Bookology Magazine

Writing Road Trip

Time Travel

by
Lisa Bullard
When you tour Rome, you’re not always sure if you’re trav­el­ing in taxis or time machines. Down one street, you’re trans­port­ed back to around 2,000 years ago, watch­ing the Chris­tians take on the lions in the Forum. Head down anoth­er street, and you’re enrap­tured by one of Michelangelo’s Renais­sance mas­ter­pieces. Turn your head, and you see — the Gold­en Arches?… more

Roads Not Taken

by
Lisa Bullard
My brother’s dri­ving direc­tions are full of “roads not taken.” He’ll say some­thing like, “Go about a mile and you’ll see Hamil­ton. Don’t turn there! You want the next street.” But with­out fail, I see Hamil­ton, remem­ber that it was part of his direc­tions, and turn before I’m sup­posed to. My father and I are equal­ly direc­tion­al­ly incom­pat­i­ble. He’ll recite a mys­ti­fy­ing suc­ces­sion of com­pass points to me.… more

Misdirected

by
Lisa Bullard
Sev­er­al years ago a friend and I got lost dri­ving through New Orleans. Even­tu­al­ly we pulled over so I could ask a gas sta­tion atten­dant for directions. He rat­tled off a set of instruc­tions in a Cajun accent, end­ing with, “then take the Hoopalong.” I looked at my road map. No Hoopa­long. I asked him to point it out to me. His finger tapped a sec­tion of my map while he repeat­ed his direc­tions, this time with a hint of impa­tience.… more

Road Food Re-Mix

by
Road Food Re-Mix
by Lisa Bullard I love seek­ing out odd­ball road food oppor­tu­ni­ties. In New Jer­sey: a Chi­nese-Ital­ian buf­fet where the spaghet­ti and lo mein rubbed shoul­ders like long-lost cousins. In Nashville: a Swedish-South­ern all-you-can-eat spread, with fried chick­en and pick­led her­ring vying for att‚ention. In New York City: a Greek-Mex­i­can café. Many of the world’s diverse taste temp­ta­tions are no longer exot­ic options to us.… more

Well-Traveled Paths

by
Lisa Bullard
by Lisa Bullard I slip into auto-pilot when I’m dri­ving through over­ly famil­iar ter­ri­to­ry; I stop tak­ing in the same old land­marks. And then one day, there’s a stop sign where there’s nev­er been one before, and my eyes are re-opened to the pos­si­bil­i­ties around me. There are “sto­ry paths” like that too: fairy tales and oth­er nar­ra­tives that have grown so famil­iar we fail to notice the pow­er they hold unless we’re forced to take a fresh look.… more

Pilgrimage

by
Biker
by Lisa Bullard Every year, thou­sands of bik­ers road trip to Stur­gis (South Dako­ta) to cel­e­brate their shared pas­sion for motor­cy­cles. For some of them, atten­dance is an eager­ly antic­i­pat­ed annu­al tra­di­tion that holds the same pow­er found in spir­i­tu­al rituals. One year my friend and I were caught unawares in the mid­dle of the expe­ri­ence. We had trav­eled to South Dako­ta with­out know­ing about the pil­grim­age of believ­ers, but as we came clos­er to our des­ti­na­tion, the grow­ing num­ber of bik­ers, thick as plagues of locusts at gas sta­tions, forced us to piece togeth­er the clues.… more

Through the Woods

by
GPS_clip
by Lisa Bullard A few years ago I decid­ed to vis­it a friend in North Car­oli­na over the hol­i­days, and the only way I could afford the air­fare was to fly on Christ­mas Day. I admit to a case of self pity as I set out, pic­tur­ing the rest of the world in their new paja­mas, open­ing presents and rev­el­ing in a hol­i­day feast, while I suf­fered the long lines, cramped seats, and oth­er indig­ni­ties that air trav­el offers What was I think­ing, leav­ing home for Christ­mas?… more

Crossing the Border

by
GPS_clip
by Lisa Bullard Once when flying back to the U.S. from Cana­da I met up with some zeal­ous bor­der con­trol agents. The cus­toms guy want­ed a detailed descrip­tion of what I’d purchased. “I bought one of those sou­venir snow globes with a lit­tle Moun­tie inside,” I said. The guy thought a moment and then sad­ly shook his head. “Ma’am, if you’d played your cards right,  you could have tak­en home the real thing.”… more

Packing List

by
GPS_clip
by Lisa Bullard I gen­er­ate a flur­ry of lists for every road trip: A “bizarre attrac­tions to stop and see” list. A “things to tell the cat-sit­ter” list. A pack­ing list. I love lists. I love them so much I have a whole jour­nal full of dif­fer­ent sorts of lists — I write down every­thing from house­hold repairs to my buck­et list.… more

Winter Roads

by
GPS_clip
by Lisa Bullard Win­ters add the ele­ment of sur­prise to the Min­neso­ta dri­ving equa­tion. Mid-jour­ney, you can be sucked into one of the car-devour­ing pot­holes caused by my state’s rad­i­cal tem­per­a­ture changes. Or you can skid on a decep­tive slick of black ice, and end up strad­dling a snow bank. In those moments, you real­ize that your trip isn’t going to turn out as you thought it would.… more

Home Away from Home

by
GPS_clip
by Lisa Bullard I like to play a cer­tain game when I’m trav­el­ing. I pre­tend that the place I’m vis­it­ing is my home, and I imag­ine how my life would have been altered if I had in fact tak­en root in that oth­er environment. How would things be dif­fer­ent for me if my world swirled amidst New York City’s self-ful­fill­ing ener­gy?… more

Plotting Your Route

by
GPS_clip
by Lisa Bullard Using an “I’ll just see where the road takes me” approach has led me on all sorts of adven­tures. But it’s also meant I’ve arrived at mid­night and dis­cov­ered every hotel room in town is rent­ed to lumberjacks. I still don’t plan ahead for lum­ber­jack influx­es — I figure one of those per life­time is prob­a­bly my quo­ta — but that expe­ri­ence has forced me to rethink my approach a bit.… more

Round Trip

by
GPS_clip
by Lisa Bullard One of life’s great sat­is­fac­tions is return­ing home after a long jour­ney. We rejoice in the famil­iar clasp of our own bed, in the brac­ing taste of our home air. Every­thing seems com­fort­ing­ly the same, yet also fresh and remarkable. This is because, even if home has stayed the same, jour­ney­ing has changed us.… more

East, or West?

by
GPS_clip
by Lisa Bullard I think road-trip­ping togeth­er should be a require­ment for every cou­ple con­tem­plat­ing life part­ner­ship. There are few oth­er cir­cum­stances that allow you to so quick­ly learn about how some­one nav­i­gates through life. Would you rather plan the whole trip in advance, or just get in the car and dri­ve? Do you stop and ask for direc­tions, or go ahead and get lost?… more

Are We There Yet?

by
GPS_clip
by Lisa Bullard My Texas grand­par­ents  usu­al­ly made the long dri­ve to Min­neso­ta. But the sum­mer I was thir­teen, my par­ents piled me, my two younger broth­ers, and a bor­rowed boy cousin into the old sta­tion wag­on and head­ed us south. I escaped into the far back, prop­ping myself up on suit­cas­es and read­ing a thou­sand-page-long Civ­il War nov­el called House Divid­ed.… more

Places We Never Expected to Go

by
GPS_clip
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

Shifting Drivers

by
GPS_clip
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

by
GPS_clip
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

Collecting Souvenirs

by
GPS_clip
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

by
GPS_clip
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

by
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

by
GPS_clip
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

by
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

by
GPS_clip
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

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