Nothing is a Pizza Pie (or: What a Pizza Has to Do with Travel Writing)

By novoarte On March 8, 2008 · 6 Comments

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On my last night in Old San Juan, I called up Pizzi Corre and ordered a medium pie. With the kitchen gear packed up and nothing left in the fridge but a box of cereal, my plan was to eat half the pizza for dinner and half for brunch. When the pizza arrived, I lifted the lid and saw a pie cut into six wildly unequal sizes. “That dough boy failed the unit on fractions, for sure,” I thought, but without judgment since I’m not so great with math myself. In fact, one couldn’t rightly call what was in the box slices. There was a rhombus, a diamond, and four shapes yet to be discovered and named by geometrists. I was hungry, but the pizza went cold while I pondered with unreasonable anxiety about how I could eat half that night and half the next day.

*
The good news is that the world is not a pizza pie.

What does a pizza have to do with the world, or with travel writing for that matter? Hang on… I’ll get to that.

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve had some interesting exchanges with other writers and editors about perceived writing opportunities that got me thinking about how we often see the world–and, on a smaller scale, anything that’s the object of our desire– as a pizza pie. Here’s the metaphor writ plain: There’s a finite amount, a fixed number of evenly apportioned slices, and only some of us will get to eat. There’s only so much to go around, so the rest of us–whoever’s not scrappy enough to fight for it, or lucky enough to win the favor of the person doling out slices–will go home hungry, sad, and convinced we’d have been satisfied if we could have had even a piece of pepperoni.

I’ve never understood why so many of us are attached to this idea. It’s not a very healthy or happy way of looking at the world. Nor, in my opinion, is it at all realistic.

So, yes, travel writing.

One of the exchanges that got me thinking was an editor’s remark, “The trick is finding something new to say [about Cuba].” I was pretty sure I knew what he meant–he’s tired, just as I am, of hearing the same old played out stories about the island–but I was floored. It’s precisely because everyone approaches Cuba from the same old angle that there are millions of stories to be told. Point being: I just don’t believe that we ever run out of stories. Ever. There’s not some finite number of stories out there, like pizza slices, waiting to be grabbed. The world is teeming with untold stories just waiting to make us laugh, and cry, and think, and book a plane ticket, and go see someone or some place for ourselves.

The other exchange was with a writer who was calculating the number of publications that pay for articles and who worried that the number of print and online periodicals compensating writers was declining. Instead of getting out in the world, finding some stories, and writing, she’d spent hours calculating the odds of her chances landing a paying gig. Again: pizza pie mentality. Since the invention of the alphabet, the printing press, the Internet, and yes, even Kindle, people have been hungry for words and willing to pay for them. Personally, I don’t forecast that the demand for good, thoughtful, interesting writing is going to dwindle any time soon. If you’re a good writer, you’ll always have an audience. Always. So put down the calculator and pick up the pen.

Stories. Writing. Love. Money. Publication Credits. The World.

Nothing is a pizza pie.
Sometimes not even a pizza pie. There’s plenty for everyone and we won’t run out.

6 responses to Nothing is a Pizza Pie (or: What a Pizza Has to Do with Travel Writing)

candicew86 said on November 8, 2009

I always wondered the same for music, how do musicians keep pumping out new tunes?! But they do. And they always will. Awesome post.
Nick Rowlands said on November 8, 2009

Brilliant post, with which I fully agree…

Except, perhaps a pizza *is* a good analogy for writing. You take your base, add some ingredients, bake, and serve for consumption. There are many, many pizzas (though never too many), and some are bad and most are OK and occasionally, not as often as you like, you get a special flavour, a perfect combination of ingredients and crust, that makes you go wow! Now *that* is a pizza.

And the combo that makes *you* go wow will not necessarily be the one that makes *me* go wow. And that’s ok, coz we all like our pizzas different, and people are never gonna stop serving them!
Anne-Sophie Redisch said on November 8, 2009

I agree completely. Odd how we think of scarcity and competition all the time, when it’s really more a question of being creative, really.

I’ve an economics degree, and of course, the whole science of economics is based on scarcity/limited supply, isn’t it… – I keep having the liveliest arguments with colleagues about this competition vs creativity-thinking
Jacob Bielanski said on March 8, 2008

[b]Very[/b] insightful thoughts coming from one of the ever-talented writers.

I’d shoot myself if I tried to quantify what it would take to “make it” (“make it” in the western context of “make a mortgage payment based upon the earnings”) as a writer…particularly a travel writer. I hope your example person wasn’t as morose as me. The only way I get through it is to remember that good writing is tertiary to good experiences and good stories.

I would add that writers worried about getting their “piece” should remember that not as many people are reaching for the anchovy-pineapple-goat-cheese …figuratively speaking.

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Tim Patterson said on March 8, 2008

Good thoughts, Julie!
Turner Wright said on March 8, 2008

Great, now I have a 2 AM urge for Domino’s. Cruel mistress.