David Downie at Rolf Potts.com

This week at the RolfPotts.com Writers page, I interview travel and food writer David Downie, whose newest book is Paris, Paris: Journey into the City of Light, a collection of 30 travel essays about Paris.

In the interview, Downie warns against the restaurateurs, hoteliers, guides, tourist officers, and PR agents who only want you to report the “good” news of a given destination. Adding your own critical perspective, he says, is essential. “There’s a wonderful expression in Italian: bisogna sentire tutte le campane,” Downie says. “Literally, it means you really ought to listen to all the bells as they ring in all the churches. Everyone, not just Italians, has his favorite church tower, literally and metaphorically. In the end, as a fact-gatherer and checker, it’s up to you to make sure what you report corresponds to your best guess of reality and the “truth”.

Here are some other outtakes from Downie’s interview:

• “We all need editors. They are individuals. Some are wonderful, others are tyrannical, many are frustrated writers. All have budgetary constraints, and their jobs sometimes ride on the quality of your work.”
• “I try to keep my overhead low. It’s the only way to survive as a freelancer. Keep it low but don’t become a junket junkie or PR whore — your bad reputation will catch up with you. And never sign your rights away for a buck. Fight to keep the rights to what you write — your work is your stock in trade.”
• “In the early 1980s my first novel was roundly rejected by New York publishers. I had no money left, I was living in a maid’s room in Paris, and I had to make ends meet. So I began working as a translator and freelance writer. I picked up a series of small assignments, and spun them into bigger and bigger assignments. And here I am, twenty years later, still living in Paris, not in a maid’s room, but still making my living as a freelancer.”
• “[Writing is] a hard life. The pay is ridiculously bad. You are less free than you think — mainstream magazines and newspapers are published for a profit, not to indulge the creativity of contributors. Writing is a job. Anyone who thinks otherwise is either a rare genius or a fool. Oh, and be prepared to work for months, sometimes years, without earning a thing on your writing. If you still want to write, no one will be able to stop you and sooner or later– and it might be later — you’ll get into print and possibly make a living one day.”

Full David Downie interview online here.