I’ve said this before and I say it again, that I do not consider myself a writer at all. I consider myself an explorer and a decent photographer. And I started my blog with the sole aim of documenting my travels, not to become a better writer but as it turns out bigger things were planned for me.

Taking notes in my little hut and sipping hot tea as it rains heavily. Somewhere in the jungles of Meghalaya.

It’s been exactly a year since I started writing for National Geographic Traveller India. My first article appeared last year, this month - an article about my trek in the Thar Desert. When I saw the words “Text & Photographs by Neelima Vallangi”, I almost cried. It had been my dream for the longest time to work for NatGeo, I had no idea in what capacity though. I always associated NatGeo with exotic places, beautiful photographs and lots of wonderful stories and I wanted in on that.

Sometime in September 2012, I decided I’d try my luck, by chance. In July 2012, I saw a lot of my photographer friends’ photographs being published in NatGeo Traveller’s first Indian Edition. I thought I should try getting my photos published too and I did get in touch with Ashima, the photo editor at that time. She liked my work and used some photographs for two stories on Western Ghats and Ladakh.

I was getting photo requirement mails from few photo editors at different publications but the trouble was I never had photos from those places. They were mostly requests for photographs showing culture, heritage or images of well-known places, which were not part of my repertoire. It dawned on me that this way I’ll never have my photographs published. The kind of places I go to, no one will write about them. That’s when I decided I should probably try writing too and I sent my first pitch.

Prior to this I had no fair idea on what I wanted to do in the travel space, I was sure I did not want to plan trips or do workshops. I might do workshops later on the side but only when I have established myself as a well-published writer or photographer. Somewhere between researching, pitching and writing those stories I realized that’s what I loved the most - story telling! I should’ve realized, often friends had told me I narrated the incidents in an interesting way. After coming back from a trip, there’s no stopping. I talk so much about a trip - how it made me feel, what I learned, what was amusing and everything else about it. My friends were the ones to face the wrath of my enthusiasm but I never thought much about why I enjoyed it so. No wonder I started a blog! I can’t do top-10 lists or hotel reviews or information pieces but I want to take people with me to some place outlandish.

Lesson Learnt – Try to analyze why you are doing what you are doing. Once you find that answer, you’ll find a way too! ☺

I was terrified to hit send on that first pitch and I assured myself the worst thing that could happen was only that I might not get a reply back from the editor. But I got a reply. I was shocked when my pitch was accepted; in fact I was shocked that I mustered up enough courage to send the first pitch at all with no previous publication credits to speak of. But that set the ball rolling. Working over the weekends, I’ve done 8 stories, big and small for NatGeo so far. Suddenly narratives, editing, hooks made sense to me. It was a whole new world and a big adventure learning all these new things. Later, I got requests to write for Greenpeace, Discover India, The New Indian Express etc and I wrote for them as well.

Lesson learnt – It’s okay to dream big. In fact it is good to dream big. Like they say, even if we miss the stars, we’ll reach the moon!

But writing doesn’t come naturally to me. I struggle and struggle. Half the times I stare at the blank screen, the other half of time is spent scouring the Internet for useless things in the name of research. But finally when I get the words out, in a weird way I feel ecstatic, that I created something! Of course the shock came at the end of the year when a company wrote to me saying I should write a book and they’ll help me publish it. Now that’s an idea, I had never considered writing a book and never considered myself to be that good but few people out there seem to think I can write. It’s comforting to know that I have come to this stage, this means I have grown. It was a long painful path but I certainly can see the change. I have not arrived as a writer and far from arriving but I do intend to keep at it.

Lesson learnt – In the beginning, I kept falling off the narrow bridge in Temple Run but not anymore. Practice surely makes a woman perfect! ;)

So that was my very interesting 2013! I traveled very less. I went on quite a few sponsored trips as a travel blogger but 2013 will be remembered as the year that gave a direction to my wanderlust. I started from scratch and am happy with where I am today. In 2014, I want to write more, read even more but most of all, I want to tell lots of good stories – visually and literally!

How was your year? Have you written your year-end posts? Leave a link below in the comments section, I love to read those. ☺