S6 Bonus 03: Our Weekly Chats

Get the show’s transcript

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:28.3] YD: Welcome to the Travel Media Lab Podcast. I’m your host, Yulia Denisyuk, an award-winning travel photographer and writer, entrepreneur, community builder, and a firm believer that every one of us can go after the stories we’ve always wanted to tell with the right support, encouragement, and structure. 

I’m on a mission to help women storytellers everywhere break into and thrive in the travel media space. If you’re ready to ditch your fears to the side, grow your knowledge and confidence and publish your travel stories, you’re in the right place. Let’s go!

[0:00:37.1] YD: Hi everyone, I hope your September is going well. We are taking a quick break this month here at the Travel Media Lab Podcast and we will be returning very soon with fresh, season seven episode for you and until then, I’d like to share with you a few conversations that we have in the circle. Our membership in which will help you get your stories published with support, encouragement, opportunities and just an amazing, amazing community that I’m so-so-so proud of. 

In this bonus episode, I’m sharing with you a discussion we recently had in The Circle during one of our weekly check-ins. This is one of the many things we do in The Circle, weekly check ins via zoom where we set the priorities for the week and also have opportunities to ask questions related to our pitches and working in the industry.

In this particular call, we’re discussing the process of pitching and reaching out sources and why it’s important to write about what you’re passionate about. This episode will give you a really good sense of what our weekly conversations inside the circle look like and just to note that every conversation from the circle that you hear as part of these bonus series, this September, is share with permission from our members.

And before we get started, I want to share with you a super exciting announcement. This October, we’re inviting travel writer, Jessica Poitevien, to run a series of travel writing workshops inside The Circle. We’re calling the series, “The Anatomy of a Travel Story” and in it, Jessica’s going to take you thought the whole process, from generating ideas and pitching to interviewing and gathering your sources to developing your story structure and writing your article.

Jessica has written for Travel and Leisure, Conde Nast Traveler, National Geographic, Fodor’s Travel and many more and I’m so, so excited to learn from her this October. Now, let me tell you a little bit more about how the workshops will look like. We’ll have a total of three one-hour workshops on Monday, October 3rd, October 17th, and October 24th. 

The workshops are free for our Circle members and if you join us at our Imagine Level, which is just $27 a month, you’ll be able to get the audio recording of all the workshops. Now, if you want to attend the live call, if you want to interact with Jessica, if you want to ask her a question, then you can join us at our Rise or Soar levels and at those two levels, you will have a live access to the workshops and opportunity to get your pitch critiqued by Jessica.

Again, the first workshop will run on Monday, October 3rd. So if you join any time before that, you’ll be able to learn alongside Jessica and get her amazing expertise and experience. Get more information about this at travelmedialab.com/circle and I hope to see you inside. All right, now, let’s get into this episode.

[DISCUSSION]

[0:03:47.6] YD: Welcome everyone to our weekly check in. I’m really glad to see everyone and before we go through our sort of our regular check in, I just wanted to point out that if you haven’t seen yet. By the way, is everybody receiving the weekly emails this week in The Circle? Everybody’s getting those? Okay, great.

That’s good, because I hear that sometimes they can go to spam folder or something or other folder that Gmail has. So just to make sure that you’re all receiving those. 

So if you haven’t seen today’s email yet, I just want to bring to everybody’s attention that our workshop series with Jessica Poitevien is on, meaning the dates are set, we finally set the date and it will be this October. 

There will be three workshops. There will be one on Monday, October 3rd at 10:30 AM Eastern and that schedule is both in the calendar inside our Circle group and also in the email that I sent you. So don’t worry about writing it down right now but just I want to make sure that you know that these are the workshops. So the first one will be on Monday, October 3rd and in that one, we’re going to go over generating ideas and pitching.

[0:05:01.8] So, how do you come up with ideas on the regular basis and I am sure, she will also talk about generating ideas, process and also the pitching process in that workshop. 

Then, if you want to participate in the pitch review because she’s going to actually give critique to your pitches as well, which is an awesome opportunity for everyone. I always say that the more I see to get on your pitches, the better and you get my eyes on your pitches and our other community members but, it’s great to have another very established travel writer to look at your pitches as well. So I encourage everyone to plan to participate in that. 

So the first workshop like I said, is Monday, October 3rd. Then, you pitches will be due one week later, to her. Monday October 10th and that date is also on the calendar, you will see it there, it says pitches due and we’ll figure out a process by you know, how we’re going to do it, maybe we’ll do it in the Circle, maybe there is a Google doc like, we’ll figure that out. But if you want to participate, just note that. Then she will have a week to look at your pitches. 

Then the second workshop will be on Monday October 17th at 12 Eastern and then, that workshop we’ll spend first like 20 minutes going through the pitch critique, if you have any questions to her. Then, she’s going to go into the second workshop, which is finding sources and interviewing because I know that also, an area where a lot of people sometimes feel stuck, right? How do I approach people? Sometimes we feel like if we don’t have the journalistic background, we even have the right to approach people and how do we do it, right? How do we interview, how do we get what we need from somebody, right? So she’ll cover all that. 

And then finally, the third workshop will be on Monday October 24th. So all the workshops will be on a Monday and that will be about developing your story structure. So you first generated your ideas, then you have your pitch and then you interview your sources and now, you have it all together, how do you put it into a story? 

[0:07:00.0] So, really, she’s going to take us from beginning to end, through the process of coming up with a travel story, which is even for me, is really exciting. I love Jessica, I love her writing style. Like I said, she’s very accomplished and I’m also excited to learn from her as well. So I want to encourage everyone to you know, put those days on your calendar. Make sure you attend. Of course, if you cannot attend live, there will be recording for all of these. So you know, you’re not going to miss the teaching, the learning but I encourage everyone to attend live. Like I always say, when people come inside the circle and they share their knowledge with us, I want to also support them. 

It would be a pity if only one person showed up live, you know? So if you can, please try to come up, to come and to support. We’ll also see like, in all of these workshops, we’ll leave some time for questions. So if you have questions, you know, live interactions, you can ask her anything you want as well but that’s what we’re thinking to do or that’s what we were planning to do.

And just to note that the live access too this workshop will be available to Rise and Soar members. So I know we have some people who listening later, who are getting the audio recording only of the Circle, so you guys will be getting that in the audio format and then if you’re in the Rise membership which Katie is, our newer member Katie is in Rise. So Katie, you will be able to access live these workshops as well. 

It’s all in the calendar, it’s all in the circle. If you have any questions, let me know. Yeah, so, wanted to just take some time to walk through that. As you can see, I’m very excited about this coming up and yeah, we’ll have a really intensive month in October. 

[0:08:41.9] I will have very intensive month on October because I will be all over, in Asia, in Europe, in the Middle East. Yeah, so but it will be fun. So I wanted to let you guys know that that’s coming up. All right, now that that’s out of the way. By the way, any questions about that? The workshops, anything, no? Cool, all right.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s check in. Jolene, thank you for sending in your goals, your check in. I just want to say that, so, you're saying that you have the rough draft ready or almost ready. You want to edit that and then do some more research and produce another pitch. I would say, like once you have edited your first draft, just submit it so we can look at it and send it out and then like, well, I guess it depends on your process because you can have different ways of working. But the way I sort of approached it is, one pitch at a time. Let’s get it to completion, let’s send it out and then, you know, focus on the next thing because sometimes, you can sort of like. “Well, it’s still not ready, so let me work on something else.” So yeah, let’s just get it ready and send it out and then work on the other stuff.

[0:09:46.6] JOLENE: Yeah, sounds good and I think, I just, it needs a little – there’s like two paragraphs for the intro. So just a little more of like a concise and clean copy. So I’m hoping tomorrow, that will be, I can just get that done and then start moving forward so.

[0:10:00.4] YD: Awesome, I’m excited. This will be your first one, right? I don’t think I’ve seen pitches from you yet.

[0:10:05.1] JOLENE: Yeah, this is my first one.

[0:10:07.5] YD: Awesome, awesome, yeah.

[0:10:08.2] JOLENE: It was fun to do.

[0:10:09.2] YD: Cool, oh that’s awesome. I’m glad to hear that. I’m glad that you’re feeling this way, that’s very important actually because, we want to cultivate that feeling, that pitching is fun. It’s not scary, it doesn’t need to be scary, it can be fun, right? So that’s awesome. I’m very excited to see that.

And Nicole, I saw your comment. I haven’t had a chance to reply yet but I saw your comment that you took some time off and you’re sort of looking at going back to them. I just want to tell you, Nicole, by the way, I just want to, by the way, commend you on how much you have already produced in the time that you’ve been here and you’re always, you know, you’re always taking my feedback. You’re always, you’re learning a lot, you’re doing a lot so I want to say don’t – I hope you're not feeling like, “Oh again, more feedback, more of this and that.”

[0:10:54.4] NICOLE: No, no.

[0:10:55.8] YD: You’re doing great. Basically, what I want to say is that you’re – 

[0:10:58.8] NICOLE: Thanks. I do have a quick question because I did see one thing you mentioned in the pitch that I started working on again is to include an expert witness and say I secured it. I found somebody but do I really secure it before I even get the pitch or can I just say that and then? 

[0:11:15.5] YD: It’s a great question. It sort of depends, you have to sort of gauge like how open would this person be in interviewing. You know, you can sort of frame it as – so first of all, who is the person that you’ve found? 

[0:11:28.5] NICOLE: Oh, it’s just the person who wrote the report, the professor from Yale, who wrote the report on the cloud forest. So I found his name, I found his email like his listed as saying quotes in the report but I haven’t contacted him yet because I don’t know if anyone is going to take the pitch or not. 

[0:11:46.5] YD: Got you, got you. Well, then you can say very simply, I plan on. 

[0:11:50.3] NICOLE: Okay. 

[0:11:51.0] YD: I plan on reaching out to such and such.

[0:11:53.1] NICOLE: Okay. 

[0:11:53.5] YD: You don’t have to say, “I have secured his [inaudible 0:11:56.0] but you can say – 

[0:11:57.7] NICOLE: All right. 

[0:11:58.1] YD: I plan on and then once you get, you know, once you get some affirmative, then you can reach out to this person and say, I’m sure, it won’t be a problem for them to respond. So what I am saying, trying to say is there’s different ways to manage that. It also depend on like your relationship with this person that you’re quoting. Sometimes if it is more informal, you know, you can reach out to somebody ahead of time and say, “Hey, I’m planning on writing this article, would you be open to me interviewing you?”

[0:12:25.6] NICOLE: Okay. 

[0:12:25.8] YD: It just sort of all depends. That there isn’t like one clear cut answer. In this case, that is how I would approach it. I would say I plan on including, you know, [inaudible 0:12:34.5] from this person and that should be enough for the initial pitch.

[0:12:38.1] NICOLE: Okay, thank you. 

[0:12:39.3] YD: I think you had another question. Let me just answer it here then. I think you had a question about like there is only two cloud forests, one in Puerto Rico and one in Hawaii, is that correct? 

[0:12:50.0] NICOLE: Yeah and I didn’t know how to say it because, so the one in Hawaii is the only one in the US but Puerto Rico is a US territory, so it is not technically right saying that that’s in the US too. 

[0:13:02.6] YD: Can we say one of two cloud forests in North America? 

[0:13:06.7] NICOLE: That might sound better, it just got tricky, all of those technical details. 

[0:13:11.1] YD: Definitely and then you explain in the story itself like what does that mean. It is important because yeah, it is always good to have some concrete context to what you are talking about. 

[0:13:20.8] NICOLE: Okay, yeah that’s good. So still working on it but thank you. 

[0:13:25.4] YD: I’m very excited for that pitch for you. I think like get it over the finish line with all the feedback that we’ve discussed and let’s send it to BBC Travel first, I would say, and I think it is a great story and has great potential. 

[0:13:41.8] NICOLE: Thank you. I’ve sure learned a lot about it, all the research but thank you. 

[0:13:46.3] YD: Sure, yeah and that is actually so what you said also Nicole is important because that is why I always sort of encourage you guys to write about what you are interested in or write about what you are passionate about because then all of that research and all of that leg work that you are doing it is going to be fun again. 

[0:14:03.1] NICOLE: It is fun, yeah. 

[0:14:05.1] YD: You know, I have to research how many cloud forests are there, you know what I mean? So the more you can sort of – so sorry, a little tangent, a little aside, I’m in the – I am entering this phase in my life where I am like, I don’t want thing – oh and we talked about this last, on the last call I think too. I don’t want things to be difficult. I want things to be easy. As much as possible, I want and easy not in a sense that like I am skating through things but in a sense like ease, right? Ease, joy, enjoyment, how can I make this process more filled with ease for me, this process of pitching, et cetera. So that’s where I think it’s important that you cultivate that for yourself like what ignites you, what topics ignites you? What would you be so interested in doing research on, right? Always have that in the back of your mind that you know, because it’s going to help your whole process. 

For example, another example, an editor just reached out to me and they’re like, “Hey, we need two and half articles by next week. Can you do this?” but they reached out to me because it is about Jordan and I am sort of an expert on Jordan now because that’s how I very specifically built my portfolio, my career. I talk about Jordan a lot, right? It’s in my bio that I do work in the Middle East, so people are know – this is my niche. It is becoming my niche, so somebody is reaching out to me. Like if they reached out to me and said, “Hey, can you do two articles on the best beaches in Mexico?” I would probably say yes, I mean, probably right? Like at this point but maybe I would say no actually because I’m like, “Well, I don’t know if I want to write about that, that doesn’t interest me.” So this is what I am trying to say, right? 

That our niche helps guide us and our decisions and everything that we’re doing. So a little aside here. Jolene is saying I think there is a cloud forest in Coastal BC Canada, which is also North America, interesting. Okay, that’s a good one to check then but yeah, I mean, however many there are to avoid that issue Nicole of, “Well, how do I explain Puerto Rico versus US in this pitch?” just say North America, however many there are, yeah? 

[END OF DISCUSSION]

[0:16:07.2] YD: Thanks again for listening to our bonus episode today. I hope you found the ideas we discussed here relevant and inspiring. If you are looking for support, opportunities, and community in the travel media space, consider joining us in The Circle, where we have conversations like the one you just heard on a regular basis, and don’t forget, this October we’re running a special series of workshops with travel writer, Jessica Poitevien, where she’ll teach generating ideas and pitching, gathering sources and interviewing, and developing your story structure. 

If you’ve been thinking about joining The Circle, this is your cue. Don’t miss this awesome opportunity to learn from Jessica and improve your travel writing skills. Go to travelmedialab.com/circle to learn more. Thanks again for listening and stay tuned for another bonus episode coming your way next week. 

[END]