The Romantic (An Excerpt from The Romantic Travel Writer)

A travel writer is a romantic.  

How often have you read about a writer lazing on a sandbar while watching the setting sun on the horizon against a crimson skyline? The writer with a dreamy look in her eyes gazes upon a flock of seagulls, reflecting on the sadness of fleeting moments, crafting a story inside her head.

Then you imagine a woman in jeans and t-shirt, sipping coffee in a cafe, scribbling away in a notebook. Perhaps she has a deadline to make, and her editor demands she submit her manuscript that night.

Picture a man with a beard, his forearms flexing while he types like a madman. Maybe he’s a veteran journalist following a lead that takes him to the Sahara. These scenarios are not far from the truth.

In your mind’s eye, you probably wonder how they did it, how they became pros, being paid to write and see their bylines on the pages of magazines.

Romance is always associated with love. Let’s face it, love without romance is boring.

I won’t argue with you if you immediately connect romance with two lovers and a beautiful Boracay sunset. When we think of romance, our minds see roses, candlelit dinners, walks in the park. But there is another definition that our professors of literature hammer into our brains.

Romance in the strict literary parlance is about exploration, a quest for an elusive dream such as Don Quixote’s. It is a search for significant change. Romance in literature, as my former professor had made clear, is not “morontic”. It is sublime. 

The first may simply involve a love interest, and the other, love for oneself. A search for one’s soul.

In travel writing it is true. A search for meaning maybe your quest. You have to connect with people and make them fall in love with your writing. 

Get the book here: The Romantic Travel Writer by Ami Granada (PHP 370)

Genre: Personal Essays | Memoir | How to Write Travel Stories