Experiments in style: Travel diary

The writing retreat

One of the things I’ve been trying out is reworking a piece of text into completely different styles. A full exposition and explanation are given here:

Experimenting with styles

In today’s experiment I’d like to write the story as in the form of a travel diary.

The original (template) text

In the middle of the night, I woke up (if you can call being semi-conscious being awake), walked purposefully towards the door to go to the bathroom — and almost knocked myself out.

The reason was that in the twin states of entire darkness and semi-somnambulance I was facing in a different direction from the one I thought I was facing. As a result, instead of walking through the door, I tried to walk through the wall.

The next few days brought nausea and headaches. After much prevarication I went to Accident and Emergency, where I waited petrified among people for whom “social distancing” means not quite touching you, and who wore their masks as a chin-warmer.

An hour and a half later I emerged into the twilight, secure in the knowledge that I had nothing more serious than mild concussion. I failed to do much writing, but I was pleased to have read a further 17% of my book.

Travel diary

Far from the madding crowd. Photo by Terry Freedman

By 2am it was clear that things were unlikely to go according to plan. I’d spent the day before getting everything ready in my rucksack: laptop, notebook and pen, digital camera, a riot of assorted chargers, a bus timetable, and a small amount of cash just in case. The intention was to find a café with an internet connection and ensconce myself there all day, and take advantage of the research I’d been engaged in and the solitude to write it up. We’d run out of bottled water, and boiled water is known to lack a certain punch. Thus I’d been drinking tea all day, and tea is a diuretic. Needless to say, I was compelled to visit the bathroom in the early hours as a result.

Whether it was the tea, or the adrenalin occasioned by the excitement of the day ahead, or simply exhaustion at having prepared so extensively and intensively, I don’t know, but I momentarily lost my bearings and careered into the wall instead of passing through the door. The planned writing day had to be abandoned because of the resultant nausea and headache.

After a couple of days I decided to visit the local hospital, as a precaution. Walking would have been hazardous, and cycling even more so. I considered taking the car, but the parking fees in the hospital are exorbitant, even assuming there would be somewhere to park in the first place. As for the bus service, their operation uses the convoy system developed during the war: nothing for ages and then three at the same time. The only option left was to hail a passing rickshaw. I asked the driver if he could turn the flashing lights and the loud music off, and he very kindly obliged. I gave him a handsome tip for his trouble. After I alighted, he drove off in a blaze of sound and light. 

The hospital waiting room was a repository of gloom. Someone was eating a bored ham sandwich. Someone else was pounding the canned drinks machine and swearing. Nobody was keeping their distance from each other and few were wearing their masks properly. I found a quiet corner and buried my head in the book I’d brought along.

After a seemingly interminable wait, my name was called and a nurse came to fetch me. She performed all kinds of tests and was not interested in small talk, or indeed any talk. Perhaps she’d learnt to distrust strangers. Eventually she declared me almost fit, with only mild concussion, along with an injunction to take it easy for a week or so.

So that was the writing holiday that never was – but at least I’d read nearly a fifth of my book.

I hope you have enjoyed this version of the story. Comments are welcomed, as always. If you’d like to dig deeper, I often write an ‘Experiments in style extra’ post to explain how a version came about, or how I did it. That’s for paid subscribers.

If you’re new to the series, you can see the index of my experiments here: Index.

Thank you for reading!