I’d like to clarify something fundamental. I take for granted that if you want to be a writer, you’re a wordsmith, a lover of the classics and a connoisseur of literature. Writers must, initially and throughout their lives, be readers first and foremost, and readers not primarily of journalism, but of the classics, both modern and not-so-modern. I also take for granted that aspiring writers know how to compose a proper declarative sentence and don’t misuse words. Reading the classics will help hone your ear, but there are many good books on usage out there and writers should read and digest them and reread them. Inspiration and an esprit frondeur won’t help aspiring writers who don’t know the basics of their craft. No matter what motivates you, no matter what experiences you have and seek to put down on paper, editors buy well-written words, and your writing has to be exceptional if it is to see print.

In all the talk about building your online brand, social media, and so on, this basic point – that aspiring writers should love words and know how to use them – can sometimes go overlooked. So thanks for the reminder, Jeffrey.

Things are rolling along as usual at World Hum. If you haven’t already, I’d urge you to check out this hopeful essay about Haiti’s Hotel Oloffson, published a few days after the quake.

After this weekend’s Saints Superbowl victory, I also came across this fantastic video of a Magazine St. victory party – must-see TV for NOLA fans like myself.

Oh, and for anyone keeping score? I just did some housekeeping on my blogroll. As always, it’s a work in progress – travel writing friends, let me know if I’ve missed you.

I followed that one up on Monday with an interview with Susan Van Allen, the author of “100 Places in Italy Every Woman Should Go.”

Check ‘em out!

The Best Travel Books of 2009
World Hum’s 2009 Travelers of the Year: Travel Bloggers
World Hum’s 21 Most Read Features of 2009 (Check me out at #19 and #20)
R.I.P. 2009: From Mercedes Sosa to Frank McCourt
The Best Travel Videos of 2009 (Some really great stuff in this one!)

I also pulled together this selection of TSA-related tweets in the wake of the attempted Christmas undie-bombing:

Seven Great Tweets About the New TSA Regulations

And on a non-travel related note, I’ve tried and (so far) failed to pull together some thoughts on movies in the 2000s. As a stand-in, here are some of the “Best of the Decade/Year” movie lists I’ve enjoyed:

The Big Picture’s Top Ten Films of 2009
Dana Stevens: The Best Movies of the Year and the Decade
It Takes a Hero: The 20 Best Films of the Decade

Maybe I’ll get around to posting something about my favourite flicks of the year/decade later this weekend. Maybe I’ll even find time to make some New Year’s resolutions… (Resolution #1: Procrastinate less.)

In the meantime, Happy New Year! Here’s to 2010.

Ever since I heard of Dekker a few months back – when her attempt was first postponed, while she was still just thirteen – I’ve been trying to sort out my feelings on the case. On the surface, the whole thing seems absurd, a clear over-reach on the part of Dutch authorities: After all, she’s an experienced sailor, and her primary guardian, her father, is entirely behind the effort. (Her mother is against it.)

But then questions start to pop up. For instance: Is it really that far beyond standard levels of government “interference” in child-rearing?

We accept, every day, that the government has a right to impose mandatory education on children – generally, this is seen as a good thing. Parents aren’t allowed to pull their kids out of school and put them to work, so why should Laura Dekker’s parents be allowed to pull her out of school for two years of sailing? We also accept that governments, both foreign and our own, have the right to impose controls on minors crossing international borders unescorted by their guardians – again, particularly when it’s applied to child trafficking concerns, this is viewed as a good thing. (And, for that matter, Laura’s still a long way from her driver’s license, too – but she wants to pilot an 8-meter yacht through major international shipping lanes?) That Laura’s case is quite different from the ones these laws are aimed at doesn’t change the fact that the laws do exist, and are accepted by the general public. So can we really say the government is overstepping any major boundaries here? Misapplication, maybe.

I also find myself wondering about Laura’s motivations, and her father’s. In the year of Jon and Kate, Balloon Boy and the death of Michael Jackson, it’s easy to be cynical about children in the public eye. I question the value of something so arbitrary as a world record – this particular one has been broken at least twice in the last year or so, by a pair of teenage boys, and there’s another attempt in the works by a 16 year-old girl. Besides which, Laura’s father answers nearly every objection raised by the Dutch authorities by noting that he’ll be following along behind her in a separate boat, ready to pitch in at any step of the way. So what does it even mean, exactly, to sail around the world solo?

Beyond all this, though, I can’t escape one thought that keeps coming back: There is a truly astounding amount of privilege wrapped up in this story. We’re talking about a fourteen year-old girl who owns her own yacht and apparently has the means to spirit herself from the Netherlands to St. Maarten undetected (that means a credit card at minimum, and probably access to some hard cash, too), whose single father is willing and able to take up to two years to follow her in pursuit of her dream, and who – from the little I can glean from the news reports – appears to think that being thwarted in her desire to sail around the world is about the worst thing that could ever happen to her. Seems to me that everyone – the Dutch government, Laura and her father, and all of us readers who feel as though this story says anything larger about government’s role in protecting at-risk youth – could use some perspective.

A single parent who pulled her fourten year-old out of school and sent him to work at McDonald’s to help out with the rent would almost certainly be accused of child abuse. But I can’t help wondering if that teen’s time on minimum wage wouldn’t, in its own way, actually be a more noble effort?

Here’s our coverage:

Beyond Airworld – A look at “the bittersweet challenge of the traveler’s life”

A video interview with director Jason Reitman and author Walter Kirn

A whole whack of links related to the movie, the book and Airworld in general

I haven’t seen the movie yet, but here’s hoping it makes it this far north.

Second, I’m thrilled to see that a travel book has FINALLY made its way into the What is Stephen Harper Reading? project. If you’re not familiar, WISHR is author Yann Martel’s one-man effort to make our illustrious Prime Minister more appreciative of the arts – or, in his own words, “to make suggestions to his stillness” – by sending him a series of carefully chosen books. The latest? “Tropic of Hockey” by former Rheostatics frontman Dave Bidini. Here’s what Martel had to say in his accompanying letter to the PM:

Tropic of Hockey is about one man’s love for the game and his quest for its soul. This quest leads him to places where you wouldn’t expect to see ice hockey. And as different as those places are, the spirit of the game, by Bidini’s reckoning, burns with the same intensity as it does in his rec league in Toronto. He finds in Harbin, northern China, in Dubai, in Miercurea Ciuc, Transylvania, the refreshing purity of a game that is not mere entertainment but a way of meeting and being, hockey as culture rather than business, “the spirituality of sports, sports as life,” as he puts it at one point.

I’ve been meaning to read this book for a couple of years now, so thanks, Yann Martel, for the reminder. (And for the effort to expand Prime Minister Harper’s stillness, too.)

The Coldest Morning

Canadian Beauty

I’ve also updated my Blogging page for the first time in ages, to include a couple of personal posts I wrote during my Caribbean and Yukon/Alaska travels last summer.

Late yesterday afternoon, after nearly 24 hours of total highway driving time spread over three days, I crossed out of Ontario and into Manitoba. I’m headed to Saskatoon today, and will spend most of the weekend there before heading into the Rocky Mountains on Sunday!

More to come!