Hello...

This is where I'll be posting updates of our adventures in North America. This will most likely take the form of words, but also photos, doodles, and soundscapes from the places we pass through.

Some things I've been thinking about as guiding principles for travel writing:

• Not prejudging, or at least being aware of my own expectations and biases, and wrestling with them when I can. The US has such a huge cultural projection, is so easy to judge from afar, and in exploring I want to leave myself open to being surprised. Basically, I'll try and go beyond the massive portion sizes.

  
  

• Delight over cynicism: Linked to the first point, but I want to try and find the joy rather than just pointing out all the things that are wrong. Seems harder and harder to do at the moment, but I'll do my damnedest to enjoy my three month jolly through one of the world's most diverse and naturally beautiful continents. Heroic of me, I know.

  
  

• No judging myself too much and putting myself out there. One of the reasons I want to write this is to practice writing for an audience, and to hold myself accountable in my writing. Writing for stage and screen involves spending a lot of time writing scripts that very few people ever read. Though this blog will definitely be another thing to add to that list of obscure output, by being in the public domain, it raises the stakes somehow. At least people could read it. That potential has a motivational power that I would like to harness.

That seems like a good guiding trinity to be going along with. I'm sure there's more I could and will be thinking about as the adventure continues.

If you'd like to follow those thoughts, and haven't already signed up, you can do that on the home page:

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