Writing Road Trip - Page 3 - Bookology Magazine

Places We Never Expected to Go

August 13, 2015 No Comments

by Lisa Bullard On-the-road Lisa is different than Lisa-at-home. Traveling Lisa takes bigger risks. She’s less responsible. She puts herself in the way of more trouble. You might almost call her my Evil Twin. Something happens when I’ve moved outside my comfort zone. I perceive things in a fresh way. I feel a freedom to be someone other than who I usually am.… more

You Be Thelma, I’ll Be Louise

July 30, 2015 No Comments

by Lisa Bullard It’s best to bring a buddy when you hit the highway. With a traveling companion along for the ride, the guffaws are louder. The adventures are grander. The late-night soul-searching is more soulful. Then there are times like the morning I woke up mid-road trip with severe food poisoning in Myrtle Beach, a day before needing to catch a plane in Raleigh.… more

Shifting Drivers

July 16, 2015 2 Comments

by Lisa Bullard If you go road tripping with enough different people, you discover another way that human beings sort themselves out: into the drivers of the world, and the passengers of the world. The drivers are only completely happy when they have control of the steering wheel. But, on every trip, there comes a point where they tire out and lose their concentration. … more

Traveling Abroad

July 2, 2015 No Comments

by Lisa Bullard In college I spent a month traveling in Europe. I savored dozens of exciting new foods. But it was the ketchup — something I usually took for granted — that stood out. Foreign ketchup was so foreign. Had ketchup become so familiar at home that I’d stopped noticing its taste? Was it because I was eating ketchup in Switzerland that it seemed like I was tasting ketchup for the ﬁrst time?… more

Changing Course

June 18, 2015 No Comments

by Lisa Bullard My family didn’t camp when I was a kid. So a few years ago, when a friend asked if I wanted to go on a camping trip to Arkansas, I said, “Sure. I’ve always wanted to try camping. It will be fun.” I assumed there would be lots of yummy toasted-marshmallow moments. You know what they say about making assumptions, right?… more

Pulled Over

June 4, 2015 No Comments

by Lisa Bullard My brother’s wedding rehearsal is in three hours, but my cousins and I take a jaunt from Houston to Galveston anyway. Then a cop car pulls us over. One cop stands behind our car, gun drawn; another leans menacingly into the window and grills us. Eventually, he admits that our car and the three of us match the descriptions of the perpetrators of a just-committed, serious crime.… more

Collecting Souvenirs

May 21, 2015 No Comments

by Lisa Bullard Not all writers can claim the vast and varied assortment of souvenir snow globes I’ve acquired on my travels. But most writers I know are constantly collecting other things: stories, words, images, emotions, quirky characters, new experiences, and oddball facts. These “writing chachkas” clutter the rooms of our imaginations until we need inspiration Then we pick one up, shake it, and watch to see what lands in our writing.… more

Heavy Baggage

May 7, 2015 No Comments

by Lisa Bullard I wrote in “The Beauty of Roadblocks” about how students sometimes forget to include the critical element of conﬂict in their stories. Sometimes I’m faced with a diﬀerent problem: a kid will include painful, intense conﬂict — something that is clearly based on their own experiences. Some young people carry around “heavy baggage,” and a writing road trip can unexpectedly wrench those bags open.… more

Taking the Wheel

April 23, 2015 4 Comments

by Lisa Bullard Some days I really wish I was better at being a bad writer. Here’s why. Drafting, that early stage of writing when you are just trying to capture your ideas, usually works best if you can get words down as quickly as possible. But my inner editor is horribly critical. If I let that inner editor take the wheel while I’m drafting, it’s as if my car has hit a patch of ice: my wheels start spinning, I skid, and eventually I crash into a snow bank.… more

The Beauty of Roadblocks

April 9, 2015 2 Comments

by Lisa Bullard Can you guess which of these really happened? a) After accidentally invading the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, my traveling companion and I were in a three-way stand-off: our car, a Harley, and a 1,000-pound buffalo. b) I peered over a hotel balcony high above the Mississippi, watching the bomb squad and 50 other emergency vehicles squeal into the parking lot directly below.… more

Packing Your Bags

March 24, 2015 7 Comments

by Lisa Bullard One of the basic writing exercises I use with kids starts with having them create personal “Time Capsules” (download the activity). It’s a great way to explore how writers build a character through the use of “telling” details — in this case, the items a character values the most. But a person’s stuff can reveal more about them than just the obvious.… more

A Writing GPS

March 12, 2015 6 Comments

For a couple of years running I was hired for two-week “writing road trips” across the southwestern Minnesota prairie. On my daily journeys I often passed within a few miles of the banks of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Plum Creek. But I didn’t have time to stop and visit Famous Author Landmarks. I had been hired on as a “Famous Author” myself, to visit a series of schools and talk to students about writing.… more

Traveling In-Word

March 1, 2015 No Comments

For this week’s writing road trip, I journeyed to the Alphabet Forest. For those who haven’t had the pleasure of visiting, the Alphabet Forest is the remarkable creation of author/illustrator/innovator Debra Frasier, who through pure passion and persistence, managed to carve out an oasis for words in the midst of the consumable craziness that is the Minnesota State Fair.… more

Places We Never Expected to Go

You Be Thelma, I’ll Be Louise

Shifting Drivers

Traveling Abroad

Changing Course

Pulled Over

Collecting Souvenirs

Heavy Baggage

Taking the Wheel

The Beauty of Roadblocks

Packing Your Bags

A Writing GPS

Traveling In-Word

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