Writing etc

Writing is going ok. It's new territory and a new challenge and I'm enjoying it.I have written about a previous adventure before- a mountain bike ride from Inverness to Fort William in May 2006. You can read that account in the earlier blog archives. I feel that my writing then was particularly stylised to appeal to a highly surreal sense of humour, which is my truest sense of humour as a Brit. I intend to include some of this where appropriate but not quite to the same extent because 1. I'd rather be writing more about my experiences, memories and I have more extensive journals this time so less filler and 2. I think it would make some people go 'eh?' e.g. those of the readership who aren't British... (esp. the French).



So far I've written an introduction which covers where the idea for the journey came from and the memorable / important / notable events (IMO) from the build up to leaving and the trip preparation.I've just started writing from the point of leaving from my photographed 1st diary.

I'm really enjoying the process. I'm reading at the same time a couple of travel books presently: The Spirit-Wrestlers by Philip Marsden and Bread and Ashes - A Walk Through the Mountains of Georgia by Tony Anderson.  I feel similar to before when I was writing up the Scotland account - it's very addictive.

I'm sourcing answers to technical queries from wherever I can. I got some useful responses from http://www.travel-writers-exchange.com/. I've got a friend here who is also a writer and although he doesn't give much away, his devotion and dedication to research, organisation and obvious passion for his subject matter are providing subtle inspiration.

I've been sad to hear about Tom contracting Malaria on his travels. I hope he makes a full recovery. He's been having a rough time recently with his health - persistent muscular pains in his legs so I hope he can come out stronger and get back on track ASAP as I'm sure he will. He'd been worried that he was complaining to much in his recent superbly written blog posts and notes but in fact he is only speaking frankly about the reality of his experience.

He has not been complaining about his perception of events but spoken of how he feels in the present time.  I commend his honesty. Although some people may drop out by seeing the length of the blog or perhaps the tone is not akin to your average coffee table travel book, but they'd be missing out by not reading- it couldn't get more real and hard-hitting and takes the reader right there with him.

I'm still getting settled here in Tbilisi, but I'm pleased to see how my attitude is a lot different to last year and I'm determined to challenge my approach to life as much as possible using lateral thinking to improve my experience.

I've been working a lot on my photos recently and I've been enjoying going back through my archives and picking out photos which I hadn't thought up to scratch to upload to Flickr before. Interesting to see how my photographic eye has changed.  I'm learning what makes a good stock photo too.