Imagine being a blond woman traveling through remote China in the late 90s.
Where few Westerners had ever gone. On a rickety motorcycle. Alone.
That's just one of Carl King's many adventures. She's also ridden motorcycles all over the world. And a bicycle through West Africa. Again ... alone.
And then there's her creative and professional side - author, speaker, coach, teacher industry expert and online instructor.
In this far-ranging interview, I interview Carla King about her travels, love of exploring, and the special challenges of being a female adventurer. We also discuss her books, travel writing advice, and the steps you can take to write your own travel memoir.
Links:
Imagine being a blond woman traveling through remote China in the late 90s.
Where few Westerners had ever gone. On a rickety motorcycle. Alone.
That's just one of Carl King's many adventures. She's also ridden motorcycles all over the world. And a bicycle through West Africa. Again ... alone.
And then there's her creative and professional side - author, speaker, coach, teacher industry expert and online instructor.
In this far-ranging interview, I interview Carla King about her travels, love of exploring, and the special challenges of being a female adventurer. We also discuss her books, travel writing advice, and the steps you can take to write your own travel memoir.
Links:
spk_1: 0:04
tha system
spk_0: 0:05
green with what really matters interviews. And today I'm really happy to be interviewing a woman named Carla King. She's an adventure motorcycle writer. She is a adventure, right tour and author. She's been writing about adventure, motorcycling and other areas for at least 20 years. I think 25 going back to 1994 maybe even before that. Ah, she speaks to the venture travel industry. She's an expert on that. There's so many things about her. And so, Carla, thanks for joining us.
spk_1: 0:39
Thanks for asking the
spk_0: 0:40
So why did you pick a moment something to just kind of illustrate what it's like when things maybe don't quite go right on an adventure ride. I'm sure you've had moments like that.
spk_1: 0:51
I've had a few, definitely. Um, what comes to mind? Because I'm writing right now about my China motorcycle journeys, which were so low and very illegal. And, um, my first night on the road in China, my first night on the road crossing from Beijing, which is a populated area with nice roads. This is 1998 across in the hay be province. The road system deteriorated rapidly, and I ended up writing after dark, I hadn't seen a village in miles Ive my I was running on fumes and I finally saw lights and it was a gas station. And I was so grateful. So I asked the woman there in my very, very basic Mandarin Chinese. If there there was a hotel and she pointed to some lights across the way across the dirt road. And I got to the hotel hand, all these women came running out and I realized that I would be spending the first night on my own in China in a brothel.
spk_0: 2:00
So how did that work out for you?
spk_1: 2:02
Huh? It was weird. I was very, very weird. I was completely stressed out because I had almost ran out of gas. Um, because I had no idea where I was. The road had twisted around in the mountains. I had never realized that China had these amazing wide open spaces the quality of Yosemite or a Glacier National Park. Of course, there is no park there. It was this where people, the mountain people lived and I would often end up writing on riverbed and very bad dirt roads because I had crossed a bridge that seemed very rickety. I wasn't sure if it would even hold the motorcycle. It was dark. There were no lights. I could hear it. It was like, um ah, Deep Canyon. And then I got to the hotel so called hotel and a bunch of women surrounded me and a guy came out and they immediately I got off the bike and I was cold. And you know how it is when your fingers don't work and, you know, you've still got the engine ringing in your ears, and I hadn't I've only gotten off the motorcycle for the first time in hours of the gas station just moments before, So I was trying to just stretch my legs that figure out what to do, and they took my motorcycle way. All these girls, like six or seven girls, they were all wearing these satiny peach pajamas, and they they just rolled it away. And the man in charge, the brothel owner come for what? Every column. He gently led me into the office and we started negotiating Price and he asked for a terribly outrageous price, and I countered, and we went through that bargaining thing that goes on now you have to remember that I am the first foreigner anybody ever saw in the Chinese countryside. So I wasn't some hot blonde driving up, you know, and being
spk_0: 4:03
So you're this first Westerner these people have seen in this area?
spk_1: 4:07
I didn't actually know that yet. I didn't know that everywhere I went I would be a celebrity because they had never seen a foreigner except for on television. Um, So at the time, I was just in survival mode and I needed sleep so desperately. I did realize that I was the purple people eater. You know, I wasn't a woman. I wasn't sexy. It wasn't anything but some just weird person from outer space that had dropped down on them. The ruffle guy knew enough to try and get as much money as he could out of me. I was on a limited budget, so I understood that things cost. Hotel rooms cost about $5 a night. Probably $2 a night. We negotiated. It was very is a very funny negotiation. And the girls all took me to the room. And pretty soon they're day started. A truck rolled up right where my motorcycle Waas to the two drivers fell out holding empty bottles of white lightning. I realized then that I should never be riding after dark. They were my only companions on the road because at the time private cars weren't allowed. Right? So my only companions on the road in 1998 were the's blue supply trucks, government vehicles and taxis and little 1 25 cc ag bikes. So, um, luckily, my likely my motorcycle was out of the way. And then I just stood up the window and watched more truck drivers come fall out of the cabs, the girls catching them and taking them somewhere. And, uh, just rinse and repeat for hours. And I did get get some good sleep There, though, is actually a beautiful place. I found out in the morning.
spk_0: 5:54
So you came away from it, Okay.
spk_1: 5:56
Yeah. You know, I don't want to say about that. It is a complicated thing. Brought, you know, brothels are everywhere in the world. Sex workers. It was weird that I encountered one the first night on the road. Kind of weird and kind of not in retrospect, because the Onley travelers in China at that time were the truck drivers, right? So there were later I stayed in what's called Luke Juan's, which I had expected to find that first night. And Lou Blondes were dormitories pretty much. And they had maybe 10 20 beds for the men's area and just a small room for women. And I usually had the women's. I always had the women's area to myself. It was just very rustic and very, um, a lot of very basic accommodations, usually without showers. So I spent a week at a time without showering, which, you know, if you don't any camping didn't bother me that much. So how did you
spk_0: 7:00
get into motorcycling?
spk_1: 7:01
Well, when I was 15 years old, I lived in North Carolina with my family and my sister had a horse. I had ah, no escape vehicle, and I knew I had helped my dad work on all the vehicles that we had the cars. The tractor is riding lawnmowers, and I saw his old motorcycle in the garage and I said, I want to ride that and he said, You can ride it if you can fix it, but he helped me fix it up and that became my escape vehicle. I would take it off fun rides through the tobacco fields and passed the pond and in the woods. And I would draw and I would write it and I would come back. I would do some dirt bike riding in the woods. There were the same neighborhood boys with with some little likes who made trails right through the trees. And I would jump thumb it often break down, and I could either fix it or push it back. So most of the time, I would fix it.
spk_0: 8:04
So you were a bit of a tomboy, right? From the get go. Yeah,
spk_1: 8:07
yeah, I think so.
spk_0: 8:09
So, fixing it you you also were starting to pick up mechanical skills in right from the get go to
spk_1: 8:15
Yeah. I can't remember a time that I wasn't helping my parents with some job, whether it was carpentry or plumbing or boat engines or car engines or the riding lawn mower. So I always in our family we we were a d i Y kind of family. So is this natural? It didn't feel strange to me.
spk_0: 8:35
For those of you that may not do adventure riding. Being able to repair your vehicle wherever you are can be a critical skill set, because oftentimes you can be dozens, even hundreds of miles from help. And so if you can't fix it, you are stuck. And if there's nobody else around, especially back in the day before they had cell phones. And you know this spot locator deals where you just push a button and help shows up, it could mean the difference between a a happy ending, Anna. Not happy ending. So take us through. Maybe some of your key adventure travel trips. You you went to China, maybe take us through the progression and some of the key moments along the way. And what kept pulling you into it to keep going and kind of amping it up?
spk_1: 9:22
Well, I had always wanted to travel. I remember that there were those, um, Encyclopedia Britannica books, and they would come out with the specials every once in a while, and one was places and there were pictures of cities all over the world, and for some reason I just gravitated towards San Francisco. The skyline, the Golden Gate Bridge was weird that I ended up living there starting at 16 years old. Just bizarre. Ah, because my dad worked for IBM and we moved to the Bay Area and I always wrote I always had a journal. I always thought I got fixated on France. I actually think that it was from 1/7 grade French teacher in North Carolina. I just thought she was the epitome of cool. You know, she had this flippy do hair and she always wore really nice clothes. And she wasn't dowdy like the other teachers. And I thought, Wow, how exotic toe learn French and go to France. So I got fixated on France and I kept making plans to go with my girlfriends in high school and later what always just drop out because they had a new boyfriend or whatever. They spent their money on clothes, And, um so I worked in Silicon Valley, is a technical writer for a long time, and at Hewlett Packard, they invited me to go to Leone, France to work for six months on a technical writing project. And of course I said yes. And that trip ended up to be about 18 months trip living in several places in Europe, and I kept trying to write travel stories, but it was a technical writer, and I kept getting rejection letters or no rejection letters at all. And so when I came home, I saw an ad for a travel writing conference in Quarter Madeira at Book Passage, which is a famous independent bookstore. And so I went to the Travel Writers Conference and in the parking lot I saw this guy on a BMW Ah adventure bike and I want to talk to him. And his name is Alan Noren. And, um, I told him that I rode motorcycles and I have just been to France, and, um, I had written a little there and we had a nice chat, and it turned out that he was there on behalf of O. Reilly and associates who were creating a publication on this new thing called the World Wide Web and the Internet. And so they were looking for travel writers who had technology skills. Teoh create real time dispatches from the road. Now these were called blog's yet right? This was 1994 and so I said, Hey, I'm I am so in and he said, Well, what do you want to do? And I said, Well, I want to take a motorcycle around the U. S. Because when I lived in Europe, I was fascinated by the borders, and at that time there were still borders between the European countries. I wanted to explore the borders between the U. S. And Mexico and Canada s so he said okay and I looked around for a motorcycle. I had a Yamaha 6 50 Maxim and I have been a lot of travelling on that. This is the era before adventure bikes came along. I don't know what you had, but were you adventurer writing before Theo Adventure bike?
spk_0: 12:32
Not back then. I first started in 2002 and ah Kale are 6 50 was my first book.
spk_1: 12:39
It's a great first bike for that, but at the time people were just on cruisers and you find people in the woods camping and going down trails and Harleys and bikes like mine. Eso, he said, Well, what about Harley? And like now that's so cliche. And so I was looking for a bike in. My dad's friend found this thing, this novelty bike that this guy in Seattle was bringing in from Russia. Teoh experiment with it was called a euro sidecar motorcycle.
spk_0: 13:07
The sidecar special.
spk_1: 13:09
Exactly. And, um So I wrote to him and I said, Hey, Bob, um, I'm I've got this job doing real time online dispatches for this thing held the Internet, and I'm looking for a motorcycle, and that one looks really cool. I think I'm gonna get a lot of good stories. And so let's partner up. And so he this was by letter. This was pre email, right? And so he called me, He picked up the phone and he column. He goes, I think that's a great idea. I don't know if this company is gonna fly if these bikes will run well in the U. S. Because they go 40 miles an hour maximum in Siberia in the snow and we don't know if they're going to go 50 60 miles an hour on American highways in the heat, right? And that indeed did become a little bit of overhaul flown eso, he said, Okay, we'll get you one of these bikes. Well, before that, he's like, and it'll it'll break down. It's just not ready for prime time. I'm go. Well, that's OK, because I'm a pretty good mechanic, and he was like, Really? Okay, You test, right? It will give it to you. We'll support you around the US If something breaks, will FedEx apart out will fill the sidecar with a Z many parts as we have. Really? Right. So I flew up there and I got it, and we did. I had 1/2 the side of an engine in. They're not the side that actually blue. Of course, it was based on a 38 BMW. You know, the boxer twin engines that BMW uses a very simple, simple bike to work on. So simple pretty much had tin cans for carb aerators. It had, ah, Lucas Electron ICS, which became a huge problem. The Russian, um, electron ICS very unreliable. The wiring was not good to start with, and it was that it was It had personality. And I remember writing it from the Seattle Washington area back down to Santa Cruz where I lived and it took me forever, because wherever I would stop, people would run up to me like Ah, the circus came to town and it was clear right away. that this was not going to be the typical biker experience because as a woman on a motorcycle at that time, I was much much in the minority. Today, 25% of women are motor. Motorcyclists are women and
spk_0: 15:34
in the adventure writer community
spk_1: 15:36
in the motorcycling community in the US in general. Eso You know, 1/4 of the people you're likely to see on motorcycles today are women. That wasn't the case. Then whenever I would ride before, kids would smash their faces up against the windows and wave at me, people would stare at me. The gas stations. People couldn't figure out whether to talk to me or not. You know, those were the days of black leather jackets. It was pre textile industry, you know, there wasn't The hive is stuff that we have now. So no matter if I was a biker person or not, I looked like a biker, so it looks a little scary. I looked a little intimidating, but on this thing, I was just like people would ask, um, if they could put their kid in the sidecar. I've had old ladies come up to me and just giggle and laugh, and later we called. This became Ah, you d l the euro delay factor udf You can't get anywhere fast.
spk_0: 16:35
So that was your first sort of real adventure.
spk_1: 16:39
That was my first adventure motorcycling trip that I wrote about that I had a professional affiliation with the company, was an ambassador and was doing stories for. But I had written my Yamaha to up to Portland. Hadn't done long term trips really long. Just up and down the US West Coast. Really? And done a lot of camping, motorcycle, camping.
spk_0: 17:05
And when you were in Europe, were you writing there?
spk_1: 17:08
I was, But I was only doing local rise. I lived in Holland for a while, and I just rode around Holland and France and Germany.
spk_0: 17:17
So the Ural trip is really what sort of kicked it into the next gear,
spk_1: 17:21
right? Right. Yeah. I had done some bicycle travel before that. I actually went to France, and then I bicycle through West Africa. Okay, on that was in 92 93.
spk_0: 17:36
So why don't we take a little side journey on that? Because, actually, I would think that bicycling through West Africa would be even more challenging than taking a motorcycle. You can't cover the distance. You is distances you can on a motorcycle. You can't bring the luxury gear. Not that you bring a lot on a motorcycle, but on a bicycle.
spk_1: 17:57
This is a thing. So I lived it like I told said before, I lived in France and I just love France. I love France. And then I went back to the south of France and I found the place in Niece. I had made a lot of money contracting and technical writing in Silicon Valley, so I had enough money to live, maybe for a year if I didn't spend a lot. So I bicycled all around the south, near Niece in the out smear teams. And, um, it's just gorgeous there and you eat so well. And when you're in France on a bicycle, people love you. I improved my French a lot, which was important because in West Africa they speak French. That's the, you know, expat language, the language that they use because every 100 miles the language changes a lot, and I wanted to go there to do some more tech writing and a bicycle. And as Ah, jump off for my trip to West Africa. I was really attracted to West Africa because I wanted to go to a place that that was completely different than any place that I had traveled to before. That was not Caucasian. That was not Christian. No, that was just if I just took myself and my friends in Europe and switched it around, you know, black West African Muslims, you know, every every anything different. I just crave that was so curious about other cultures for such a long time. And I had met some West Africans when I lived in France before, and they were such a joyful people and so happy. And I had floated the idea. I met a man, a few West African vendors on the streets of Niece, and I asked him what their country was like. I said I wanted to go and they're like, Oh, you're gonna have such a good time. Everybody so friendly. Um, I'll introduce you to my family and it's true. When I got there, it was unbelievably friendly. I did have my share of adventures there. Ah, misadventures there. But to go back to the difference between motorcycling in America and bicycling Zor, West Africa. I was pitching stories, Teoh Adventure magazines like Outside magazine and they would say, Oh, I love that idea for a story about motorcycling for the U. S. And I would say, But I bicycle by myself for four months through S Africa. I got malaria. My brother joined me. He got thrown in on out West African jail. Um, you know, I was starved to death on the salt flats. Whatever. And there did. They're just like Well, yeah, that sounds interesting, But let's hear more about the motorcycle trip through America and I'm thinking, What is wrong with these people? What is more difficult than this is solo woman riding a bicycle through Africa versus Motorcycle through America. It's just what caught people's imaginations. Then
spk_0: 20:50
what did you learn on that trip? Riding so love through West Africa? What were some of your biggest takeaways on that? Because you do get life lessons when you're on the road, they come at you fast and furious sometimes.
spk_1: 21:03
Oh yeah, they really dio. And the big lesson I learned is that I went seeking difference and what I found waas similarities
spk_0: 21:12
to expand on that.
spk_1: 21:13
Well, everybody loves their Children. Everybody wants safe place to live. They want security, they won't work. They are interested for the most part. And, um, strangers, They want to help strangers. I did learn that the poor people are, the more likely they are to help you toe offer aid. And I also learned this in the U. S. When I went through more poorer areas of the United States, people were much more willing toe help and take me in versus places that were maybe suburban or near city people who were protecting their things right. More property. The more material possessions people have, the less likely they are to help you to take that risk. It's interesting how isolating material affluence makes people right. And I don't know what you think about that. I'm I've been well off in my life that I've been a traveller. So I always help travelers. And I don't think about Maybe they'll take my stuff right.
spk_0: 22:19
I remember when I first, my first adventure ride was through the Golden Triangle area along the berm Ermine Meyer Thailand border, and we went to these really remote villages like people looked at us. I was with this woman from Germany with flaming red hair and blue eyes, and we shall on our red and yellow motorcycles, 1 25 cc knockoffs of small dirt bikes in the States. And it's true we would show up in these villages, and first they would just look out. It's like, What are you doing here? There was in a push to teach English throughout the countryside. They're because the Thai saw that is a potential tourism source down the road. So they wanted to start sort of preparing that. And invariably there would be some young women from Bangkok or Chiang Mai that took on that job because they probably saw more opportunity than they get in the city. So we would show up. We'd ask if there was a guesthouse. Of course, there wasn't such a thing in these little villages, but we would meet the person who spoke English. There was teaching English, and I figured out if I just offered to teach an English class the next morning we were golden. The village opened up to us. They would invite us, it became an event, and they like to sleep in the classroom. We had to be up by seven because class started at 7 30 I would teach a class just teaching English, maybe some basic songs like at the time. I think some Michael Jackson songs and the people were so warm and the experiences were so heartfelt, be they wouldn't even accept money. Say, Look, Gladys, give you some bought for letting us stay there and they wouldn't accept it unless we insisted it was for the school. And then it was okay, so it wasn't going to them personally, but to the school that it was OK and, like five bucks was so much to them in eight months of travel in Southeast Asia. For me, it was the richest experience I had and what got me started in adventure motorcycling.
spk_1: 24:16
That's a great story.
spk_0: 24:18
The less people have often, the more warm and out reaching they are, and community seems to mean more to them.
spk_1: 24:27
The other thing that's interesting about it is that well, when I was in West Africa, when I would come to town, I would just show up, and it was a scene many of them had never seen. A foreigner ever. I went to these little villages they hadn't even conceived of the idea of a foreigner on. And I actually had small Children run screaming away from me because they had been told at one point that if they were good, the white boogeyman was gonna come and go, and it was heartbreaking. Sometimes I would ride up and I was so hot. And I saw this big baobab tree with shade under it, and I headed toward it. And out of the corner of my eye, I saw this girl, maybe 12 years old, with a big pottery jug on her head, probably full of water walking somewhere, couldn't see any village from where I waas. But all I wanted to do was head toward that tree and get in the shade. And I got closer to her and I finally noticed her and the look on her face. I have never seen a look of sheer terror like that in my life and have it directed at me. It doesn't broke my heart. She couldn't even speak. And she's trying keep a hold of her pottery jug and he turned and she sort of shuffled to run a little bit and then she turned around stilted because she can't turn her head. She has to turn her whole body, Just look again. And then she's opened her mouth and she tried to scream. But it was just this croaking sound that was coming out and I started to Coro I I really didn't want a shocker is I mean, it was heartbreaking. So I looked at the shade tree and I looked at her and I just went on my way. And
spk_0: 26:11
so being a woman solo traveling in West Africa, what were some of the challenges you probably faced as a woman versus a man or mail coming through there?
spk_1: 26:22
It was interesting because my brother was on the journey for with me for a little while. And so I got to see the difference between the male female traveling life there. I actually had a richer experience. For one thing, I was 31. Cute blonde. The bicycle people are always just like my story about China spending the first night of my trip in a brothel. I am not a pretty blonde to those people. I am a circus. I am a alien I am either terrifying or the best thing that happened to them because they don't have movies. They don't even have books. They have storytelling around the fire. And so it's such a gift. It's an amazing gift to them to have a traveler come through and they want you to stay. They always wanted me to stay longer and longer. What I realized about being a woman on a bicycle or a motorcycle and this is true from all my travels is that I had access to the women's world, which men absolutely do not. And I had access to the world of men because what I am is an honorary man because I'm doing things that men do. And I'm not a woman per se, because I'm not a woman who's living in their culture and living by their cultural rules. So for a woman traveling solo and these kinds of cultures, it's a much, much richer experience than any man can have. And I've sat around the fire with ah woman braiding my hair and just chatting, and you know they're helping me when I have my period or you know, all the girl things that connect us to other women, and it's so touching. And it's so lovely to be included in ah and share in these cultures. And, you know, I used to feel bad about taking from them. Like I know they didn't have enough food really to survive happily and yet they were giving me food, and I tried not to accept it and tried not to accept it. And then I realized that it was an exchange that they felt was fair. They wanted to entertain me. They wanted to keep me healthy, and it was just caring for another person. Ah, complicated, um, transformation to go through. And those were my first days of adventure travelling right, early days of adventure travel. And now I know what the deal is. I know that I'm a gift to cultures who live in remote places because they just don't see stuff. How did the
spk_0: 28:51
trip change you? Who were you before? What? How are you different after that trip? How did it change you?
spk_1: 28:57
I think it might have just affirmed what I six expected. Well, I mentioned that I realize that people are the same, right, and I didn't know that before. I traveled, I thought that going to on a nop a zit culture. Black West Africa You know that they would do or be something different than me right now. I was curious about it and fascinated about it. And it's true. I learned from speaking French and living in France that people express themselves differently. They talk about different things than Americans dio, right? Even the language knowing another language fluently does make you realize that different cultures put different emphasis on activities and feelings, right? They have more ways to express a certain feeling than another is. It's so interesting. So I thought, OK, black, West Africa, their Muslim there were gonna be different. And then when I realized everybody was the same, a part of me, interestingly, felt a little bit let down.
spk_0: 29:57
You weren't so special after, all
spk_1: 29:58
right? I was looking for some sort of sensational adventure of people with completely different system of living than me, and you can find those. I mean, Margaret Mead is the one who track those down the matriarchal couples, the matriarchal villages in Southeast Asia, for instance, right, people who do things differently. But normally we're all the same s. So how did it make me different? Did it make me braver? Maybe. Did it make me were compassionate? I think it may be more compassionate person less judgmental. I don't think I was very judgmental in the first place. I grew up in kind of a judgmental place where, um and in rural North Carolina, where sometimes my friends were suddenly not allowed to speak to me because my family didn't go to church. Right? And that was hard as, ah, preteen, especially on a teenager. Those moments,
spk_0: 30:57
you sound like you've always been pretty self reliant, so I'm guessing that you may have just a deepened your skill sat on that level. But that was already there.
spk_1: 31:07
Well, I think the experience of being of a different culture in North Carolina my father's family is from rural North Carolina. My mother's family is from Boston and Seattle at more affluent, more Northern and Pacific Northwest culture and not church going. And so, being a now outsider as growing up taught me to be alone. Not that I was happy about it all the time. Being an outsider as a child in North Carolina did teach me self sufficiency taught me to be alone. I did have some friends, but as I said, sometimes they weren't allowed to speak to me all of a sudden, and that usually blew over eso. I end my family being self sufficient, and my parents bought Ah farmhouse in that area and we rebuilt it on and then also rebuilt vehicles.
spk_0: 32:00
So this self reliant side I've noticed in my own world I've been more of a recreation sort of a soloist. I've always gone for the sports where you know I'm not in baseball, football, basketball or hockey or any of the team sports. It's like I had an experience. Is a kid that pushed me away from team sports. Actually was in Little League when I was a kid, and I ended up getting into track and field in them. Later cross country ski racing and white water kayaking and mountain biking, trail running adventure, motorcycling and all these sort of solo endeavors. Did you have an experience that pushed you away from groups tougher? It sounds like it's more of just kind of a NATO who you are, and that you just followed that line that current so to speak through your life.
spk_1: 32:44
Well, I was very good at sports, but, you know, we live kind of far away from school. And I had I would have to get a ride to these events so I couldn't I couldn't go. So that was one problem. And I always having a reader and a writer and artist, and so I did spend a lot of time doing that later when I grew up and I worked for technology companies, I would always play softball and participate in that group.
spk_0: 33:10
You were doing team stuff and all of that, too.
spk_1: 33:13
Yeah, a little bit, but not really. And I was running teams as well in Silicon Valley. And I'm good at being, Ah, an organizer and a leader in ah project.
spk_0: 33:24
So you did the West Africa thing? Maybe. And then you also did the hero around America.
spk_1: 33:30
Yeah, that was the American borders Blawg and I wrote a book about it. Using the block is ah, starting point. And that was published in 2004.
spk_0: 33:40
Okay, so what was your next big adventure?
spk_1: 33:42
Well, my next thing adventure was in 2008 and, um, it stemmed from my American borders flog this group of expats in Beijing had motorcycle gang called the chain gang Jang Gang. And the Chengjiang is the Chinese cousin of the URL sidecar motorcycle. And in 19 early nineties, this group of expats who were heads of American companies based in Beijing we're seeing trying to change a lot and they would write out into the countryside and they were seeing the village is deteriorating, changing people, leaving the villages illegally for the cities. And they're like, Wow, we wish we could document this and tell people about it. But they gotta work, right? So this guy, Rick Dunagan, I got une mail from him and he said, Why don't you come to China and doing American borders? Type of Siris of dispatches from with our Chang Tang motorcycle? What? I remember being in high school when Nixon was president and he had just opened relations with China and China was pretty closed to us all the whole time that I was growing up. We've never heard a peep about China, right, So it was mysterious, and I have never been a travel desk destination. It just wasn't possible, really correct. When he could go on Special Envoy's and take the bus tour. Right.
spk_0: 35:01
Think some of the first people to get in there were actually mountaineers like Galen Rowell and Ned Gillette and Dick Door Worth when they just went in and skied some peak, I think was called musta gotta.
spk_1: 35:11
Really?
spk_0: 35:12
Yeah, they did, um, some beautiful work for National Geographic, but they had to get the blessing of the Chinese Mountaineering Association. You know, National Geographic jumped on it because they couldn't get anybody else in. And all of a sudden, these rickety band of mountaineers like, Well, we're going in like, great. Bring us the story. Wow. But, you know, that was about it. So you get this Sent
spk_1: 35:35
this weird email I was like, Really? Is that possible? I mean, is it even legal and so ended up that they flew me out in 19 2097 in the full, And I spent two weeks there riding around with them. And indeed, they were very interesting expats living in Beijing. And one of them was the agricultural attache for the U. S. Under Clinton and a woman. And what? She took me on a ride. I borrowed. Ah, another motorcycle on both of us, both blondes on Tang Jiang's road through the Chinese countryside. And her whole job was to figure out how China was paying their farmers like were they paying them and money were they paying them? And I o used, you know, just just just knowing what's going on in agriculture. So she would often take the motor of motorcycle ride through the Chinese countryside to figure this out. So she took me on a trip and we sat in piles of corn husks drawing by the side of the road, and she would talk to them. And she was fluent in Mandarin. But it was hilarious because they had never seen or talked Teoh a foreigner, either, and it took them a long time. Well, maybe about 15 minutes of us just sitting, helping them shuck the corn and take the colonel's out and spread him on the road. And and then she would kept talking to them and Mandarin, and she was a farm girl from Michigan or Minnesota, and they would warm up and talk to her about the situation. And we did this way did this one day and It was just so cool. And I had dreams of her going with me, of course, because she was fluid and cool and everything. And so I said yes. And they said, Okay, we'll range it Lum for spring of 98. And it turned out that Theresa couldn't go with me because it what turned out to be a very illegal trip. And of course, the embassy wouldn't sanction her going with me, which was good anyway, because the whole thing for me is about going solo. 10 years later, I did go on a trip with her and another woman sort of as an epilogue to the tiny road trip. So I came back prepped for the trip on DTIC off. I think it was April of 1998 and the group had gotten a bike for me. It had black license plates instead of blue license plates, which meant that I could cross provincial borders. And that was important because I mean, imagine if you lived in California and couldn't go to Nevada because you had a California license. Really? That's how China was at that time. Wow. Yeah, no freedom to travel between provinces of uh, so that was an important factor. I didn't have the government sanctions to go. I didn't have a Chinese driver's license that my friends had created this stack of official looking paper work with chops or those Chinese stamps on it, very official looking stamps everywhere and sent those along with me and just cross my fingers and hope for the best and, well, let's see after the brothel and after a few more Ah, fun moments, I crossed into Inner Mongolia, and that was my first internal border. So across in the Inner Mongolia and there was a border there, and it was a very official looking border like you used to see between France and Germany, for instance, with the toll booth, it was on the middle of nowhere to the paved road, and the border guards watched me coming. There was nobody else in sight for miles. If I took off my helmet and they all gather around, there were five of them, and they just started laughing. They were astounded, and I didn't know what to say to them. They kept asking me questions, and all I could say was where I had just come from and where I was going. So I kept repeating where I was come from Beijing and Datong that I was going to about how and they just thought that was the funniest thing ever. So I took out my wallet and tried to give them money, and they thought that was even more funny and they opened the gate and let me through. And then they started yelling at me and I stopped again and they had forgotten to give me a ticket to prove that I cross. And finally I had on a one official piece of paper. But that's what happened. Most of the time I did get pulled over randomly. Like I said, there were only the blue trucks and the government vehicles and a few taxis on the road and some little motorcycles that the farmers used. And sometimes the police would just have a roadblock, and all I would do is take off my helmet. And I had a really long hair blond and it wasn't a braid, and I take off my helmet and they look at me and it was just instead, their eyes would go wide and in fact, one time this coffee just put one hand over his eyes and he pointed in the direction I was going with the other hand. I don't see you keep going. So it wasn't a problem. I had asked Theresa the agricultural attache name. You know what would happen. Like worst case scenario, when I be put in jail and tortured or what I'd be, you know what would happen. And she goes, Oh, they would send you back to Beijing and they might keep the motorcycle. And so I asked Jim Bryant, who still a friend like OK, do you care about this motorcycle? And it's like, No, it's like worth $1500 is actually the license plate is probably worth $2500. So how did that
spk_0: 41:02
trip go for you? You did. Ah, you did dispatches From there,
spk_1: 41:05
I did see dispatches again. Yeah, O. Reilly and Associates wasn't doing that project anymore, so I just did them on my own and actually did it with friends who had a verb. Um dot com, early multimedia publisher and I have been working with them for quite a while in Multimedia Gulch in San Francisco, and so they helped me out. I had an editor, had somebody doing the HTML for me and posting the dispatches. And I had a digital camera was one of the first ones, and it was terrible resolution. But I did take pictures with that. But I also brought my canon a soul. R and I take better pictures with that. And I've just got this huge stack of photographs, and I still need to sort through from 1998 and digitized. But the trip flint. It was a very lonely trip in Southeast Asia. Imagine that you were meeting other foreigners, other Westerners and hanging out with them, sometimes on the road, in the hostel or guesthouse. There were no other foreigners for me to hang out with, so I had four months of being completely alone except for one place. And that was in western China, not far from the Tibetan border called the LeBron Monastery, which is a monastery of the Yellow Hat sect of Tibet. And there were foreigners there, and for the first time on the road, I had coffee, banana pancakes. It was quite the pilgrimage spot. Not only a pilgrimage spot, a real pilgrimage spot for Buddhists. In fact, when I was coming around the mountain, Teoh go to the monastery. I was shocked to see three people lying in the road right in the middle of the road. And I put on the brakes really fast, and they got up and they took a few more steps and then fell to the middle of the road again. What they were doing, his safer. They were monks making a pilgrimage to the monastery. And so, like, Wow, I had been dodging yeah, and goats and all kinds of things, but never people before. And it was It got so cold that I was in the altitude that I was putting my hands, my gloved hands on the sides of the engine to keep warm.
spk_0: 43:11
So four months alone are four months solo without interaction with Westerners, for the most part. How is that? How did that impact to change you are? It seems like a really unusual experience. Tohave
spk_1: 43:26
it was hard to keep going, but it was so fascinating. And remember when I was talking about West Africa and finding out that people are all the same everywhere. I actually didn't feel like that in China. I felt like we were very different cultures.
spk_0: 43:40
House, huh?
spk_1: 43:41
Well imagine, um not ever being able to move right? They weren't free to leave even their village without government approval. Eso these people were stopped. They haven't had a history of incredible repression. Chairman Mao. The long march the Cultural Revolution, where all the artists and musicians were stripped of their art and their music. And then farmers were valued and books were burned. Paintings were burned, the music musical instruments were burned. Children would turn their parents in for reading or for making music. Mel, um encourage the farmers to kill insects and birds. And so all of a sudden, there was no pollination. There were no birds. People were eating birds is a mass mass mass starvation, incredible government control. Stranglehold on your personal life. When you can't trust anybody, what happens? So it was incredibly repressed even many years after because all the old people that I met were tiny, tiny, tiny I mean up to my waist, tiny because of the starvation that they had endured the
spk_0: 44:52
malnutrition and all of that.
spk_1: 44:54
Exactly. Though their Children were raised by them, so they still have that fear and their Children were taught toe have fear of regime as well. So they were scared. They were scared of me often in a different way, that the little West African girl was scared to be. They were scared of me because it, like the illegal a toxin, me and they would be turned in, right?
spk_0: 45:19
Wow. Okay, so you finish that trip and then you did a book on it.
spk_1: 45:25
What I did. Ah, a series of dispatches and I've published many of these dispatches, and you can find them online at my Web site. I have a story about motorcycling in China and years ago, adventure motorcycle magazine and other magazines and some anthologies. But I'm still working on the book, and it's very difficult because some memoir, it's not just a travel book. I do have the travel book about my travels through China, but the emotional journey and the things that were really happening to me and culturally like my boyfriend was breaking up with me because I traveled too much, you know? So there was that going on. So do I include that? It's not of interest to a lot of the motorcycle crowd. But it is of interest to people who read memoirs, right? So trying to weave that internal story and that difficulty in my head and in my life, the contrast between living this very modern and kind of crazy life in San Francisco, you know, early Burning man and all that versus being in a truly medieval environment, you know, people pulling ploughs with their bodies, not even having a buffalo are, you know, it was. It's a huge contrast and the social questions that really center on women and our freedom and our their real questions here in relationships, often, women are not allowed to be a whole person. So let me just explain that for a minute. So I know plenty of men who have work that takes them away from their wives and their families for weeks or months at a time. I don't know any women in a relationship who travels for work for any length of time, and that's because it's not truly truly accepted in our culture. At the time, I was struggling was blaming my boyfriend for being an asshole, for being mad at me for travelling and realizing that culturally we're just not there yet that are role models. Are people who grew up in the fifties right fifties. Housewife guy goes toe work. She stays home, takes care of the kids, my brothers who were 10 years younger. They're of an era that's changed a little bit. And their kids are going to be in an era of changing a little bit more. But it's not just not there yet. And it's a
spk_0: 47:50
Are you talking about the nineties? Are you talking about now?
spk_1: 47:53
Well, I'm talking about now. Wow. I mean, look around. Even in the adventure motorcycle community there are there are couples who go off together, But there aren't guys who stay at home while their girlfriends or wives are off adventuring. Right? Name one. I hope that when this is published, you can name one, but I cannot find any. And that's just because it's still not culturally accepted in, you know, lip service. Yeah, sure. But we, as a society, just aren't somehow ready for it. The women are ready for it, but to find a partner who just says, Yeah, you're gonna have fun on your however long trip you're going on is very rare to nonexistence.
spk_0: 48:40
Understand? I do see that happening in the mountaineering community.
spk_1: 48:43
Do you Really?
spk_0: 48:44
Yeah. Women will go on expeditions, maybe up Everest. Or like a woman I know. In Sun Valley she climbed Almada Blam! Pretty challenging mountain on women's team back. Probably the eighties, and her husband, like, Go for it, Go do it! Of course, that was in a ski tune, too, and they were living already living a sort of different lifestyle, and I think it's more common there. But I do see that in the mountain area and climbing world, but not and the motorcycle world.
spk_1: 49:11
Yeah, and I don't think it's limited to the motorcycle world. I was in, ah, writing group and 98 after I came back from China, 12 women travel writers and of the 12 there was only there were two who were married in long term relationships, and those two women didn't travel like the rest of us did. They took press trips to Paris and had walked the Pilgrim's trail in Spain. And, you know, one had lived with her husband and Hong Kong and was a reporter there. It was quite different. The other women food writer, culture and dance. One political. They had also had a hard time with relationships because they would leave. So what about you? I've always forever had issues around that it doesn't matter who it's been or how enlightened or what kind of you know, life we have together. It's just it's a problem, and I have had, Ah, longest relationship has been seven years. We're we're getting off on a tangent aren't way. I
spk_0: 50:12
actually find this a really intriguing piece. It's not where expected us to go.
spk_1: 50:16
I guess it's a my in front of mind right now because I'm writing about it in the memoir and my writing partner is a writing coach for memoirists, and I love the motorcycling community, but I want this to be a bigger book. I wanted to reach people who don't motorcycle in the way that American borders never reach, because I didn't go very deeply into why, why should it be that people are surprised to see a woman riding a motorcycle? In a perfect world? It would be like, Oh, yeah, it's cool. You're writing letters like, you know, it doesn't matter. Gender doesn't matter what gender does matter. You know, people are saying, Oh, you're so brave. But are geeks Aren't you scared? Or don't you want to get married and have kids and things like that? It's like, Well, there's air, the wrong questions
spk_0: 51:00
it's entering. I actually got pulled into Admit your motorcycle riding from a woman from Germany And then my favorite riding compadre was another woman from Canada. She was just Do you know, we couldn't live with each other? We couldn't live without each other on the ride. Almost took on like a brother sister kind of are. But God, we loved riding together and she died from cancer. Unfortunately, it was really sad. Sorry, Mr a lot. So I am used to seeing and writing with female riders. Why? Had a bit of the time, I would say 80% of the time if I wasn't going solo. I was probably writing with a woman, but anyway, let's move to writing.
spk_1: 51:41
Well, that's what I'm doing. Is this This is This is a leading to the writing because, you know, all of this stuff is in my head. And, you know, I'm writing about China and I've got my journals and I'm remembering being angry and confused and really putting my feelings down on the page and making others feel what I feel. That is a hard thing to Dio. And we've all read books where the writers have connected with you and inspired you and made you feel things that you didn't know made you think about things that you didn't think about before. The too obvious examples are, of course, for me, Cheryl Straits Wild and Elizabeth Gilbert's eat Pray love. So it's definitely a journey, and you definitely need a lot of help on this journey. I mean, a lot of people write down their stories and just put them out, and that's okay. But when you have ah, editor and a writing group and people giving you feedback, this story becomes much richer and your experience has become much more universal. Right? We were talking about this in our writing group, right? So I should mention that writing group is, uh, I started virtual travel writers group of a few weeks ago after it was clear that we're gonna be shut down for a while.
spk_0: 53:00
Yeah, this is part of the pandemic
spk_1: 53:02
filtering in place. Yes, and uh, like Well, wow. Um you know, hurting travel writers is like hurting kittens right there, over the place all the time. So now we're forced to just sit down and right, right about our journeys. What else is there to do? Correct. Well, you can start a podcast.
spk_0: 53:24
Okay, So making this transition, Teoh doing a memoir and bringing more feeling to the book. More emotional stuff. Material versus sort of your standard travel log. Talk about that gap or how you're crossing that chasm. What are you learning? What are you doing? What are ways to make that happen? In a way, that's awesome.
spk_1: 53:47
Yeah, this is the hard question. And that's why you go to writers conferences and take classes and have editors. And for travel, I can speak to travel writing, and I've done a little short story writing. But for travel, writing in the coal in media rez right in the action is very important. And working backwards from there is difficult because what you're working with is verb tenses, right? You're working with present past past Simple past tense is so you have to set a structure. So I've chosen in China road to write the journey and present tent. That's the plot. You know, you're moving the plot along here riding or getting stuck, and you're you're riding along and here's the road and here's the village and here's when I'm eating And here's how I'm breaking down and how the people are dragging me to the village and how they're, you know, helping me fix the motorcycle And how, um, getting a lesson in Chinese cooking from the can ex wife and on. And I'm having the two year old baby on my lap, not understanding a word that they're saying and I'm riding. And then there's what's going on in my head. What is, You know, I haven't seen a village in miles. I, uh where am I going to find a place toe hooked to the Internet so I can tell my family I'm OK things. I'm afraid of me doing something really stupid. Shouldn't I be back in San Francisco into Burning man instead? So that enough excitement for me, Why isn't that enough excitement for me? Um, and why? I have my boyfriend mad at me and you know, it's just not fair. And all of that and then that's the past tense. And then you've got the other past tense. The deeper past tenses, things that happened so things that we had done and I had done right now things that I did but things that I had done. So that's the third verb tense. And so as a writer, it's very important to keep those separate so that you can convey to the reader and the reader doesn't even know you're doing this. They just know they're just with you. They're not saying Oh, she just switched to past tense. So she's thinking about this, but as a right her, you write in scenes. And so we were talking about this in the travel writing group the other day. This is why I like this writing tool called Scrivener because it allows you to create chapters and scenes within those chapters and so you can mark your seen seen one. You know, I haven't seen. I haven't seen a village in miles. I'm freezing. I see a light. It's a gas station present, Tense says it's seeing the woman comes out and tells me about the hotel. That's the scene, and then another scene is what's happening in my head. Why is my boyfriend breaking up with me? Maybe I should have been scared, like my parents said. Or, you know, whatever. My trip in Indonesia wasn't like this. It was so much for friendly and I wasn't scared at all. And you know all those. And so that's another scene. See, this is what we call helmet time and motorcycling world, right? So that's another scene. And then there's still another scene, so within your head. Still, you have a sub theme of thinking about things that happened last year when I was at Burning Man. I don't know, just pulling things out of my head that are really But I don't know, something that you had done there. That kind of relates to what's happening here or something that happened on another trip, and that's 1/3 scene. So all of that you can see it's like this layer cake, this mill fuel of pastry that enriches the story. You've got the plot that present ends moving you along in the country and also moving you in your thoughts to a ultimate change and how you are because there's no story worth telling unless you changes you. That's what editors and book publishers always ask. How did that change you? How did the character change? And now you have to have this foreshadowing correct. So it's not a job for this is to pick up and succeed at immediately. It takes a lot of practice and discipline, and I actually have a lot of fun writing some people.
spk_0: 57:49
Do you
spk_1: 57:49
like Oh my God, I have to write, you know, have to write this down. But I don't know about you, but I just get really lost in China. And then I remember things. And then when I get input from my editor of the woman, Linda Joy Myers, who's the memoir coach, she's like Carla. You ran out of road and there's a river bed and you're just tootling along the riverbed looking for the road to start again. What? What are you thinking? And I'm thinking, What am I thinking? I'm thinking the roads going to start somewhere she's like, but I am totally scared. Weren't you even scared? You know, why are if you're scared and like nervous about where the road is coming or not, you know, let us know And if you're not scared, tell me why you're not scared, cause this to somebody who doesn't travel very much. Although I need to know why you're not scared. So then I have to sit down and think, Why am I not scared? Because I know the road is going to start again. Because I know that some blue truck will come trundling along and give me a clue, because I know that China is not that remote and somebody's always gonna pass by. And so anyway, I always knew that somebody would come along eventually. And I did have enough supplies because I have things to eat in the sidecar and all that. And I certainly wasn't scared of wild animals because there are no animals left in China. They've eaten them all. They killed everything. It's is astounding to be in a place in a wild place and here, hardly any birds. But I didn't know then that I would later get stuck in a place where they're actually worked. Any people and China did have those wide open places that were dangerous to be in because nobody was coming by.
spk_0: 59:25
So coming back to the writing, bringing that feeling Those experiences on a rich way to a memoir, whether some of the lessons you're learning, what are some of the things you need to do internally to bring those up and describe them in a way that brings out emotional connection to the reader?
spk_1: 59:42
To intrigue the reader and Teoh bring the emotional connection to the real. You have to be very, very honest, and that's very, very hard, because you have to tell the truth about yourself and your feelings. And I learned during my American Borders trip I had done some writing before. You know, you never get any feedback. I had done a little magazine writing and pre Internet. There was maybe a letter to the editor that said, Oh, that was really great story. But blogging you get immediate feedback, right? People go, Wow, that's so cool. Or that you we get no comments on your block posts at all right, which tells you something as well. Eso I was surprised when I took the most risks with my thoughts, writing my thoughts down and even getting angry and mad at people on the road because there were some jerks that his spiel and I went into, you know, my thoughts about what had happened and I took Chris. Guy did have an editor, a good editor, Alan or and was helping me. And the more risks I took in, the more I relayed my fear or my anger for my sadness, the more people would write and go, I felt exactly that. Thank you for saying that because, you know, I felt so alone thinking I was in the same situation. I was kicking myself for even telling myself that in my head. And I never got anybody saying your bitch for saying that which would surprise me because I read it later. I was like, Wow, maybe issued and said that Where you
spk_0: 1:1:07
going from here? So you're working on in the memoir?
spk_1: 1:1:09
Yeah, and I'm gonna put it out for beta readers to get some view back and help market it because for writers, it's awesome to have ah group of people who will pre read the book when it's not quite done yet to create some excitement and also to get few back because your editors awesome, like you get your developmental editor, which is what Linda Joy is doing for me now to make sure all the parts of the story are there in that I'm going deep and creating connection. But then your beta readers who read the story and they can say, always bored here or I didn't quite understand what you're talking about here, and they can help you make a better story. And so you can ask those readers when your book is published, you can ask those readers, Ah, review your book immediately when it comes out. And so there on day one, if you do it right, you've got 50 reviews on Amazon for your book. So that is a nice thing. I help writers, too, writing and publishing coach and an editor. And so it's very hard to get my writers to put early work out because it's not perfect yet. And I understand because, you know, when I first started writing before I started getting feedback on my work, that encouraged me to take risks I was afraid to. But the writers, who have revealed early work to a team of readers, have gotten five star reviews on launch day, and that has helped them sell more books. It za strategy, whether
spk_0: 1:2:35
some tips you have for people who might want to. Maybe they've got a meme or inside of them. How should they start? Where should they go? What kind of resource is would you recommend
spk_1: 1:2:43
before they publish? So I have a whole SYRIZA releasing my fifth edition of the self publishing Boot Camp Guide for Independent Authors. This one over the years is like fifth edition. Oh my gosh, So self publishing is always an option. But what I would do is I would take my best story, that story where you're sitting around the campfire and talking to people about your travels and the crazy stuff that happens. I would take that vest story and publish that,
spk_0: 1:3:08
like on a blogger or in a magazine.
spk_1: 1:3:10
I would try toe publish it in an anthology. There are a lot of people who create anthologies. There's a traveller's tale Siris of anthologies. There are people within the motorcycle industry Ah, adventure motorcyclists who create anthologies. There's also blogging platforms like what pad? Which is actually mawr for young adult but growing platform. I Actually, they're the biggest reading platform on the Web, and they've been reaching out to different kinds of writers for a long time. Nonfiction writers, more writers Travel writers haven't been high on their lists that it's a great repository to point people to. So at this point, if you go to my Web page car licking dot com, and you sign up for my mailing list, I have auto responder. This is get my free eBook stories from elsewhere on Kindle right now, and you can read my stories about China on what pad and I have a link to my stories. On what pad and the nice thing about being on what pad is that people can comment on your stories. It's night. It's a great place to find people who want to read you and who you can communicate with on the what pad platform, and maybe they'll be your beta readers.
spk_0: 1:4:21
So in this life you've had of adventure, motorcycle writing, adventure, motorcycle, right, teeing and other writing. What are some of your big life lessons in life? What have you learned through both the writing and the writing that stand out to
spk_1: 1:4:37
the biggest thing I've learned to slow down, and that's in both writing and writing and maybe in all aspects of life because we're in such a hurry. And I've always been an advocate of slow travel and slow food, which is actually a thing. I think it's OK if you want it. If you have a bucket list and you want to go from Alaska to Yeshua, you know, and that's your goal and that'll make you happy. That's fine. But when people do that, they need to realize that they're giving up the opportunity to delve deep into a cultural place. So I do. You know a guy who is going to use y. But he decided that if he never gets there, it's OK because he's learned, you know, when he stops in a place and he makes a connection with the village or person or a family or just nature. You know so many beautiful places, a nature or he meets another traveler, and that traveler wants to go to this off the beaten path place and they go together and they have a personal connection. Those are the things you don't say no to without really missing out those air, the opportunities for enriching your life and going deeper, and I think that's true for every aspect of your life, don't you think?
spk_0: 1:5:40
Yeah, I was actually thinking about my the memoir working on Now, the motorcycle trip from Mexico to Canada, that sub continental divide ride. I took over two months to do it, and I often dropped into a community for a week at times. And really, I didn't even get on the by. Those were some of the best moments on the trip, you know, usually with friends that I hadn't seen in a while in some cases of new friendships. And it's interesting with this pandemic to right. We're in this stay in place lifestyle right now, while the Corona virus does its thing, and slowing down stuff forces you to kind of look at yourself right? Kind of like meditation. It's It's easy to keep running when you have to sit down on a pillow and just be with your thought. All kinds of stuff comes up.
spk_1: 1:6:23
I would recommend that, you know, I did attend a silent retreat of this Boston of retreat, and ah, I realize I'm an introvert. I'm a writer. It's easier for me than most people that just just not talk for a long time, and it's very difficult for other people. But I have a lot of very interesting things come up during that meditation retreat. It was scary. It was really scary. Well, it was really irritating for the first couple days because it was possible it was going ca and going CA is revered. He died a couple years ago, I think. But he does retreat, be a video all over the world. And he would say things like, Breathe through your nose, strolls ISAT there. And I'd be like, you know, it just took a while to get used to the vibe and sitting cross legged. I've done that a lot in my life. There were people sitting in chairs as well, but trying so hard to get to this goal of dissolution. I'm not disillusioned, but dissolution like being one with the university. Well, um, you know, mantra, uh, let's be one with the universe. And what does that mean? Of course, were one with the universe but to dissolve. And I did have that experience on the fourth day of the complete molecular dissolution, which was amazing. And of course, then that became a goal. Oh, I want to do that again. So you're like, making that a goal. That's exactly the wrong thing to Dio. The, uh there was this really interesting incident and it the value of being okay with being alone. I think this illustrates it because once lunch would happen, everybody would go and get lunch. It was ah, buffet. And there were people who really weren't a paying the silence thing that were making hand signals to each other, which is communicating. And the whole deal is not to communicate. So I learned Teoh right away at lunchtime I would go The lake, it was snowing, was up in Yes, somebody area. I'm go to the lake and I would sit for a little while and just free the look at the lake and enjoy walking around it. And I sat down on a log and these two coyotes came within a foot of me to come drink the lay as if I wasn't there at all. I mean, think about that. I was invisible to them. I completely felt invisible to them. And I'm convinced that it was invisible to them because I had dissolved and I was really, really belonged there and then from that I was thinking We belong everywhere and this is why. And I have been criticized for this and I will be again. But I'll say it. I don't believe in borders. I own thirst. Think there should be borders. I mean, animals don't have borders. I mean, we're putting up fences and killing animals because they can't get through to an environment that sustains them environmental refugees, their arm or environmental refugees in the world. And there are any other kind of refugees combined.
spk_0: 1:9:20
What he exactly you mean by an environmental refugee? Like escaping
spk_1: 1:9:24
people who can't. They can't farm, They can't eat, they can't get water. They keep having to walk farther and farther away to get water. They don't have access to food because the environment is being degraded because some company from Canada has gone to the South America and taken over all the farms and made them one big factory farm instead of their highly sustainable family farm.
spk_0: 1:9:48
So coming back around to the writing, other lessons you've gotten from writing and writing big ones
spk_1: 1:9:55
lessons of the same, I think, uh, the more personal you get, the more you reveal yourself honestly, the more truth that you tell, the more connection you make. This isn't era of the selfie looking good and trying Teoh impress people with where you are and what you're wearing. And you know, here I am with my friends at this club, and you know it's debilitating to young people. We have heard that a lot because they don't realize that this is not riel, right? This is a filtered existence, which I think it's still important to write the truth and not to say, Hey, that I have this great trips through China. It was awesome. This trip to China exists saw so many cool things and things that nobody ever saw before under in your life. And I'm the one who saw it. And it was amazing. Not that I was scared and depressed and lonely. So how do you
spk_0: 1:10:48
pull those out and get them on paper? Some people, I think, have a way to do that pretty easily, sort of their natural language ing or there. It's an innate ability they have. But for some people, pulling that out can be mind blowingly challenging.
spk_1: 1:11:01
I think it's been mind blowingly talented I think it's been easy for me because I've been a lifelong journal lure and a journalist and a writer by trade, marketing and technical and all that, and it has been incredibly frightening. Teoh, they say, Ah, bleed all over the page. Writing is easy. All you do is take out, um, knife lead all over the page, Hemingway said. That or somebody and embarrassing and I don't think it's easy for anybody. I've never heard anybody say that writing is easy. It comes easier to some people than others. It comes easier to Loughner's people who are willing to spend that time and exploration of their emotional state because it is difficult. It's looking in a mirror. You take the makeup off, take off the filter.
spk_0: 1:11:47
So Carla boundaries and riding a lot of people, at least that this is something of experience in life. Sometimes when there's boundaries, it actually makes it easier to go in deeper. And I've heard this from other people to buy setting some boundaries. It gives you focus, but what's your experience with boundaries and writing
spk_1: 1:12:06
like boundaries in personal relationships? Have you know we're good to like once you say something you can never un say it. It's just comes to mind cause we were talking about that before and kids need boundaries. I have lots of nieces and nephews, and I've witnessed them with their friends and my family put boundaries around their kids, and I could see that they were happier and less confused than kids that didn't have boundaries. Thing me where the line was. And I think for writing groups really important to have boundaries. I think it helps people be more constructive and kind, like a writing group. We have boundaries. You, you know, be nice. And we have these in Facebook groups to where the moderator is. Be nice. Be respectful. No hateful political statements. That kind of thing doesn't always work on social media, but I think in a group like the virtual travel writing group and any great group, when there are boundaries, it makes it safer for everybody, doesn't it?
spk_0: 1:13:02
It does. It brings sort of, ah common North star in some ways, but it also helps you know where to play like, Okay, here's the space. Here's the landscape. It ends here. But in here where this container is, we can go deep now because we know that were being held by this container. I wonder if it could apply to writing to the process of writing. You have some boundaries in a book like Well, I'm not gonna go there, but I will go there. Does it help you hold the structure of the book better?
spk_1: 1:13:31
Oh, absolutely. I mean, that's the difference between a memoir and an autobiography, The story of your life versus a moment in your life. Like Ted Simon right now is writing his autobiography. He's publishing a chapter to his list a week. I think he committed to doing that. And so that's his autobiography. But his other books have been memoirs, so you have to contain it. And then, like I'm writing China Road right now. So is it going to be a travel story where I go allotted a. Here I am on this travel the great travel story. It's amazing. Everything's great, you know. Here's what it looks like to be in China. So if I were going to write that kind of book, and I have been writing those kinds of stories with the boundary of relaying what it's like to be a woman alone on an unreliable motorcycle in China illegally, and that doesn't go deep into my mental state or the state of my relationships or the state of my fears. It tells you how what it would be like. And so that's a boundary. And sometimes, you know, when you're writing for an anthology, you have the boundary of 3000 words. You gotta pack a lot into those words, and that the hardest to do is when you have fewer words and to make an impact. And that's almost where your most powerful writing can come out because you have to pair everything down to its essence and forget about those flowery big words that you in love with. They say in writing, Kill your darlings. The sentences on the words and the paragraphs your most in love with this is kill them because they're only interesting to you.
spk_0: 1:15:01
Ah, so I remember when I wrote my book from Grief to Grace, my first draft was 135,000 words, and it covered both the Grand Canyon trip and the Continental Divide, right? And so the first decision was all right. There's two books here. So what's cut off the CD arm? That'll be book number two. So by setting that boundary and then I'd still had 70,000 words. And it's like I've got to get this down to 35 or 40 and you know, 10 12 14 drafts later, it was
spk_1: 1:15:29
there, really, what it's it end up being. I think it's
spk_0: 1:15:32
around 40,000.
spk_1: 1:15:34
That's good. Read. I mean memoirs, usually around 80 I think 60 to 80 or even even longer, many memoirs. But boundaries can be bad. You for people, though, pushing the boundaries like Erin Hunter pushes the boundaries of speed. Right land speed record on those air good boundaries. The push right physical boundaries.
spk_0: 1:15:54
Well as faras breaking rules right? First learned the rules and then go break thumb
spk_1: 1:15:58
right. I learned this when I went to France, and I went to the Picasso Museum and the fourth there and these moment in Paris, and you enter the museum and you're in his early days and his paintings look exactly like everybody else's paintings. Their realism. It's a tall building. It's four stories tall, and as you go up the stairs, you can see him creating his own style and breaking the rules. And by the fourth story, you know he's got two faces in one face and you can see it in sideways and flat at the same time. And it's just incredible. You know, a beginner can't do that. He you could see him following the rules and figuring out what rules to break. And that I mean on experienced artist in any medium is just a pleasure to follow through their path. Like Wallace Stegner, for instance, our poet laureate, his books. He's an environmental writer novelist, thinking of his book, One of my favorite books. A little time
spk_0: 1:16:54
I was just thinking of Georgia O Keefe to She started off, think doing realistic stuff and then just really went off on beautiful work. She does
spk_1: 1:17:03
the boundaries I was speaking of before, like borders. Which is why I don't like orders. Is those air boundaries based on greed? Keeping people out usually don't come in my space keeping people in keeping people down, giving people from sharing or even living oppression. Yeah, so those boundaries air right to be broken. We've all in adventure. Motorcycling stood for hours, being grilled and tracked I mean, the whole tracking of humans these days is dehumanizing. Now, when I just kept back from Thailand, I had to put my fingers on fingerprint machines and my face was photograph six times. Between the time I left, Chiang Mai got back to the U S. Like, Why are you tracking me? You know, it's the bad players that ruin it for the rest of us, I guess, on one hand. But exactly with somehow it to think that after a certain period of adjustment that there would be more social consequences for bit bad behavior that would just as easily keep people from acting out as all of these draconian laws that keep us all down these boundaries that keep us all down and keep us in place and track. I'd love to see society replace government in that role, but that's really a radical, not new, but a radical thought. And I have said it before, and it was so crazy because I caught this review on Ah, American borders on Amazon, and it was this person who said, Well, I've never read this book, but I heard from my friend who read it that the author doesn't believe in boundaries. And so I'm giving this book of one star review. Oh my God, any
spk_0: 1:18:40
other thoughts before we close this? Give us some information about your boot camp. Your next book, where people can follow you
spk_1: 1:18:47
can follow me, Ah, car licking dot com. And that also points to my self publishing site. Help, uh, boot camp and Destination published. Destination publishes my brand for helping people on the publishing journey and sometimes the writing journey. I'm doing more and more editing for travel writers that would be not copy editing, but some copy editing but developmental editing, doing the kind of work that I'm talking about, doing myself right, advising how to put people in your shoes. And then I have the travel writers group that I hope people will join. There's, ah, both very, very skilled and very well published travel writers there and also beginning travel writers.
spk_0: 1:19:28
All I put in my two cents on that I'm in that group. I really like it a lot. It's a rich international group of people that are helping each other out in great ways.
spk_1: 1:19:39
Yeah, and the feedback is very gentle and kind in fact, I think they feedback. You get what you want when you write it the top. I want gentle feedback or just rip this apart cause I'm clearing National Geographic magazine on this next week, right? So I do think the travel writing group is very respectful and kind group to be in. And, yeah, my books are at car licking dot com. Well, im just took a position as business development director at the San Francisco Writers Conference. It's something that I've been doing a little bit of for the past 15 years. I've been teaching writing for the Web and using self publishing services and all that. And I've been bringing in technology sponsors for self publishing that a brothers conference. And I have to say a writer's conference is, if you want to be a writer or if you are a writer, it's a really important to choose one and go. I just slipped in to the writer's conference in February before the shutdown happened. And so that was the 2000 San Francisco Writers Conference, and hopefully the 2021 1 will be a physical event that if it's not already for it to be a virtual event and take advantage of all the virtual events happening. Right now, I'm maintaining a list of free virtual events for writers as well, and I'll put that on carla king dot com Because I don't have that on there yet. It's only courage, everybody to get out and go deep. Slow travel, slow food, slow relationships,
spk_0: 1:21:03
those relationships.
spk_1: 1:21:04
Yeah, it's a tough time in the world. I think we're seeing a rubber band effect with gender equality and racial equality right now and environmental equality and opportunity. Equality, it's, ah, all worth talking about and trying to practice. I do
spk_0: 1:21:21
have three questions here from other people that I want to read and then we'll close out. Ah, the first question is from a woman named Tammy. She says, What motorcycle skills are the most important to focus on?
spk_1: 1:21:33
You know, it's so funny because I started as a kid, right? And I thought it was such a great motorcyclists. And then somebody suggested that I go take a beginners dirt bike glass, and I like that I've been dirt and then I went, Yeah, okay, fine. I'll do it and got on the little what I think it was 100 cc Honda of some sort, and I discovered I've been doing everything wrong. I'm putting my weight on the wrong side when I'm going along a hill and all of that, I think dirt bike skills and taking a dirt bike class no matter where you are in your experience level of motorcycling would be the number one thing that you could do because it's helped my road biking skills as well. It's really sharpen them. So wait, wait. Distribution is huge and leaning is huge, and leaning is difficult, learning to lean. It's scary because well, of course, with dual sport bikes, you often have knobby tires, and there's that slip point so you can go too far. But if you have ah, road bike, you can often go lean a lot farther than you think. You can take a class on that, too. I want to recommend what is it? ST. Masters with Walt Fulton and his partner is a great class to take
spk_0: 1:22:40
California to, and I and Idaho, I believe, have advanced motorcycle skills classes that you can sign up for that I don't know if they're sponsored by the state or what? But remember, I took one in Idaho. It might have saved my life. A take the advance writings course, you know, learn to break and learned about the pats, right? Always the patch. Oh, yeah. And vectors and all of that. And I was riding along at 70 miles an hour on Highway 75 north of Ketchum, and I looked in my rear view mirror for just a second, and in that moment, an antelope jumped from the side of the road and landed right smack in front of me, and I hit it head on. There was a sharp pain in my left foot. I'm looking forward on I don't see anything, but the bike is lurching and wanting to drop to the left side and all of that stuff I'd learned in that advanced course to sort of popped up to the top like, OK, keep going in a straight line. Don't do anything to fall off that vector that's wanting to go straight. Unfortunately, at this clear patch of road in front of me, there's nothing I had to watch out for. The antelope had actually gotten caught up in the rear wheel of the bike and locked it up. So we were skidding the antelope, The bike and I were skidding down the road at 70 miles an hour. It came off the bike and the throttle. I got stuck on high. So all of a sudden new per problem, the bike starts taking off. And I'm like, OK, new problem and brains going Alright. Do I turn the key off? No, If I do that, I won't have control of the handlebars. Do I pull in on the clutch? No, because the engine would just rev all the way up and maybe blow up. That would be a problem. And then it was like kill switch the kills rich like, Ah, so I hit it, you know, it shut down all the electron ICS and I rolled to a stop, got off the bike, What was kind of left of it. And I felt myself going to shock anyway, that if the long story short, that advanced motorcycle, of course, really made a difference highly recommend it.
spk_1: 1:24:41
Yeah. You know, India was my only accident. I hit a dog in India and thats so far fingers crossed. That's it. Well, I have a story about that in my stories from elsewhere. Book. That's the free one on Amazon.
spk_0: 1:24:54
Ah, next question is what's on your wish list of places to ride some day.
spk_1: 1:25:00
You know, I went to Thailand in Ah, November. It was my first trip to Southeast Asia, and I'm really dying to go back there. But I've never written in Australia and I'd love to ride in Australia, have a few friends there, and I think I could pull it off. So I think that's it.
spk_0: 1:25:16
And somebody s crystal ass. I'm curious about the safety of writing in Africa.
spk_1: 1:25:23
Well, I did, Ah, choose bicycle Teoh. Right in. Right on. I It's a funny story. You know Chris Scott, right? The adventure motorcycle guy. He's actually it does bicycles and four by fours. He's famous in the adventure motorcycling world, and he still gives stores. He's based, I think, in Idaho now, but he's from the UK, and I think he takes people under bike trips to Morocco. Places like that and he's written books on how to ride in remote places, four by fours and motorcycles. And I had queried him years ago by mail about riding a bicycle versus motorcycle through West Africa and with him. I decided to write him bicycle because what I learned from him and from others and this was in 1993 is that gas was not readily available there and I couldn't really go off the beaten path, and it just wouldn't be able to do it. So that's why I took the bicycle. Now I did get malaria there, and if my brother hadn't been there at the time, I could have died from it. He gave me the medication and got help from a missionary, but that was long ago. And I think their art the risks today that there were in the early nineties when I went because truly there was no Internet. Well, everybody knew where I was because there was this pink girl, and when he was a white girl with white hair riding a bicycle and everybody knew where I was, I wouldn't have been hard to trace on. The dangers weren't from muggings or sexual attacks or anything like that. It was purely, maybe, exhaustion or disease.
spk_0: 1:27:06
Environmental.
spk_1: 1:27:07
Yeah, and I think a lot of people ride through Africa now, right motorcycles. I was just finished. Joe Russ book about her trip around Africa was pretty fun. There are a lot of tours now as well, but I think and during that trip I saw a couple of Germans on motorcycles, and those are the only other foreigners I saw except for Peace Corps people.
spk_0: 1:27:26
Okay, here's the last question. If you could put one big statement on a billboard for your advice to the world, what would it be?
spk_1: 1:27:34
I think it would have to be slow down. Subtitle in every way Slow down because people would, you know, be speeding by in their cars and think it's, ah, be limit message. Slow down, pay attention,
spk_0: 1:27:47
droppin internally,
spk_1: 1:27:48
right and externally with people. Like I said, low journeys take time with conversations. So many conversations. Air one cited a Somebody wants to get the information out, and that's what I appreciate. I forget about you, Doug, is that you take that time to go. What did you mean by that? You know, and asking questions during conversations and slowing it down and going deeper. Ah, with a new friend, an old friend and especially in a relationship is so much more satisfying. Just like slow conversation. There were slow food.
spk_0: 1:28:18
Carla, thank you so much for your time today and your insights And ah,
spk_1: 1:28:23
Doug, Thank you.
spk_0: 1:28:25
This is Doug Green with what really matters interviews. And this has been a great interview with Carla King. You can see more about her at car licking dot com and other websites which will be listed in the show. Notes. Take care.