I was on a massage table two weeks before leaving on a six week journey to SE Asia (Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Bejing and Indonesia), when I had the idea for this book.
Around the same time I'd been asked to judge best travel book award for the Australian Society of Travel Writers. It was an easy pick, there was a clear winner and the field wasn't so great. When I googled a list of previous winners I thought — it couldn't be so hard to write a travel book could it?
It was a good three years since my first attempt at prose had been published, a novel about a woman who wakes up one day and instead of taking the bus to work, hops on a plane (without telling anyone, not even her teenage kids) to post Schapelle Bali.
I came to prose writing late in life (after a long career in theatre and film) around same time as I discovered travel in Asia. Well, Indonesia was as far as I got for the first few years until this trip, when I knew it was time to branch out and experience other Asian sights, sounds and tastes.
I had a invitation to a performance art festival in Beijing with a couple of free weeks either side, and just enough cash in my account (thanks to K.Rudds stimulus bonus) to cover my budget airfares and accommodation. As my masseuse pummelled away on my needy body, I drifted into a dreamy thought stream — if all those other wankers can do it, why can't I? What was stopping me? Time was passing by so quickly, I was helping my students get their books published but what about mine?Ok, I decided, as she dug her elbow deep into my shoulder blade —this is it! I will make a pact with myself to write from the moment I step on the plane in Sydney to the moment I return.
Jan Cornall began writing in the 70s. She has written plays, musicals, screenplays, a novel, short stories, and three CDs of songs. Since 2004 she has led writer's retreats in inspirational international locations including Bali, Laos, Burma, Cambodia, Morocco and Fiji. In 2014 she is planning a Vietnam trip following the footsteps of M.Duras in Vietnam. More info here.
(C) Jan Cornall 2013
Around the same time I'd been asked to judge best travel book award for the Australian Society of Travel Writers. It was an easy pick, there was a clear winner and the field wasn't so great. When I googled a list of previous winners I thought — it couldn't be so hard to write a travel book could it?
It was a good three years since my first attempt at prose had been published, a novel about a woman who wakes up one day and instead of taking the bus to work, hops on a plane (without telling anyone, not even her teenage kids) to post Schapelle Bali.
I came to prose writing late in life (after a long career in theatre and film) around same time as I discovered travel in Asia. Well, Indonesia was as far as I got for the first few years until this trip, when I knew it was time to branch out and experience other Asian sights, sounds and tastes.
I had a invitation to a performance art festival in Beijing with a couple of free weeks either side, and just enough cash in my account (thanks to K.Rudds stimulus bonus) to cover my budget airfares and accommodation. As my masseuse pummelled away on my needy body, I drifted into a dreamy thought stream — if all those other wankers can do it, why can't I? What was stopping me? Time was passing by so quickly, I was helping my students get their books published but what about mine?Ok, I decided, as she dug her elbow deep into my shoulder blade —this is it! I will make a pact with myself to write from the moment I step on the plane in Sydney to the moment I return.
I didn’t draw up a contract, sign a promise or a pledge,
stamp it or wax it with a seal. And no, I didn’t plan to have a documentary
film crew in tow or send hourly video diaries back via You Tube. I didn’t
tell a soul. This deal was between me
and all the other me’s standing in my way. The ‘writer’ me, the ‘teacher’ me
‘dreamer me, the ’just too busy me, the’ doubter’ me, the ‘sabotage’ me, the
‘you’ll never do it’ me, the ‘ridiculously over positive’ me, the ‘what’s the
point when the world is going to shit’ me, the ‘I’m gonna save the planet with
this book’ me and all the other ‘mini me’s ‘ taking up my daily brain space.
You could say I took this trip just to shut them up, for I
vowed every time one of them started to spout off I would write. I would douse
the flames of their disturbance with a tide of words on the page, I would run
right over their inane remarks and comments with double ink and fast paced, big
letter scrawl. I wouldn’t have to outwit them or even outsmart them, simply out
run them. It wouldn’t matter what I wrote as long as I covered the distance
with words and when I got back, I was free to chuck it in the wheelie bin with
a sign for the garbos - TAKE IT – I DID WHAT I SAID I WOULD.
Jan Cornall began writing in the 70s. She has written plays, musicals, screenplays, a novel, short stories, and three CDs of songs. Since 2004 she has led writer's retreats in inspirational international locations including Bali, Laos, Burma, Cambodia, Morocco and Fiji. In 2014 she is planning a Vietnam trip following the footsteps of M.Duras in Vietnam. More info here.
(C) Jan Cornall 2013
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