travel one town over and lock myself away for the weekend in a cheap hotel, diving deeply into my work (and you should try it if you never have!) Regardless of the destination, I’m always traveling as a writer.

Not all travel is created equal for inspiration. What I’ve discovered is the best writing comes from travel that has a tiny bit of adventure—a little bit of the unknown mixed with a little mystery splashed with a little danger.

Not DANGER danger. Of course.

Just the danger of: I have no idea what to expect…and I’m going for it.

Maybe you’re traveling somewhere brand new. Maybe you’re traveling alone for the first time. Maybe you haven’t mapped out your itinerary and you’re going to “wing it” for a whole day (yes, do this!). Maybe you’re going spelunking or snorkeling or horseback riding along the central American coast (swoon!). Or maybe you’re spending the evening taking slow-motion videos of the summer carnival in your own home town.

No matter where you are you can always be an artist.

Back when I first fell in love with Hemingway, it was both his writing and his contagious curiosity about the world. His life wasan adventure! Or at least it seemed that way. Whether he was in exotic Paris, Africa, or Cuba, or closer to home in Michigan or Idaho—it was all inspiration. It all ended up in his work.

Influenced by Hem, I decided I would make it my goal to lead an interesting life. To say yes as much as possible. And over the decades this mindset has become second nature to me, a guiding principle in many of my life decisions. When I’m faced with possibilities, or difficulties, or uncertainties, I ask myself this very important question:

Will it make a good story?

Actually, this is a great question to ask all the time, whether you’re traveling or not. But if you ask it while traveling specifically…you will begin to follow the road less taken. You will veer away from the crowds and down the quiet side streets…and into your next story.

Because new ideas come when we invite the unknown into our lives. They come from walking the dirt roads through local villages instead of taking the car, going to the wild beaches instead of the tourist hot spots. They come from talking to a stranger in a strange city in a train station you will never see again.

When you travel as a writer, your heart intentionally open to revelation in all its many guises, you will be just as excited to soak up the muse whether you’re on a solo retreat or a family vacation, whether you’re in Hawaii or Omaha.

So, as you travel or consider traveling again, I invite you to travel as a writer. Whether you engage with your scheduled travel more creatively, make simple travel more inspiring, or decide to go on a future retreat with me (!) remember that as artists we are always on the clock.

And what a beautiful clock it is.

How to Travel as A Writer Wherever You Go

Embrace Novelty: take risks. Eat the new food, walk the new street.
Reflect on Normal: With distance, we can better see our regular lives. Away from our hometowns, we finally have perspective enough to write on what we take for granted.
Carry a notebook. Writing in a notebook is also a fantastic companion when eating alone at a restaurant. (P.S.—try eating alone in a restaurant)
Engage conversations with locals and strangers—real conversations. Meaningful and memorable ones.
Take walks, ride bikes, and take bus/metro/train rides with no destination and no schedule. Public transportation is much more interesting. Walk whenever you can.
Make art that doesn’t count. Carry a camera or a sketchpad (or a harmonica!). Engage that sense of play that comes from making art outside of your preferred genre.
Remember your job: artists show us beauty and frame experiences—everything is inspiring if you want to see it that way.
Create chunks of headspace to go deeper. Travel alone if you never have. (Yes, do this! More than half my travels are alone.)
Make a point to see/engage with many kinds of art: museums, music, community culture (I recently went to a carnival and took photographs)
Meet other writers: there is no better inspiration than surrounding yourself with other creatives.
Learn some new words. Seriously. Learning a language is good for your brain, but as writers it reminds us of the plethora of new words out there.
Put away the phone and step away from the internet. Look up and watch the real world go by in all its beautiful glory.

Happy Travels!

xoxo Nanc

Want to travel and write together in 2022?
New Retreat Opening Monday!

FRIENDS! Are you feeling ready to reconnect and recommit to your writing? To commune with your fellow artists again? Do you need a dose of adventure and a jolt of inspiration?

We’ve found just the place for you!

Kathy Fish and I will begin opening up our first flash fiction adventure of 2022 on Monday, July 26! These retreats sell out quickly so get first access below:

Yes, I’m interested! Put me on the list for information and first access!

Beauty in the Aftermath: A Creative Call to Action

On June 9, 2021June 8, 2021 By nancystohlmanIn Reading, Uncategorized, writing2 Comments

Friends,

Are you feeling the shift? Something in the water these last few weeks… unfamiliar frequencies, extra static that you can’t quite put your finger on? A cautious shift into…joy? Hesitancy? Both?

In the U.S., there has been an impulse to move forward, and quickly! Take off your masks, everyone! Hug your friends! Go to Disneyworld! And yet it’s unsettling. For 18 months we’ve been dreaming of this kind of permission, but now we may feel stunned. Pausing in a fog of new feelings.

I’ve been trying to put a name to this feeling for weeks. It’s like slipping between worlds, inhabiting a strange, transitional, duty-free zone between here and there. A kind of reverse culture shock tinged with trauma.

Go with me for a minute…

You probably know about culture shock—if you’ve experienced it, you may remember feeling unmoored in the new spaces—not quite sure how to navigate in the face of so much difference. But…you eventually embraced the unfamiliar and opened your heart to the difference, and in that opening you found new ways, new foods, and new rituals.

I mean, that’s why we travel, right?

Fewer people talk about reverse culture shock. I first experienced it after spending 3 weeks on an anthropology trip in Nepal in college. We had been well prepared for the culture shock of Nepal—but, after 3 weeks of adjusting to a new everything: new climate, altitude, food, customs, time zone— we were completely unprepared for the re-entry. We had changed, and the old ways now seemed foreign and awkward.

Returning created just as much disturbance as leaving—maybe more because we were unprepared for it.

But reverse culture shock is only part of the current equation. There is also the very real trauma of surviving a life-threatening situation. I don’t use the term PTSD lightly. But we carry the aftermath of life-threatening trauma—wars, accidents, abuse, starvation, or a deadly pandemic—in our bodies, sometimes for years, maybe even a lifetime. My grandparents lived in the shadow of the Depression for the rest of their lives.

It was once explained to me that US soldiers in Vietnam began to experience more frequent instances of PTSD in part because of airplanes. In earlier wars, soldiers traveled home by ship, a process that took several weeks, and they traveled together. There was a natural buffer—a liminal time between the site of the trauma and the re-emerging into society. There were weeks of distance, processing, grieving, and connection among the soldiers that helped the re-entry process. But in Vietnam (and subsequent wars), most soldiers were debriefed and flown home on airplanes—leaving them only 18 hours to transition worlds. Which means they were in a war zone on Tuesday; thrown into their old lives and their old relationships on Wednesday. No wonder they struggled (and continue to struggle).

So combine the two—reverse culture shock with a bit of collective PTSD, and we get closer to defining this strange, in-between space we’re inhabiting these days. We are facing the aftermath and not sure how to reacclimate.

So now what?

What does a community of sensitive, emotionally attuned people do now, at this threshold? When there is a feeling of cosmic trepidation, hesitation, when making simple decisions seems overwhelming? When your creative work—wherever on the continuum you’ve been over the last 18 months—is again shifting. Perhaps the ripples we’ve been feeling is humanity herself shaking to be alive.

Now, as always, we turn to the artists—you and me—to hold a new vision of the world. More than ever we need the beauty makers and visionaries, the poets and painters and preachers. The storytellers. Our time has come, fellow art makers. Now, in the Reconstruction of our world—let’s help to leave it better and more beautiful than we found it.

Proud to be on your team,
Nancy
xoxo

25 Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me as a Beginning Writer

On December 5, 2019December 4, 2019 By nancystohlmanIn Craft Essays, Uncategorized, writing

Recently I was asked to speak at a local community college for National Day of Writing. Driving there, I decided to scrap my prepared speech and instead asked myself: What would I have wanted someone to tell me when I was an undergrad who dreamed of becoming a writer?

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1. You need to practice–maybe not every day but most days.
2. You need to have something to say.
3. You will get better.
4. You need writing colleagues.
5. You need writing mentors.
6. You don’t need degrees.
7. You will write some bad stories.
8. You will write some practice books.
9. The good news: You never get too old to be a writer.
10. Don’t just write what you know: go into the unknown.
11: Write what is dangerous.
12: Don’t outline (at first)–let it surprise you.
13: You need a writing routine if you want to accomplish a big project.
14. You style may and will change.
15: Cultivate beginner’s mind: hold onto that feeling of creative audacity even when you’ve been doing it for years.
16: Learn how to (really) revise.
17: Find readers you trust (and shower them with gratitude).
18.You must publish small before you can publish big.
19. Don’t rush to publish: wait until your work is ready.
20. Agents (publicists, etc.) are not fairy godmothers and they don’t have magic wands.
21. Learn how to advocate for yourself.
22. Support other writers.
23. The publishing world is small: be nice.
24. The creative process ebbs and flows–don’t panic.
25. You will change as a writer. Embrace it.

Happy Writing!

xo Nancy

P.S. Come revise with me in December! Just in time for your New Year’s Resolution, in this 3-day intensive we will revise some of your flash fiction drafts and get them ready for the next page! Just a few spots left!

Flash Flurry: 3-day Revision Intensive Dec 27-29, 2019

3 Perfectly Good Reasons Why You Might Be Avoiding Your Manuscript

On June 15, 2015June 15, 2015 By nancystohlmanIn Uncategorized

3 Perfectly Good Reasons Why You Might Be Avoiding Your Manuscript

If you’re one of those people who began your manuscript years ago, it can be painful for you to see it sitting there unfinished. You might be beating yourself up with a bunch of “shoulds” and attacking your supposed lack of discipline. It can make you feel hopeless, drained of energy and questioning why you even began–or if it’s even worth finishing. With all that negative self-talk happening every time you think about your manuscript, it’s no wonder that you keep avoiding it!

But there are usually some very good reasons why you are avoiding it, and the good news is it’s not as hopeless as it might feel.

1. You are a better writer now. Plain and simple. If you started writing your manuscript even one year ago, chances are you are a better writer now. And that’s a good thing! That’s the beauty of practice paying off. But it can also feel frustrating when you realize that first page/chapter/draft, the one you labored over, might have made you a better writer but now doesn’t live up to your abilities.

2. You are in a different emotional place than when you began. Often the impetus that drove us to the page in the first place fades and then the work starts to feel estranged. Perhaps whatever we were grappling with has been resolved. Perhaps we are on the other side of a life change. Perhaps the manuscript was part of our process and now, faced with the necessary revisions that finishing a manuscript requires, we aren’t “feeling it.”

3. You are overly loyal to your original vision. This is a big one. Loyalty isn’t a bad thing, after all you’ve probably already put in countless hours of work on this manuscript. But sometimes we become so attached to our original vision that we block creative inspiration. Sometimes we have read and reread our sentences so many times that we can no longer imagine them any other way. And therein lies the problem: when we can no longer imagine possibilities for our work, when everything is known and nothing unknown, it becomes very difficult to sustain the excitement needed to return over and over.

So what can be done? Many things, but one of my favorites is re-introducing a sense of play and possibility, which can loosen what has become stuck and add the necessary spice back into your writer-manuscript relationship.

If this sounds like you, or you want to learn more about my Finish That Manuscript online workshop, I’d like to invite you to join me for a free Q & A call on Wednesday, June 17, 7 pm MST/9 pm EST. Please use the form below to chat with me about your manuscript or contact me directly at nancystohlman@gmail.com

I look forward to hearing from you, and Happy Writing!