Newsletter #2
| Negotiating cobblestones in Albania - lots of concentration needed! |
The Book Takes Shape
When I sent the first newsletter a few weeks ago, I wasn't sure whether anyone would want to read updates about a first-time author stumbling her way through the book-writing process.
Fortunately, many of you replied with stories of your own adventures, memories of following the journey online, and words of encouragement that arrived exactly when they were needed.
Thank you.
The manuscript is now in the hands of a small group of beta readers, and I've spent the past few weeks making edits and tweaking chapters before I send the final version off for a more detailed line edit.
Richard and I have also been working on the book cover, and we’d love your help deciding on the best image to use. With the help of AI, we’ve come up with a few samples – the best of which will be properly designed by a real artist (rather than a bot).
More on how to vote below.
| The Source of the Nile, Uganda |
Help choose the cover!
Over the past few weeks, we've been experimenting with different cover concepts, photographs, and layouts. We’re a little limited in our artistic ability, so we've asked AI to step in. While the cover designs all look a little the same (that’s AI for you!), it’s the photos I’m really interested in…and I’d love your help deciding which one works best.
We’ve narrowed the options down to a handful of favourites and would love you to vote for the one that you feel best captures the spirit of the journey.
You can vote here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/accidentalmoto
The winner won't necessarily be the final cover, but your feedback will help shape the direction we take.
If you'd told me a couple of years ago that I'd be writing a memoir, I would have laughed. I don't come from a creative writing background. I come from a world of audits, legislation, risk assessments and board papers.
Yet throughout our trip, I found myself writing…constantly.
It started with simple journal entries and Facebook blogs. But the further we travelled, the longer the stories became (as many of you know). I threw myself into researching the history of the places we visited, learning about different cultures, and trying to capture the amazing people we met along the way.
Without really intending to, I became fascinated not just by where we were travelling, but by what those places and encounters revealed about the world – and about ourselves.
Those blog posts eventually became the foundation for the book. Looking back, I suspect The Accidental Motorcyclist began long before I realised I was even writing a book.
| Camping by the River Sava near Sobec, Slovenia |
While I've been editing the manuscript, we've also been adding a few new stories to the website.
One of my favourites is Breakfast with Joan.
We arrived at Engiri Game Lodge in Uganda expecting a couple of quiet days. Instead, I spent most of our time there recovering from food poisoning while Richard embarked on a mission to befriend a resident elephant named Joan using a strategically placed bunch of bananas. The plan seemed sensible right up until Joan appeared.
Standing in the camp kitchen the following morning, I found myself hand-feeding bananas to an elephant whilst the kitchen staff carried on as though this happened every day (which it probably does).
Of all the breakfasts we shared on the road, this was certainly the most memorable.
Click HERE to link to Stories from the Road.
Joan waiting for her breakfast at the kitchen door | Uganda |
From the Manuscript: An Unexpected Passenger
One of the biggest surprises of writing this book has been discovering who turns up in it. I expected motorcycles, border crossings and the people we met along the way. I didn't expect my grandmother.
Yet somehow she kept finding her way onto the page.
In 1945, as Germany emerged from the devastation of war, she walked hundreds of kilometres to return home. Her journey was very different to ours in almost every way imaginable, but while writing, I found myself reflecting on the choices, uncertainties and determination that shape all journeys, regardless of where or when they take place.
The more I wrote, the more I realised this wasn't simply a story about where Richard and I travelled. It was also a story about the journeys that made us who we are.
The following excerpt introduces a small part of my grandmother’s story.
“My grandmother was thirteen when World War II broke out and sixteen when the bombs fell hard enough to split her life in two. Her hometown, Kassel, in the former West Germany, was destroyed almost overnight. With water supplies hit, the city burned for seven days.
She was sent south to Freiburg to stay with relatives. When the war ended, and transport systems had all but collapsed, my grandmother walked back to Kassel from Freiburg. Nearly four hundred kilometres through a country in ruins. Roads were broken, towns flattened, food scarce. She would have walked alone for much of it, with others at times, sleeping wherever it was possible to stop.
My grandmother’s walk was not an act of bravery, as we tend to describe it now. It was the only way forward.
When she reached Kassel weeks later, it was barely recognisable - hollowed out with less than a quarter of the city’s population remaining. It was April 1945 and her hometown, a vital industrial and military centre during the war, had been occupied by American forces. The war was officially over, but for everyday Germans, its long-term consequences were only just beginning.”
| My grandmother, Elli 1947 |
Writing about my grandmother has reminded me how much of who we are is shaped by the people who came before us.
I'd love to hear from you: is there a family story that has travelled with you through life?
Until next time,
