Welcome back to Alchemy for Authors!
In this week’s episode I chat with award winning photographer and travel writer, Jeremiah Gilbert. Jeremiah shares tips and advice for writing non-fiction and including photography in your books, as well as creative practices that can help boost your creativity.
Other topics we discuss include:
- The role the pandemic played in Jeremiah writing travel books.
- How Jeremiah navigates writer’s block and imposter syndrome.
- The perks of being a multi-passionate creative.
- The three benefits meditation has on Jeremiah’s writing.
- Jeremiah’s number one tip for travel writing.
If you’re interested in travel writing, including photography in your books, or are a multi-passionate creative, then this episode is going to inspire you to embrace your gifts and share them with the world!
Visit Jeremiah’s website here: https://jeremiahgilbert.com/
Connect with Jeremiah on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/jg_travels/
Find Jeremiah’s books here: https://jeremiahgilbert.com/books/
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Find the full transcript of this episode below.
Episode 76: Travel Writing, Photography, & Being a Multi-Passionate Creative with Jeremiah Gilbert
Jo: Hello, my friend. Welcome to episode 76 of Alchemy for Authors. So I hope you’ve been having a lovely week as we move towards Easter here. I’m looking forward to having a little bit of a break from the day job and maybe catching up on some writing, which would be very exciting.
Today I have a fantastic interview for you. If you enjoy traveling or photography or if you’ve ever wondered about travel writing, or writing a travel memoir, then this episode should get you really excited, because today’s guest is a photographer, and a writer, and, surprisingly, he writes travel books! So he has lots of tips and advice for anybody else who is looking at combining photography with their writing. He is also, like I think many of us are in this industry, a multi-passionate creative who has lots of other creative, artistic hobbies and passions and things that he enjoys as well that helps keep him inspired and keeps those creative juices flowing. So he talks about that and how that has actually been really beneficial for his writing. I think this is a wonderful topic to talk about because I think there are so many of us that are multi-passionate people who do have lots of other interests on the side as well. And sometimes it can be hard to think about how to combine our different loves and passions or whether we even should. So today’s episode really talks about how the importance of embracing other creative endeavours only helps to enhance our own creativity.
On a slightly separate note, at the suggestion of a friend, I have had a little bit of a play around with something called SpeakPipe. So SpeakPipe is software that allows you, my listener, to leave me a short voice message. There’s no cost to you whatsoever, and you can leave any comments about any of these episodes or the show in general, or better yet, you can even leave a quick voice message with any questions or topics that you might want me to talk about on the show, or to do some solos on or to invite particular guests on for. So if that is something that excites you, like it does me, I admit, then you can go to https://www.speakpipe.com/AlchemyForAuthors, alchemy for authors is all one word. It’s really easy. I’m just on a free trial for the next month and we’ll see how that goes, if I have anybody leaving some messages. We’ll see if that’s something that I’ll continue. It allows for up to five minutes of a message. It just comes to my inbox. Please be prepared if you do leave me a message, I might use it in the recording of an episode as well. So it’s your choice whether you leave me your email details or not, when you leave the voice message, and if you do, of course, I’ll be in touch as well. So yeah, that’s really exciting. I just think that’s a fantastic way that you, the listener can actually get involved and help determine what some of the topics on the show are going to be and what you might have questions about. So that is really fun. So make sure you go check that out. I’ll also put that link in the show notes for you as well.
But right now let’s get on with the show. So, grab your favourite drink, find a comfy chair, sit back, and enjoy the show.
Hello, my lovelies. Welcome back to another episode of Alchemy for Authors. Today, I’m chatting with award winning photographer and travel writer, Jeremiah Gilbert. Jeremiah is based out of Southern California, but his travels have taken him to over a hundred countries and territories spread across six continents. His photography has been published internationally and exhibited worldwide. He is the author of three travel books, including Can’t Get Here From There: Fifty Tales of Travel, and From Tibet to Egypt: Early Travels After a Late Start. His most recent, On to Plan C, documents his return to travel in a post pandemic world and is the first to include his photography.
So welcome to the show, Jeremiah. I’m so excited to have you here today.
Jeremiah: Oh, thank you for having me.
Jo: So I was hoping that we could start right off the bat with you talking a little bit about how you came to be a travel writer.
Jeremiah: Basically the pandemic. So I had been writing for my website. My original website sort of told about the trip and had some links to photos. And then I realized a few years back, it wasn’t very mobile compliant. I was showing it to someone on their phone, and it looked horrible. So I was like, okay, I need to update that. So the new website, I kind of ditched that. Still sold a few little tales now and again, but it was more focused on the photography. Then, you know, 2020 happens. It’s pretty clear I’m not going to be traveling anytime soon. So one of the ways I decided to kind of, you know, keep the juices flowing was I thought, well, you know, I’ve got at that time about 15 years of travel behind me, I told my wife, I said, maybe I should just come up with some travel tales. And we started going back and forth and next thing I knew I had a big long list of different experiences and things that happened, good, bad. And so I just started writing those. And I’d actually started a little before the pandemic. But, you know, I realized I could just keep going and let me just do this.
And so, uh, in terms of writing, I actually began as a poet. And so the publisher of my most recent poetry collection, I just reached out to them and I said, I don’t suppose you’d be interested in travel writing. And they wrote back and said, Oh, absolutely we would. So great. So I spent 2020 writing and editing and putting it together, and it came out later that year. And so I thought, okay, that’s kind of cool. And I really enjoyed the experience. So I decided, okay, I’ll start working on another one. And the most recent one, I was thrilled because same sort of thing. I just sort of reached out to the publisher and I said, I don’t suppose you could include photography. And they said, Oh, yes, we can. Oh, well, okay. So because the second book, a lot of people, uh, reviews said we really enjoy it. It’s great, but he keeps talking about photography, but he doesn’t include any of his photos. So I thought, okay, this time I’m going to do it. And so, I really enjoyed that. So, my plan is from now on to have the writing and the photography together.
Jo: So you make it sound so easy, um, going from poetry to writing books and that. Oh my gosh.
Jeremiah: Well, it’s one of those, I mean, I’ve always written, I started with fiction and then just sort of shifted to poetry at one point. And then, over the years, I’ve written some pieces for like travel magazines or photography magazines. So I’d kind of been doing some nonfiction. And like I said, in the case of what became the first book, it was, I just want to write little short pieces I could post on my website. So, you know, in publishing, they turned out to just be two, three pages each. So, you know, it wasn’t a huge commitment. And I said, it was one of those wonderful things where the ideas were flowing. So I’m just like banging out four or five of them at a time. And then, the second book was based on basically the travel writing I had done for my original website. So, you know, I had done it. I just needed to edit it and update it. So, you know, that’s why that one came out so quickly. And then this book was like, Oh, okay, this is new. I’m going to write about current travels as I’m traveling. Haven’t done that before. So I’m taking notes along the way of traveling with my laptop. So that was a little different experience. But for me, I’ve always liked variety. So each book’s been a little different, you know, how I approach them, how I presented them.
So for me, I’ve been very lucky because, you know, my father was an artist. And so growing up, I was always around creatives and it was never seen as an odd thing. And to have the writing and the photography has been very rewarding and very, you know, I’m glad I’m able to do both.
Jo: Yeah, absolutely. So was it a book of poetry that you published first then? Because I don’t think I saw that on your website, but I could be wrong.
Jeremiah: Yeah, I normally don’t talk about the poetry. No, actually, my first book of poetry came out 20 years ago. And that was one of those I had just, I had been writing and writing. And at one point I realized, oh, there’s sort of a theme to a lot of these. And we start seeing what happens and I kind of fell into two categories of poems, so I kind of separated them and, you know, the editing and sorting process is always challenging. And then finding a publisher is nearly impossible. Uh, especially poetry. It’s mostly like first book contests these days. I remember there was a publisher back East who wrote me back. Ooh, I really like your writing, but yeah, you’ve only published in small little journals. So I’m not quite sure you’re going to have the audience. And then one day a publisher from New York accepted it. And I was like, Oh, I didn’t expect that. So yeah, so that’s all like every three years I released another collection, and then the fourth collection just sort of sat on a shelf. I sort of moved on by then. And just as fate would have it, I, end of 2018, 2019, happened to be contacted by a publisher who did poetry. I used to do a little poetry on my website and just said, Hey, if you’ve got something, we’d be interested. I thought, well, you know, I’ve got this fourth collection that was never published. Let me give it a read, see if it’s any good. So reread it, edited it. Finally found a name for a big sequence of poems in the middle that I never liked the name for. So that came out around the same time as I was thinking of doing the travel writing. And so, you know, the juices were sort of flowing. So I think it was a good time. And then for me, it’s like, yeah, my focus has been on the travel and the photography more lately. So that’s why the, you know, that’s pretty much what the website’s about. So it was a nice transition. So yeah, I’ve contemplated, yeah, I said, it’s been 20 years since the first book came out, putting together like a collection of poems, but it would pretty much just be for me because, you know, it’s like there’s not a lot of demand for it because I don’t really talk about the poetry. But I’ve always enjoyed it. For me, poetry is so much about language. So it sort of helps, you know, and it’s very, for me, again, it’s very observational. So as a travel writer, I just thought it was a very useful background to have.
Jo: I was going to ask you about that because you do have quite a few different kinds of artistic things that you’re really excited and passionate about, because photography in itself requires a certain way of looking at the world. And then you’ve got poetry, which was unknown to me before chatting with you right now. And I know you mentioned in an email to me, you also play guitar and things like that. So all of that together, did you find that that was really helpful in the way that you’re able to portray your experiences traveling in your nonfiction books?
Jeremiah: Yeah, I think so. I mean,it provides a couple of things. So, you know, one, it’s sort of various ways of looking at the world, which I think is useful. And then it also helps me with, you know, I don’t really necessarily go any through any sort of block because I just sort of transition. So if the writing’s not flowing, let’s edit some photos. And if that’s not flowing, let me grab a guitar. And so, I mean, that really helped me in the pandemic because, you know, suddenly, you know, here all my focus has been on traveling and photographing and I can’t do it. So, instead, what I decided to do was every day, I took a still life photo around the house. Just grab the camera, I have no idea what I’m going to photograph, uh, but let’s find something. And then I also, you know, I had been playing guitar off and on. It had been years since I’d actually written complete compositions. So I’ll just pick up the guitar and wrote a series of what I called quarantine compositions, just because I got nothing else to do, you know, in terms of creativity. I can’t travel. Or like I said, I started writing the travel tales. So for me, it’s sort of various ways of, you know, exercising creativity.
So my focus and my love is the writing and the photography. But like I said, even when I was writing younger, it was, you know, it was mostly fiction and I wrote some plays. I mean, one of my coolest experiences when I was younger was there was a little like art house here in town and they did an open call for short plays. And so I submitted a short piece I had written and the founder of it got really, really excited. It was a two-person short piece. She directed it, she was the female in it. So I got to go attend this, see it performed by two actors, and then go out with the different actors and playwrights afterwards. It was just a fascinating experience. I’m by no means a playwright, it just happened to be something I wrote at the time. But even then it was like, yeah, I like to have fiction and plays and poetry, you know, I don’t really do any of that anymore, shifted to nonfiction, but yeah, I just like having multiple outlets. And just recognizing, okay, I’m just really not feeling like writing today, so let’s edit some photos or, you know, the photos just aren’t speaking to me today, so let me, you know, grab the guitar. It just helps sort of keep the juices flowing. Not that there aren’t walls or downtimes, but, you know, just for me, it just sort of helps. And the music is something I just do for myself. I don’t record it. I don’t promote it. It’s just, you know, something I’ve done since high school. So I’ve always enjoyed it. So, you know, it’s nice to be able to have that outlet as well.
Jo: Yeah. Now I find that just so interesting. ‘Cause I know a lot of people that I talk to who have written books or are authors and whatnot, they can struggle quite a lot with self-doubt or that imposter syndrome, whether it’s changing genre with what they’re writing or trying different creative pursuits or anything like that. Is that something that you ever struggle with? Or are you just quite happy just giving everything a go?
Jeremiah: Yeah, I mean, I’m happy to give it a go. There’s, you know, there are times, like I said, there’s certain times it’s odd. I’ll like fire up the laptop. I’m going to edit some photos. And then I’ll look at them and it’s like, yeah, none of them really, man, I didn’t do a very good job. Uh, so I’m going to walk away. You know, versus other days, I’ll take that same set of photos and really get inspired. Oh, man, I really like this shot. I like that shot. So, you know, there’s times, definitely. Same thing with, like I said, the most recent travel book is like, okay, this is my first time writing about current travels rather than reflecting back. This is a different challenge and so, you know, I sort of have to approach it differently and there’s some times where it’s just like, you know, okay, I just had a great day out, but I really don’t know how I’m going to write about it, or y’all, is this really a good idea?
So yeah, I mean, it certainly creeps in, but it also, you know, I always approach it as I’m creating for creativity sake, first and foremost. Then once I start to submit it to different publishers or, you know, even just post it for the public, if you like it, that’s great. But, that’s not why I’m doing it. So that sort of helps. You don’t quite feel as self-conscious in a way. But I mean, there’s always times the doubt creeps in or you’re just like, what am I doing this for again? Or, you know, why did I think this was a good idea? But like I said, I’m one of those, I’ve always found when that happens, sometimes I’ll just set it aside, move on, go do something else, take a walk, meditate, come back a few days later. It’s like, it’s just not flowing right now. There’s no rush.
So. You know, my publisher has been very kind to me. I forget which collection it was. I was running much later on that one that I thought I thought I would be. So I just sent the periodic updates. I’m still going. But yeah, it’s nice to have the various outlets and, you know, I do have confidence in general, but like I said, there’s times where I’ll go out, shoot for the day and come back and I just felt like I got nothing and I’m feeling really down on myself, and why I don’t even think I could do it. But you know, a few days or weeks pass, I go back, Oh, actually, there’s a few good pieces in there. So, you know, try not to let the self-doubt and self-criticism overpower. Let me come back in a few days. It’s just, I’m not in the mood right now or, you know, whatever. Let me just come back. If I come back and it’s still no good. Okay. Maybe, maybe I was right at the time, but usually I know, okay, I was just being really hypercritical that day. So I’ll just come back with fresh eyes and, you know, usually find something better.
Jo: Yeah, I think that’s such a healthy mindset to have is recognizing that, you know, some days we’re going to look at our work and we’re not going to be all that impressed with what we’ve created, but to allow ourselves that space and to know that we sometimes need that space away from our work to get a better perspective of it, I think is, yeah, really great. Do you find that meditation has helped you kind of keep that healthy way of looking at things?
Jeremiah: Yeah, definitely. I mean, it’s something I’ve done for years. You know, just first and foremost to just try to shut off my mind for a little bit, cause I do tend to think too much. When I was younger, I mean, it was one of those, I’d go to bed at night and then fire up and, you know, something would hit me and I’d just be creating until like two in the morning. Now that doesn’t happen. Just the mind just keeps you awake. Like, this is annoying. And you also, you know, reduce stress and such. But I do find two of the benefits of meditation are it can help you, well, actually three, it can help you be grounded. It can help you focus and then also just, you know, sort of, you know, I can be a very self-critical person. So, you know, in meditation, there’s a notion of loving kindness, both for others and for yourself. And also, just to appreciate there’s going to be times where thoughts creep in. Don’t get upset at yourself. Just let them go. Just recognize them. Let them go. Or there’s gonna be times you just really don’t feel like it. But again, you know, maybe that day I just do five minutes instead of 20 minutes, but at least I did something. So now I find it’s a very good practice.
I’ve been doing a series of guided meditations. But all’s going well I can just sit and do a nice quiet meditation. That’s great. There’s other times where it kind of helps just remind myself, you know, Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Or, you know, Oh yeah, that’s right, this breathing technique will help calm me. Yeah. This breathing technique will give me some energy. So yeah, I’ve always found it to be a great way to just sort of, I say, be grounded, calm myself. You know, when I was younger, and I had some problem to solve before I meditated, I would find just going for a walk and just trying not to think about the issue, and then suddenly you’d solve it. And I kind of feel meditation again, while I’m not trying to use it as problem solving, just shut off the mind, just get quiet. And then when you come out of it, you’re sort of like, Oh yeah, maybe I can try this approach or, you know, Hey, maybe things aren’t as bad as I thought they were. So for me, it’s great to just sort of ground and calm the mind, because otherwise, yeah, my mind goes all over the place.
Jo: I think that’s really useful for my listeners to hear that from you, because again, it goes back to just giving yourself a little bit of space between you and your work or your creations so that you can keep coming back to it with it a clearer perspective than if you were just kind of fighting with whatever your internal dialogue is at the time. So I think that’s wonderful. That’s really cool. So what did you find was probably the most challenging aspect then of writing your travel books? I know your most recent one was different because you were writing it as you were traveling, but is there a part of the writing process in general that’s a little more difficult for you?
Jeremiah: One of the challenges is because it’s nonfiction, I need to check some facts and I need to do some research. So sometimes, you know, that can kind of pull me away or I’ll just leave like, I’ll just put a little highlight, you know, check this later. Is this still true or am I remembering this right? So finding that sort of balance. And then also just sort of, you know, I said the first book was looking back. So the first couple of pieces in that book at the time were 15 years old. So just sort of checking with myself and checking with my journals. Did I remember that accurately? Also, since I didn’t include photography, trying to be maybe a bit more visual than I normally would, try to be a bit more descriptive. Whereas with the new book, I knew I was going to include photos. So, you know, I probably focused a bit more on experience and a bit more on some history, knowing that I’ve got photos that are going to accompany what I’m talking about. But I would say, yeah, the research is probably, I mean, I enjoy doing research, but there were times where I’ll just be writing and then suddenly, what was that? Or how did I get there again? Oh, okay. Quick Google. Oh, that’s right. Okay. Back to the story. So, you know, finding a balance there at first was a little challenging. Like I said, there’s times now I just put a note. I’ll going to check that later. It’s flowing otherwise. But you know, that’s a new challenge. You don’t have that with fiction or poetry. So, like I said, I do enjoy research and also trying to bring a balance. You know, I don’t want to just inundate the reader with too much information. Just sort of, this is something I learned I found interesting. I’m going to make sure I’m accurate, but I’m not going to go along for pages and pages because you may not find it as interesting as I do, you know, but I at least want to mention it.
Jo: Do you have any tips then for other people who are thinking about doing travel writing or thinking about doing a memoir based on their travels? Like when it comes to the writing process, do you have any tips for them?
Jeremiah: Yeah, I mean, if you’re just starting out, I would highly recommend keeping a journal. I’ve journaled since high school. So when I started traveling, it was just natural. So, like I was saying, when I was looking back on certain things I could go back to those journals and see, you know, okay, am I remembering this right? Oh, wait a minute. You know, this was the order in which this occurred or, oh, I forgot about this. So that’s a huge benefit. Yeah, and again, it’s just you’re writing it for yourself. It doesn’t have to be super detailed. Sometimes I just do little lists. Here’s where I went today or here’s something that, you know, a little snippet of dialogue I overheard. Maybe I’ll use it later. I don’t know. I mean, at the time, obviously, I didn’t know I was going to use it. So I think that’s useful. And, you know, sometimes I even just jot it down in the notes app on my phone, and then I’ll get, you know, maybe something I’ll use. So I find that’s useful. I’d try, if I’m like with a guide or having a conversation with somebody, you know, just, again, it can be in a journal, it can be in your phone, just sort of noting down something interesting that they said or something, I think can be beneficial. So, I mean, that would be a huge thing.
Doing it, you know, the new book about current travels, that was interesting because I realized I had to sort of like change my mindset. In the past, I just happened to be traveling, remember these experiences, wrote about them. Now, it’s like, I started the last book, the first trip was May 2022. And around April or beginning of May, I kept seeing these headlines about, you know, it was going to be travel Armageddon. And there was piles of unused or unsorted suitcases everywhere and such. So I started noting down the titles of those articles, and I thought, this might be interesting, this might be useful.
And so when I got around to actually writing that chapter, I started with a mid-trip scene, something that happened to me that I thought really could draw the reader in. But then when I went to truly start the piece, I talked about that. And, you know, not only were these ever changing, like if you had to be tested or if you had to have a mask, et cetera. But there was also all these stories out there at like three or four of the airports that were specifically called out. Guess what? I was flying to. So, okay. But it sort of just gave me a way to sort of introduce that section and some of the anxiety of returning to travel and how everything was, you know, and it just happened, I just happened to see them in news apps. And so I saved some of them so I could refer back to them, or like I said, I just at least noted their titles. And it just, it sort of helped me formulate it.
And so, another thing I’ve always done that I find can be helpful is I love quotes. So I’ve always, as I read books or such, I just sort of note down different quotes I’ve read. And so, for instance, the last piece in the new book, there was a quote from Anthony Bourdain. It was from his very last show. And I was really, it just, I realized, wait, this sort of fits where I’m going and what I’m doing. But rather than just doing a direct quote, I just happened to mention, you know, sort of paraphrase the quote, and it became like the setup for that chapter. And at the very end, I brought it back. And so again, it was like, I didn’t know I was going to use it that way. Just one day, just all of a sudden, you know, yeah, I’m taking these notes. I’m thinking about it. And then all of a sudden, one day it was just like, that chapter started writing itself based around that quote, it’s like, Oh, quick, grab the laptop next thing you know, I got three pages. Okay, I’ve started. I didn’t know I was going to start this so soon. Okay.
But yeah, and I’ve used quotes in other, you know, if you go through my website, almost every page has a quote at the bottom. I just, I’ve always enjoyed that. So different travel writers that I’ve read, they’ll say something or do something. And also, you know, while I like to stay really diverse, and my tastes in music and writing and film are diverse. But you know, I’ve read travel writers for years. So before I knew I was gonna become one. And I still try to do that, ’cause sometimes you’ll see, oh, that was an interesting approach. Or, oh, I hadn’t thought about writing it that way. You know, put in the back of the mind. Maybe someday I’ll try that. The new book was the first time I consciously actually brought in some elements that I would normally use for fiction. But I realized, Oh, wait, I could do some foreshadowing here, or I could do some, you know, play of words, which is something I would do with poetry. Actually, I could incorporate that and, you know, I may have done it previously, but this is the first time consciously I thought, Oh, I’m actually going to structure it this way, or I’m going to begin it this way and I really enjoyed that.
Jo: Yeah. Yeah. That sounds really fun. And it’s interesting how each new project, each new book does take on its own kind of life force. It’s own kind of, you know, it’s a little bit distinct and we kind of learn and grow with every new creation as well, which is really cool. I like that. So you are a photographer, but that’s what you do. But when it comes to like with your most recent book, you included some of your photography in that throughout your book, what do other authors and that need to keep in mind if they’re considering doing the same, using some of their own photography in their books? What suggestions or advice would you have for them?
Jeremiah: Yeah, I mean, one, I would say, be prepared because you’re going to be editing twice. You’re gonna be editing the words and you’ll be editing the photos. And, just, you know, it’s a bit different and you’re going to be working on the layout a lot more. Normally I submit a manuscript, I get it back, you go through it, make some minor corrections, you’re done. This one, I had to go back and forth several times to get the layout the way I wanted it and that, you know. Trying to get the art director to understand, no, I don’t want it cropped like that, I want it the way I submitted it to you. And all the photos were captioned. So going through and making sure that all those were correct. It’s a little extra work. However, like I said, I found it probably the most rewarding because I was able to merge these two areas. And I said that the next book I’m working on is going to be even more focused on the photography.
The other thing was, you know, how am I going to include the photos? So when I first got the idea, or I first thought, hey, I think maybe I’ll add some photos, I had Michael Palin, the British comedian who, you know, started to travel years ago, his most recent book, Into Iraq had come out. His most recent series, and then I got the book and throughout the book his writing is interspersed with photos and I thought, Oh, yeah, I like that. And so that’s when I reached out to the publisher can they do that? Okay. But then I got thinking, but in terms of layout and in terms of the narrative, you know, it might be a bit challenging. And then I have to make sure that I’m including a photo specifically about what I’m talking about. And I’m not sure, you know, let me see what I write. Let me see the photos. And so what I decided after I’ve written the first chapter or two was no, actually, I’m going to write- so the book starts with Fiji. So I’m going to write the chapter on Fiji, which is 15-20 pages, and then I’m just going to include a selection of photos from that trip. And if you’ve read the chapter, you’ll recognize every photo I’ve spoken about the location, but it’s not embedded in a location. And okay, I like that. And so the next chapter covers four different countries. So while it’s one chapter, but you know, each section starts in London. So after the London section, there’s a collection of London photos. And then after the Bergen section, there’s a collection of Bergen photos. The last chapter was about a very long Caribbean trip. My wife and I just decided we’re going to bang out all the remaining Caribbean countries. We’re going to be done with the Caribbean. But that was gonna be a much longer chapter. So in that case, okay, there was a natural sort of breaking point halfway through the chapter. Here’s a bunch of photos about what I’ve discussed up till then. Then we’re going to resume. And then there’s some more photos.
So yeah, there’s that sort of thinking about once I realized how I was going to place the photos, you know, for me, it gave me a bit more freedom. It was easier to do the layout. I could include photos that maybe I didn’t specifically mention in the text. Whereas if I put them in the text, I probably should have mentioned them sort of thing. Now in the future, you know, who knows? Maybe I will embed them, but you know, I sort of like that approach. There are some nonfiction books, like if you read biographies, they’ll tend to have a big photo section in the middle or at the end. I have always enjoyed that. But I thought, but if I put all the photos at the end, they’re a little too disconnected. So again, so let’s do Fiji, Fiji photos, London, London photos. So yeah, but once I figured out, yeah, I’m one of those, you know, once I get the idea, I get the format, it really helps, but until then I will struggle.
I can tell you my second poetry collection, I had no idea what I was going to do with that thing. I just had a bunch of writing. And I remember one day I just sort of printed it all out and laid it all out on the floor. I was like, how am I going to organize this? And I tried several approaches and one day all of a sudden it’s like, Oh, wait a minute. If I do this and then it sort of clicked and then it was really easy. So same thing with this book. I was just like, yeah, I don’t know this. I’ve never written about my current travels and I’m going to add photos. I don’t know. And then all of a sudden, Oh, wait a minute. No, no, just put them at the end of the chapter. That’s going to be a nice continuation and a nice structure. And then it sort of clicked it. Okay. Now I know what I’m going to do.
So think about that. Yeah. I didn’t worry about it until I started writing. I’m just going to write it. I’m going to have the photos and we’ll see how it worked. And, you know, again, maybe you’re taking photos that it makes more sense to embed them. That’s great. And as I said, I may do that in the future. But I didn’t worry about it. I just, I’m going to go off, I’m going to see what I see, I’m going to write about it, I’m going to take photos, and then once I got it, great. Now I know what I’m going to do. But guess what? The next book I’m working on, totally different. So, you know, totally different format, totally different approach. But, you know, it works for me. This one was sort of the opposite. I got the idea and the format first. And so now I’m sort of working around that, but, you know, that’s great. So sometimes you get a title and have to write a piece. Sometimes you have a piece and got to find a title, you know, you never know.
Jo: Absolutely. Just to backtrack a little bit here, just for our listeners, can you actually just talk a little bit about your most recent book Onto Plan C? Because we’ve talked a lot about your writing journey with it and the photography and that, but can you give us a little bit of a synopsis of what you’ve included in this book?
Jeremiah: Yeah. So, you know, again, 2020 happens, everything’s put on hold. The first trip we had planned, my wife and I was Fiji and New Zealand. And so that was just, you know, that was the first one cancelled. And so I had to start keeping a spreadsheet of different credits I had with various companies. So 2020, okay, we’re going to write that off. 2021 happens, still not sure about international travel. So we started doing some domestic travel here in Southern California and, you know, it was great. Really enjoyed it. But still that sort of itching to get back out there. So 2022 comes around. And one of the credits I’ve got is Fiji Airways. And, you know, it was a year’s credit, and then it was a two-year credit. Now it’s about to expire. So I told my wife, I said, okay, let’s just go to Fiji. Let’s just do a week. We’ll use the credit, the flight credit, and, you know, that’ll be our return to travel, and return to a big, big, you know, a longer flight, I should say, and let’s just see.
And so, around the same time, I was thinking, okay, I’ve also been doing these still lives at home, photos, and I’ve been doing some photos around the area. This will be my first time since I think December 2019, I’ve been out of the country. So I’m the first time photographing out of the country. So let me see what I do. But I got thinking, okay, I’ve written two collections so far. The first was a collection of travel tales. The second one was sort of, you know, the first five years as told through my journals. I want to do something different. So maybe it would be interesting to document the return. The whole world’s been on hold for two years. Yeah, what’s changed? What stayed the same? And also, if I’m going to do current travels, I also want to talk with people and I want to include what they have to say and what their experiences were. So head off to Fiji. Have a very nice trip. We did it on our own. We did a couple little day trips with a local company. I’m chatting with the guides, I’m chatting with the hotel, uh, include some of the conversation with the taxi driver taking us back. Cause he was explaining how he survived the last two years. I thought, okay, this is interesting. However, I don’t want to focus too much on the pandemic, in that like the photos, you’re not going to see people with masks, you’re not going to see things like that because, you know, while it’s happened, it’s also very fresh. And some of us want to kind of move on. So the photos are just straight out travel photos, you would have no idea that the pandemic occurred. But I just kind of thought this would be an interesting time to document.
And so, for instance, the title, On to Plan C, actually came from the summer trip. So my wife and I had originally planned to sail up West Africa, but I was thinking, okay, that could be a hit and miss trip, even without the pandemic. So let me have a backup plan. So plan B was sailing in North Europe with the highlight being three days in St. Petersburg. Well, guess what? The West Africa trip is cancelled. Russia invades Ukraine. That trip’s cancelled. Okay, let’s just do it ourselves. Here’s some areas in Europe I’ve not been to. I’ve always wanted to go to. My wife is Chinese, but she was raised in London. So let’s start in London. We’ll visit your mom. We’ll explore around there. I love doing street photography in London. And then let’s head off and do these others. But same thing, as we’re heading into London, we were flying out of Gatwick, that’s one of them on the list of they’re having all these huge travel delays and baggage issues. Okay. So I mentioned that and then, you know, we go to Bergen, beautiful, no issues there, flying to Copenhagen. Um, they’ve also been having some issues. In fact, when we got there, that was the first time there was like mounds of suitcases as we’re walking to the baggage claim and I’m like, Oh, this is not good. Our, it took a while, but the bag showed up. And so it’s those sort of things like, you know, I’m looking at it from an eye of, I’ve not been to many of these locations. London I’ve been to, so I can sort of see what’s changed. But I like the idea of if I’m going to document current, this is sort of in the background.
And so as I’m talking, I’m pointing out, see, even into the chapter or the book ends in the Caribbean, uh, we were in, it was Aruba or Bonaire, went down the street and you could tell, you know, pre pandemic, I bet this was a really bustling street. Now, over half of the shops are shuttered. And so, you know, so it’s sort of, you’re still seeing the ramifications. But I thought it was an interesting framework. But like I said, I also wanted to not delve into it too much and not include it in the photos. I want the photos to be just, you know, you could have gone anytime and seen this. I want to focus on that beautiful aspect of travel. And so, it was a nice way of doing it. Sort of just gave me a sense of, you know, when in doubt, again, I could bring in one of those headlines I mentioned, or bring in some dialogue I had talking with somebody, you know, happened to mention good or bad things that happened. And so it was a nice sort of way of framing everything and a good way to, you know, being my first book about current travels, sort of gave me some focus or when in doubt I could return to that. Or like in London. Okay, I was last at London in 2018, here’s some differences I saw, or maybe not. Hey, you know, no one’s wearing a mask. It’s just the tubes just as busy as it ever was, uh, sort of thing. So it was a nice way to do it.
Jo: Yeah. Well, that sounds great. So you said that you’ve got another project in mind at the moment. Can you tell us a little bit about that or is that kind of under wraps?
Jeremiah: No, no, I decided… I thought… so again, yeah, every book’s different. So this one, I thought I want to focus on the photography. And so what I’m going to do is it’s sort of, it’s circumnavigating the globe through photography. So I’m going to start in Los Angeles, because that’s where I always start from. And then we’re going to head eastward. And so I do a longitude latitude, just to sort of how I’m figuring out which one’s next. I’m going to give you a photo. I’m going to give you a little background on the photo in terms of the location, but also how the photo was taken. So maybe a little insight into what I was thinking as I took it or a challenge in taking it. And so I thought that would be an interesting way of yet another approach and a way to combine. So when I was saying that the, you know, it’s going to be more in the photography, this time the writing is accentuating the photography rather than the other way around. And so basically a page with a photo, a page with some writing. Alternating. And so, yeah, I’ve started working on that project, picking the photos. I decided to give myself an added challenge, which is I’m only using vertical photos. Because the horizontal photos is part of the challenge I had with the layout of the last book. So I was like, okay, I’m just gonna go vertical photos. And I’m gonna go with photos that were taken vertically. I’m not cropping. I’m not cheating. But that gives me an added challenge. My wife will mention, Oh, what about that photo? That was a great photo. Yeah, it’s horizontal, but keep thinking. Uh, so yeah, so that’ll be the next one. I’ve decided to take a bit of a break. So I’m planning on, well, I’ve started it and I’m probably a quarter way through it. I want to just, yeah, I really enjoyed the last book. It was well received. I’m just sort of taking a break, slowly putting this one together. I’m hoping to have it come out in 2025.
Jo: Wonderful. That’s great. Well, just so my listeners can find your books and that, can you share with us how they can connect with you, where they can find your books and your photography and all that wonderful stuff?
Jeremiah: Absolutely. The easiest way is to go to my website, which is https://jeremiahgilbert.com/. So you’ll see a link to my photography portfolio. You can click on ‘Books’ to read about the three books, and there’s links to Amazon, Barnes and Noble, et cetera. At the bottom of the page of the homepage, you can click and be taken to my Instagram, or you can just go directly. I’m at https://www.instagram.com/jg_travels/. I keep the two, not separate, but I have a different approach. So the website, occasionally I’ll update with a new travel tale that may or may not be in a future book. I’ll update with like publications or, you know, a series of photos. So I just came back from Australia and New Zealand. So you’ll probably go to the website in the next week or two, I’ll be starting to post, okay, here’s a set from Auckland with some background, here’s a set from, you know, Napier with some background information. Instagram is more focused on one photo at a time. So the same sort of thing. You’re probably, in a few weeks, you’ll start to see, oh, he’s starting to post the New Zealand photos. Not necessarily in a set, but you know, there’ll be a series from Auckland and then, oh, then he went here. Now he’s in Christchurch. Uh, so yeah, the best way to keep up with the photography is probably Instagram. I try to post at least every other day there. The website is more as something new happens or comes about, I post there. But if you’re more interested in the writing, the website’s a better location.
Jo: Wonderful. Oh, that’s great. Well, thank you so much. I’ve so enjoyed chatting with you today. So thank you so much for coming on the show.
Jeremiah: Oh, thanks for having me. Been very enjoyable.
Jo: So here are some takeaways from today’s show:
1. Enjoying other creative pursuits brings a new perspective to your writing and allows you to view the world in different ways.
2. Having multiple creative outlets is like a form of exercise for your creativity.
3. Create for creativity’s sake first and foremost.
4. Know when to give a project a rest and to do something else. That way, you’ll be able to come back to it with new eyes, new insights, feeling refreshed.
5. Consider building a meditation practice into your day to help with grounding, focus, and for establishing a ritual of loving kindness towards yourself.
6. If you don’t already, get into the habit of keeping a journal. It is an invaluable tool for recalling details of your travels.
7. if you want to include photos in your book, get really clear on what you want your layout to look like early on, and know that the whole project will be a little bit more labor intensive, but equally as rewarding.
So there we are, I hope you enjoyed the conversation with Jeremiah Gilbert today. I thought it was really cool talking to somebody who is really combining two of his creative loves writing and photography in a way that is not only showcasing his work, but bringing two of his loves together.
So, as I mentioned at the beginning of this podcast, I am trying something new. I have set up software through SpeakPipe that allows you, the listener, to leave me a voice message, whether it’s about this episode, previous episodes, the show in general, or if you’ve got an idea for a future guest or topic, or if you have a question, please go to https://www.speakpipe.com/AlchemyForAuthors. Leave me a brief little voice message and I will do my best to answer any questions, and yeah. I would just really appreciate that. And I think that’s just a cool way to make sure that this podcast, Alchemy for Authors, is also meeting your needs as well.
Other than that, my friends, if you are looking for other ways to support my show, you can do so by leaving a review, sharing this episode or any episodes with a friend, that is super appreciated, or, of course, you can go to https://www.buymeacoffee.com/jobuer and for the price of a coffee, you can make a donation to support this show. Any type of support is always appreciated. And it really is as simple as leaving a review, rating, or sharing with a friend. Anyway, I am hoping you have a lovely week ahead and a lovely Easter, if that is something that you celebrate and until next time, my friend, happy writing.
author mindset, Creativity, Mindset, Photography, Travel Writing, writers block, Writing Non-Fiction