The spotlight is on Spotlighting a Travel Piece

I went to Powerbooks - Megamall last Saturday for the second module of the Powerbooks' Creative Writing Workshop series. The topic was Spotlighting a Travel Piece. There was a slight improvement with the number of attendees (five this time as compared to last week's three): the staple workshop-ers Ana and I, Giselle (Ana's childhood friend), Danika (an interior designer for Plains and Prints) and Gero (a German who is in the Philippines to visit his girlfriend and happened to see a poster of the said workshop at Powerbooks' counter).

Miss Arlene Paredes (from PinoyWriters) facilitated the workshop with the assistance of Jude (of last week's module) . Miss Coni Tejada of Summit Media's Real Living magazine also dropped by to share some encouraging words and insights.

It was really challenging and I found it a bit hard since I am not much of a traveler myself. I would want to travel, of course, and see more places and get a taste of other people's cultures, but I do not have the luxury of time (and money) to do so at the moment. Plus, I get prissy. I don't know, maybe it depends on who I am with and on what mode of transportation we will use. So anyway, going back, I found it hard to tap into that "stream of consciousness". Last week's topic was easier since we wrote about success stories and profiling; I have done that all the time so the words just flowed. But travel pieces? Nah. I don't know..

For the writing exercises, I wrote about Singapore. In the Philippines, the farthest I've been to is Albay, Bicol, and I was only 12 years old that time so I did not think I would have remembered much to write about, except that hellish 10-hour train ride back to Manila that I would much rather forget. But if you were young like I was at that time, then that memory would have been seared into your memory and will forever haunt you.

So, enough of my travel experiences (or rather, my lack of). Here is a photo of our group:

(from left to right) Gero, me, Ana, Giselle, Danika, Jude, Miss Arlene, Miss Coni

I would love to see more of the world and experience things that are different from what I am accustomed to. Hopefully someday I would be able to. And then, by that time I would certainly have a helluva lot more to write about.

Eep! I just remembered! Next Saturday's module would be How to Write Delicious Food Articles and Restaurant Reviews! How would an undomestic goddess like me fare with that? I, who do not even know how to chop onions and tomatoes. I, who am only able to cook rice (with or without rice cooker, hah!) and everything fried. I, whose collection of words in her vocabulary to descibe words is only limited to the basic food tastes. What am I supposed to do?? Oh well. I signed up to learn. I guess that I have a lot of learning to do on Saturday. I am a bit scared yes, but I guess I always have the choice to just walk out and shop; workshop's inside a mall anyway. Tee hee.

*Photo from Ana.