America through the eyes of a stranger

Starting from November 30th my partner and I spent two weeks in the states. First a week in New York City and then another in Washington during I basically saw the hotel World Fantasy Convention was held at and Union Station. It was the first time for both of us unless you count the three seconds The Maid of the Mists (the Canadian boat that takes tourists to see Niagara Falls from the bottom) spends going slightly over the US-Canada border. And for some reason most people don't seem to feel it counts. So here are a few things that I noticed on my travels.

The TV is trying to scare you

One day when my feet were killing me especially badly, we went to watch the new Jake Gyllenhaal movie, Nightcrawler. It gave an eerily accurate view of what the TV business looks like from the point of view of someone who has never before experienced the 24-hour news cycle. The first night we were in New York there was a home invasion somewhere in the area, and by area, I mean inside the states of New York and New Jersey, which is kind of a large area, I'll admit. There was nobody home at the time but there was some property damage. While that kind of thing is certainly scary and serious I don't entirely see that it warranted live coverage from the scene hours and hours and hours even the cops left the scene. They kept playing the tape of those poor people coming home to see the damage over and again, using the scariest available language to explain what was happening, even if it was just to say that nothing but press camping out on the lawn of crime victims had happened there for hours. Now granted, I haven't exactly understood everything on the TV's of the various countries I've travelled - Korean was particularly hard - but so far I haven't seen anything like it anywhere else.

Abandoned buildings

In the Helsinki area, where I live, real-estate isn't cheap. Even when you get out of the bigger cities, abandoned buildings are fairly rare to see, partly because most developed land either is lived in or gets plowed into fields. More because paper has been one of our biggest exports for so long, thus making woodland very expensive to just leave a house on. We took the train from New York to Washington and I was amazed to see the number of abandoned houses, buildings and power lines just lying there, decaying into disrepair. I understand and maintenance costs and even tearing things down when they're no longer used is not free. I'm just not used to seeing as many abandoned buildings in places that aren't "third world" (I really hate that term, by the way) countries. It seems very much in the vein of disposable planet thinking that seems to be common among US politicians and talking heads.

People of color

Finland is pretty freaking white. We're mostly known for blonde hair and blue eyes. Until we got to the airport to go back home I could generally pick out my husband out of a crowd by looking for the blonde hair. The thing that struck me though was just how non-white the service industry in the states is. We saw white people all through the city but more or less every time we were served or sold something it was by a person of color. And to tell you the truth, that really weirded me out. I had never understood just how systemic racism in the US is because a lot of time in the movies we see even the service industry is white and the few people of color we see are basically only there to be either thug #3 or Denzel Washington. And that was the entirety of my experience on the matter before this trip. I know, on an intellectual level, that thug #3 and Denzel Washington aren't the entirety of POC existence, I simply had no touchstone into just how... silenced POC are from the general discussion.

People are people everywhere

The biggest thing I notice whenever I travel is that people really are just people everywhere. They tend to be concerned for the same things, trying to find and make other things happen, mostly just trying to get through every day with a little bit of grace and charm. Although I have to admit, there's a lot less worry about leaving appropriate tips going on in Finland. I'm fairly certain I still don't know all the places I was supposed to tip and didn't for which I will eternally be apologizing to everyone I know who has ever worked in the service industry.

Halloween!

I LOVE Halloween! I fully think it should be a month-long celebration of all things scary and terrible. I love costumes and scary stories and partying to the sweet sounds of The Thriller. In Finland, Halloween is starting to become a thing but there are still many who oppose it as a purely American, corporate holiday. It was frankly joyous to see Halloween celebrated so universally. I loved the sense of community it created. Halloween, at least in New York, is a massively social event, bringing together all kinds of people. We went to tour American Museum of Natural History and the Rose Center for Air and Space on Halloween and even there everyone was dressed up. It was so cool to see everyone enjoying such an excellent holiday.

On the whole our trip was amazing and fun and a hugely positive experience but at the end of the day I am very happy I live in Finland. But isn't that always the way with traveling?

The traveling writer

World Fantasy Convention is fast approaching again. 10 days from now I'm starting my travels toward Washington DC with a few days in New York in between.

As I understand it US citizens travel to other countries far less than Europeans for a multitude of reasons, one of them being that pretty much everywhere is so very far away. Since I've been traveling since I was somewhere around 5 or 6 pretty much all over the Northern Hemisphere. Over the past year and a half I've been traveling as an as-yet-unpublished writer and thus feel I have something to contribute.

Make a list and turn it into a template

Anyone planning to do this writing thing is going to end up traveling to a lot of cons. Packing is hard enough under the best of circumstances and inevitably you're going to end up missing something important. Having a packing list template that you keep updating makes it possible to have that happen as little as possible while also packing as little as possible. Which is to say: plan thoroughly then re-plan when, inevitably, your plan doesn't survive contact with the enemy.

 

Have make-up

I don't wear make-up in my daily life. When it's a choice of putting on make-up and sleeping for twenty minutes longer, I will always choose sleep. Ok, I will almost always choose sleep. During conventions is pretty much the only time when I exchange the latter for the former. I would recommend this for men as well as women but, for now at least, it is more socially acceptable for women to wear make-up than it is for men. The reason for this is that while at cons you're inevitably going to get photographed, repeatedly. Without make-up you're probably going to end up looking washed out, especially if your skin tone is caucasian or asian, but the problem still exists for darker skin tones. Along the same lines, you should plan on wearing colors other than black and white as most of the time backgrounds are going to be one of those. See pictures of Mary Robinette Kowal at the Hugos for a very visual reference.

 

Have business cards

Even if you're still unpublished, having business cards is an excellent idea. For one it's a fairly inexpensive way to impress most people. For the second, writing out your contact information in the middle of a conversation is awkward to say the least. Mine come courtesy of Moo.com which I'm ridiculously happy with but there are certainly other very good services that do good work as well.

 

Have your work with you

Especially if you're published, you should carry examples of your work with you. You might not get to hold a reading but then again you never know. There's also the fact that people seem to find other people who make up stuff endlessly fascinating, and not just the people at the con either. If you're at all an extrovert you may be able to make fellow passengers into fans just by carrying around a couple of your own books, as apparently at least James A. Owen has done before.

Be well-slept

This seems like such a no-brainer, doesn't it? But so far I have never managed it. I'm a hopeless procrastinator which means that usually the last of my packing gets done very late the night before I leave for any given trip. Which is why I would also recommend getting there a day early if you can, though so far I've never managed to do that myself. I look forward to the day that I do, meanwhile dreaming of getting to a convention well rested, showered and generally just relaxed.

Follow up

When you get back home, once you've kissed your family and slept for the better part of a weekend, it's a good idea to get back to the people whose business cards or other contact information you've managed to accrue during your trip. Not only will that make you remember them better but it will also help them remember you better. And if someone's been particularly nice to you, it might be a good idea to send out thank you cards, though that's probably a topic for another post entirely.

How Travel Makes You a Better Writer

I love to travel. I don't get to do it near as often as I'd like but part of that is because I like big long trips that take me somewhere as different from home as possible. I want to meet people who see the world from varied perspectives. I want to understand what it's like to live in situations where life isn't so easy and not everything is a mouse-click away.

How does this improve my writing? First, it gives me things to write about. A few years ago my boyfriend and I went to China for six weeks. We had a Lonely Planet guidebook in one hand and a crappy phrase book in the other. We had a great time and brought back tons of stories. You can bet that little snippets of those adventures work their way into my stories when I need to add a little spice. The more experiences you have, the more you have to authoritatively write about; though for fiction you might have to twist the truth a little to suit your tale. I'll tell you a little secret about getting great travel stories. Most of the coolest stuff happens in between seeing the big sights. Stay off of tours, take local transport, eat like the locals and don't worry about whether you speak the language or not; you don't need it.

Another thing travel does, if you go in with an open heart and an open mind, is it lets you see how other people live. This is one of the reasons I don't take tours – I would miss too much. People will share their lives with you if you let them. They will show you what's important to them and what they're most proud of. Sometimes it their town, sometimes their business or maybe it's the braided bracelet their daughter made for them. Regardless, you will gain insight. This not only broadens your perspective, but it will help you create rounded characters with more realistic motivations.

If you travel to places where you don't speak the language (or very little of it) you will become a better communicator. In China, my boyfriend and I had a number of conversations where no comprehensible language was exchanged but meanings were entirely clear. There were the old guys playing Chinese chess in the hutong area of Beijing that invited us over to watch. With no words, one guy made it clear that he thought my bf's gut was my fault because I was such a good cook. Another time, at a monastery on top of a mountain, a group of young monks asked my boyfriend if his hiking stick was a walking aid or if it was for seeing. Again, no words. And in a pizza place in Yangshuo we found out a kitten's name translated as 'Fathead' because, well, for obvious reasons. All of these conversations happened using sign language, gesture and intonation. For as much as we writers like to use words, sometimes there are better ways. Once you realize this, you might find your characters interacting through more than just dialog.

Travel gives you a lot more fodder for creating great settings. Visiting a local African market is far more visceral than seeing one on a travel show. Being in a town that only has dirt roads after a rain and experiencing what it smells and sounds like. Heck, the first time you go somewhere and the street is filled with the smells of exhaust, grilling food, camel dung and the local spice market all at the same time I promise it'll be an experience you'll never forget. Likewise, the first time you swim in water that's so clear you can see twenty or more feet to the bottom can be amazing. In writing you want to appeal to all of the senses. Having been there for real allows you to draw upon that and lay it out on the page. And the best thing is you can take bits and pieces of all your different experiences and mix them together to create your fictional world. The more you travel, the more pieces you have.

I'm going to end with my top five travel tips for maximizing your fun.

1) Don't let fear stop you. Most places are far safer than their warnings. I live in LA and if I listened to the travel warnings about this place, I should be terrified. Sure, you might want to avoid places that have open hostilities, but other than that, most of the globe is safe enough. And I say this as a woman who often travels solo.

2) You'll always be a visitor, but try to do things on the local level. Eat street food or at small, non-touristy restaurants, take buses and motos and tro-tros. Talk to people - the ones that show you around, that drive you somewhere, or serve you food. Talk to shopkeepers and butchers and wood carvers. Share with them as much as they share with you. You will be richer for it.

3) Don't be an Ugly American (whether you're from the States, or not). Do not get upset when things are different from home or not as fancy or perfect or they take a little longer. You've come to their country to experience it, so do that. Don't expect anywhere else to be like home. Don't put unreasonable expectations on a place that has different resources.

4) Keep your sense of humor. When you travel things will go wrong. If you accept that from the beginning you'll be a lot better off. When you face adversity with laughter, or a smile, it shows good character and that resonates through all cultures. People will be more open to helping if you're good natured about the difficulty.

5) Try as many new things as you can. Don't turn down experiences because you're scared, or tired. When will you be here again? Go for it. Just do it. Put in whatever motivating phrase you need here. Sometimes you'll need to listen to that little voice that keeps you safe but push yourself out of your comfort zone. Of course you'll have some regrets about things you miss for decent reasons, but try to keep those to a minimum.

One more thing – write everything down. Whether you keep a travel journal, send e-mails to friends and family or blog on your trip, keep a record so you don't forget all those great little stories you're going to accumulate.

Happy Travels!