Anglo Adventure

Travel with a sense of humor


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Just Another Manic Memoir

Just Pretty

There is beauty in the everyday.

Everyone’s doing it. Entire sections of the bookstore are dedicated to it. Blonde-woman-leaves-routine-life-for-abroad-or-the-wood memoirs. Think: Cheryl Strayed. Elizabeth Gilbert.* To stand out from other travel memoirs, you need to set sail all by yourself to Antarctica, Ernest Shackleton-style and survive something horrific like eating your own dogs or do some peyote in the desert and be able to clearly WRITE about that experience. Pen name: Huntess S. Thompson.

For the reasons above, I’m starting a new genre: the stay-put memoir. Lists of dull things we do everyday, written with a certain flair.

Consider the untold story in the soggy French fries curled on the bottom of my CRV, in the struggle of trying to get to my dry cleaner before it closes, in bagel dust between my keyboard letters. That’s real stuff. Bonus: I don’t have to do anything difficult to write it. I just keep on keepin on. It would be relatable, that’s for sure. Low-risk. Yes. Dull? No way.

Future memoir titles: 

  • Is It Weird To Smell Your Own Hair On The Bus? And Other Concerns
  • Skeptical Of Your Gluten Allergy, So Totally Sure Of Mine
  • Copywriter’s Dilemma: Having A Nervous Breakdown One Exclamation Point At A Time!!
  • Checking The Door Twice: Confessions Of A Public-Bathroom Phobic
  • Fear And Loathing On A Train. Mother + Daughter Ride The Rails Cross Country. (Read the sneak preview here).
  • Tears On My Mcdonald’s Cheeseburger. What Happens When You Get The Wrong Gender-Specific Toy.
  • Facebook Lies: That Time I Said I Had A Great Time Kayaking When It Was Actually Just Ok

Which one should I start on first?

*I like Elizabeth Gilbert.

**I’m actually headed to the desert next month (New Mexico + Texas). Where should I go? What should I do? Comment below.

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How Not to Write a Book Proposal

Eat,Pray,Love En Francais, Seattle travel Blogs

I hear she writes historical fiction now.

If I learned one thing in my writing career, it is to pay close attention to those contributor guidelines. I wrote these after reading editors’ complaints about bad submission practices.

Dear The New Yorker:

Attached please find my aritle on “10 Pig Mating Rituals You Weren’t Aware Of.” I don’t read The NEW YORKER, but I have heard you’re a quality, top ten literary journal. I really, really want to be a Writer because I want a heap of money to show up at my door along with beautiful women and I can tell all of my friends I am a PUBLISHED WRITER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yay. You can submit payment to 1244 Monkey Sock Street, NY, NY.

Cheers,
Billy, “the Pen” Henderson

Dear Hiring Editor Person:

I AM HOPPING YOU COULD PUBLISH MY WORK. Oh sorry about the all caps, I am just super excited that excited about the possibility of writing for your website. Well really it’s the work of someone named Mark Twain only I replaced 20% of his words and sprinkled 30% of keywords related to your website in. this stolded article will get you losts a website traffic. please let me know how and when I will be paid.

Yours truly,

Sal Forrester Continue reading