Times Shares and Travel writing

Things seem to have a funny way of coming up in my life. As an example, I recently took on a new writing assignment. I’m writing 250 smallish, 400–600 word articles on travel destinations with SEO keywords and at the same time, Lonnie and I recently become timeshare owners. One thing is fueling the other. Now I want to visit almost all of the places I’m researching and writing about. It’s funny how that works.

I’ve been asked by people I’ve shared what I am currently writing about, how do you write about places you’ve never been to before? The answer is Research, lots and lots of research. I prefer smaller personal blogs, written by local authors. You get the best insight into places from the people that live there. Your larger travel sites often don’t even cover some of these smaller places.

As an example, one of the places I’m doing an article on is Natchitoches, Louisiana. How many of you have even heard of the place? Well if you’ve ever seen or heard of Steel Magnolias, then you’ve heard of Natchitoches. The movie’s story, which is based on a real-life story takes place in Natchitoches, Louisiana. It makes sense then that they would film the movie here as well.

Learning about all these out of the way places has fueled a level of creative writing ideas, short story ideas, all sorts of material begging for some type of creative outlet. I should get back to the writing. Like many writers, I need to dive in, get in my groove and then take periodic “distraction breaks” to refresh my thoughts for the next round of writing.