A Writer's Geography

We recently moved our family from the seacoast of New England to the lake country of the Midwest. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how place can inform, inspire and provide a foundation for one’s writing. At least I still have bodies of water around me – although I will miss the salty taste of the wind on my lips from being near the ocean.

I am a writer in transition. I am still surrounded by boxes, I still refer to NH as “back home” and I haven’t even registered with a dentist yet. We are settling in though, making this house a home, and letting our feet land on the ground of this new town. Did I mention that they have chosen this year to dig up the streets of the entire downtown area, so that you have to take a 5-mile detour to get to the good grocery store? I am still adjusting.

Author Natalie Goldberg wrote about how sad she was to leave Taos, which was a very fertile place for her writing. She was given sage advice from her meditation teacher who told her not to grow too attached to a geographical place, that her writing would flourish anywhere. It is akin to having a personal crisis if you cannot find your lucky pen before sitting down to a writing session. I was sad to leave New England too. My writing flourished there, and I had just found a wonderful community of writers who all met regularly at open mic nights to share their love of poetry. By the way, I also have several "lucky" pens. I know that the pen does not hold the magic though. It is the writer who holds all of the cards – all of those bent, scribbled index cards with ideas and character descriptions. The love for a story grows within the heart and the essence of that story finds you - wherever you are. You can be in a car driving to a family reunion. You can be in the shower thinking only about how much conditioner to use. The opening lines of a story will be whispered in your ear, like an overheard conversation. You can even be in the unfamiliar finished basement of your new house, with a half finished office set up and every book you own stacked onto ten bookcases against every wall. You are waiting – waiting for the writing to return – and it will. It does. That favorite coffee house with the atmosphere that makes your words sing? You will find another cozy java spot. That inlet by the beach where the waves crash 20 feet high against the rocks after a storm and which is your lucky spot to write? You will find a quiet patch of grass by the lake that will open up a wellspring of words.

A writer’s geography is in the mind. You are always “on location”. A treasured place can be reassuring – it can spark a flow of words that introduces you to new worlds. Never forget that there is a universe of creativity in your writer’s soul. Take it with you.

So when do you get to call yourself a writer anyway?!

If your fingers get fidgety and your whole body gets a literary rash that itches all over, until you put words down on the page – then you are a writer.

If you wake up in the middle of the night with part of a dream still fresh in your head, and you think it would make a great beginning to a story – then you are a writer.

If you feel your breath coming to you at a slower, more relaxed pace after writing just one paragraph that excites you, because something has been joyously released from your soul – then you are a writer.

If you go for a nature walk (OK a walk in your neighborhood with your iPod on shuffle, grooving to the tunes) and after hearing a red-winged blackbird sing, you decide that you absolutely must power walk home, as quickly as your chicken legs will take you, so that you can write about the way that bird's call mimics a pool cue being chalked up before a game in your journal (one of the many that I keep telling you to scatter about your house like pixie dust) – then you are a writer (of very long, run-on sentences!).

If you read every issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, and the articles about writing are inked up or highlighted beyond recognition – then congratulations, you are a writer just like me, who is a little kooky but your family loves you.

OK, I’m running out of IF’s …

So, my final bit of writer cheerleading is a serious note:

Being published isn’t the definition of being a writer. It may give you temporary affirmation that you are a writerly person, and some people out there in Barnes & Noble Land may read and enjoy your books. The truth is that you are a writer simply because you regularly make the effort to put pen to paper. It is something that you MUST do; otherwise, you wouldn’t be YOU!

Congratulations! (I thought of one more IF) – if you love to write, and nothing else quite makes you feel as alive, as connected to the universe, then you are a writer indeed.

Happy Writing!

CMRN
7/12/07