In this latest new travel book update I want to share and give you guys a deeper insight into how the book has evolved through the drafts and the exciting new changes implemented through the last round of drafting.
What the new travel book is about
Before we get into the changes and evolution of the new travel book, if you are unaware, over the past year since publishing my first travel book ‘You, Yourself & the World’ I have been typing away, deleting, re-typing, scribbling notes, delving deep into the memory bank, talking to old friends and been writing my second travel book turned memoir.
The new travel book is in the form of short stories from my near decade long nomadic life, it highlights my not so simple traveling evolution from Naïve backpacker to experienced traveler. The stories included (which we will get into more later on) have been carefully selected to show a balanced mixture of adventures, misadventures, poignant moments from my nomadic life but shows more of the human side rather than just activities.
It delves deep into my inner thoughts, emotions and feelings, shows why and how certain things led to another. While each story has story arch, a bigger story arc reveals itself through the new travel book to show how this nomadic life came to be and how it carried on for just short of a decade.
People who have played an important part of my traveling life, those who have influenced me, helped me, made me a better person are present in the new travel book (with their blessings) so you the reader can see just how much of an impact certain people have had and what their importance in my life has been. It’s fair to say without these prominent people my traveling life wouldn’t have gone on for as long as it did.
The original plan…
The original plan for the new travel book was for it to be a collection of individual short stories highlighting some misadventures from over the years. I had previously written a blog post 14 backpacking mishaps – With the premise already there the plan was just to expand on those stories and make it into a misadventures travel book.
However as I started to write them out, more stories started to return to memory some were more detailed than others but all entertaining none the less. They say traveling makes you a story teller, but the best stories are from when things go wrong, and over the years I have a highlight reel of them.
While writing them though, something just didn’t feel right, it didn’t fit the way it intended too. The individual stories where there but there was no cohesion, it didn’t fuse together and the induvial misadventures didn’t create the story for an actual new travel book.
The evolution
The first step in the Evolution of the new travel book
It’s funny there has been more in depth planning for writing books than ever in my traveling life. And alas It was back to the drawing board for more planning. More ideas where scattered, The skeleton planning was drawn up, re-arranged, put together again, taken a part and formulated once more. This time around it didn’t feel natural.
I stepped away for a few days to freshen the mind. As I started to plan once more, adventures started to enter the fray along with just misadventures.
The memories were flooding back, I listed out stories before picking out ones that would fit together. A new skeleton version of the book was starting to take shape.
The next step in the travel books evolution
The stories started to take shape through the second draft ad without realising a bigger overarching story had started to manifest itself through the entire book. This was not intentional; I did want to fuse the induvial short stories together but wasn’t expected the bigger overarching story to come to the fore.
Much like my traveling life as this new arch started to take form I let it flow naturally, went with it to see where it would lead without trying to force it back. All of a sudden the story started to reveal itself, a more natural flow, one story leading into the next even if there were huge time gaps between each story. It felt like a book with progression, characters in the book grew their personalities and growth was evident.
However the new version was raw and like any craftsman, the writing needed to be refined, worked on, chipped away and polished.
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Not plain sailing though
Of course to say that is was all smooth from hear on in would be a lie. While the book started to take shape there were challenges, mainly from my own memory. There were certain stories it seemed my brain didn’t not want to open doors to, memories had been forgotten and there was a lot of dialogue with friends who were present in those stories that needed to be consulted and brains to be borrowed.
It’s all good remembering basics of certain adventures and misadventures but many details and conversations were hard to remember. There had been many hours racking the brain, conversating with those present at the time, looking back at old pictures. But overtime thankfully all the stories in the book are as true to what transpired and conversations as close to how they came out.
Out of control, trimmed and split
However in doing all that a new set of problems started to appear, the floodgates had opened, the deeper I went into the stories, the more details came, the individual stories told mini stories within along with the larger story, the beast had started to grow out of control. This travel book of short stories had turned into a memoir but surpassed it and turned into a chronical. It needed to be reigned back in, not tamed but trimmed.
After the completion of the third draft a decision needed to be made. I didn’t want to lose the integrity of the stories, nor want to water them down or trim them too much. I needed to take some stories out but that meant losing the natural flow, some stories wouldn’t make sense.
Deciding against that idea, the other option was to split the travel book into two volumes. That’s exactly what I did. To make the book into a two volume series.
The volumes
Volume 1
Volume 1 covers the early years, the start of my traveling evolution from 2010-1015. It highlights learning to be a long-term traveler, getting used to certain ways things happen, making many mistakes, early decision making processes and those who heavily influenced my early travels.
Volume 1 will be launched in March 2022.
(Next weeks post will include the book blurb, individual story titles and teasers for all stories included in Volume 1.)
Volume 2
Volume two will continue the story where it left off in Volume 1 and will be a continuation of my traveling evolution from 2015-2019 with wilder stories, more misadventures, and reveal how the stories in Volume 1 play an important part in my later travels, mentality, and shifts in opinions.
Initial release date for Volume 2: September 2022
Blurb, title, cover revealed at a later date.
Current status of Volume 1
At the time of writing this blog post volume 1 is nearing completion and ready to head out to the editors to be refined and polished to standards above my own capabilities. The cover and title is also ready to be designed professionally and will be revealed in due course.
If you would like to get exclusive VIP access to the cover and title before It’s made available to the public, all you have to do is join my monthly newsletter below and you can be one of the first in the world to see it. Also you will have the chance to receive an advanced copy of the new travel book for FREE before general sales go live.
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