Roads Less Traveled...Reflections On a Writing Life

“Writing can be difficult, but sometimes it feels like a kind of magic.” David Almond


I didn’t study writing until my senior year of college. For the first time in my life I was writing creatively not for the pure love of it, but for class requirements. Sharing my writing to be critiqued and graded was a new and strange experience. It was like arranging my imagination on a plate and going before the likes of Gordon Ramsay, fearing I had overdone a character, underdeveloped a scene, made the ending too sweet.

Writing is often categorized as a skill that, much like any other undertaking, can be improved with study and practice. While there’s nothing wrong with studying writing (heck, I got my MA in it!) I think writing courses should come with a warning label—proceed at the risk of your own creativity. What’s the danger in studying something you love? Your work becomes just that—work. While you’re busy worrying about deadlines and studying things like focalization, structure, and register it’s easy to forget why you fell in love with words in the first place.

Maybe writing has always felt “like a kind of magic” to you. If that’s the case, you’re incredibly lucky (and you can stop reading at any time)! If you’re anything like me though, inspiration can at times be as elusive as the willpower to face a blank page. I’ve wrestled with doubt more times than I can count, but ultimately I’ve come to realize the problem isn’t due to a lack of ability or talent. The problem lies in losing sight of what drew me to writing in the first place—that magical quality of writing that Almond describes; the thing that literally produces goose bumps and butterflies in the stomach.

Think about the first time you sat down to write a story or a poem. I guarantee you weren’t thinking about focalization. Not even close. You probably weren’t worried about what people would think of the writing either (because you had no intention of sharing it). Remember what it felt like—writing for the pure joy of it? Writing for yourself? If not, you my friend need to plan a second honeymoon. Here are some ideas to get you started:

Dig out some really old writing. Once you’ve blown away the cobwebs and gotten past the initial horror of re-reading something you never wanted to see again, try to remember what prompted you to write the piece. How did you feel when you were writing it? How does it differ from your writing now? Appreciate each piece’s strength and effort.

Be a child again—play in the rain/snow, pack a picnic and go exploring, ride your bike farther than you’ve ever gone before, swing on a swing set, catch butterflies, fly a kite, finger paint, build a fort (outside or inside!)…anything that frees your mind and lets your imagination soar.

Read a picture book.

Draw/color/paint illustrations to go along with a piece of your own writing or your favorite book.

Read a beginners guide to writing—not only will it prove how much you’ve learned over the years, it will remind you what it felt like when you first started out on the writing path.

Buy a writing prompt book (I recommend Room to Write by Bonni Goldberg). Set aside time each day or week to focus on one prompt. Forget about the rules—write whatever comes to mind!

Change your writing atmosphere/location. Take your computer (or pen and paper if you want to be more conspicuous) to your favorite restaurant or café to write. Or if the weather is nice, why not a trip to the park!

Share a piece of writing you’ve kept to yourself. This is a great way to get fresh perspective as well as advise.

Choose your favorite fairytale/nursery rhyme and adapt the characters to people you know in real life. Retell the story.

Go to the library and explore the local history section. Have a look at the archived newspapers on microfilm if your library has them. Some libraries also keep pictures on file. Find a story or picture that holds your fascination. Write about it.

Attend a book signing or authors lecture. It’s usually free and a great way to learn about what keeps other writers inspired. It’s also fun to watch authors at events and realize you could be at your own book signing one day!

Join a writing group. It’s obvious for anyone in search of creative support, but it really does make a huge difference! You’ll be amazed at the inspiration you gain by being in the company of fellow writers.


How do you keep the “magic” in your writing experience? I’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas!

Posted in: on Saturday, 21 February 2009 at at 21:51 1 comments  

January is a fitting time to test New Year’s resolutions. In Edinburgh, the month is perhaps one of the least inspiring with overcast skies and scarce few hours of daylight. Once the holiday season ends and life gets back to the day-to-day, enthusiasm for resolutions seems to end too. A study conducted by psychologists at the University of Hertfordshire estimated that out of 3,000 people who made New Year’s resolutions, only 12% achieved their goal. Similar studies showed an even lower success rate. So why do we make resolutions we know we won’t keep?

Transformation. We all long for change in some form or another. Never completely satisfied with our lives, we want to eat less, exercise more, stop a bad habit, start giving to charity, spend more time with our families and spend less money. With a fresh calendar on the wall, we are even more mindful of a chance to begin again.

Appropriately, the word January has a strong connection with beginnings, dating back to mythology and the Roman god Janus, from which the word January is derived. Acting as the god of doors and gateways, Janus was often depicted as having two heads, one looking forward, the other backward. He was most often associated with beginnings and ends, as it was believed he could see both into the past and future.

Though I don’t know what the future holds, I feel like Janus this time of year, looking back over past events and forward, wondering what’s to come. In doing this it’s easy to get caught up in the major events of life. Society teaches us to do so. When will we find a better job, buy a house, be happy with our bodies, make more money, follow our dreams…the list goes on and on. We are measured by accomplishments, yet so many of us fall short of the mark. We are left feeling inadequate, discontent, and not quite good enough. We focus on the big things that are missing and forget sometimes it takes “baby steps” as Bob said in What About Bob, rather than leaps, to reach goals and live a more fulfilling life.

Think small. Instead of resolving to get fit in 2009, why not resolve to walk the dog around the block two evenings a week or play an outdoor sport with your children every Saturday. Find ways to make your resolution manageable. Once you have reached that goal, enhance it (walk the dog four days a week).

Don’t resolve to read more books in the coming year, resolve to read one book. Take a book to work and read on your lunch break or go to bed half an hour early every night to spend time reading. Find ways to finish one book. When you’ve reached that goal, find ways to read another.

The same can be said for writing. I often fear that my dream—having a career in the writing industry, will never happen. Sometimes I have to remind myself that instead of taking a step back to see the big picture of what I want, I need to take a step forward to see the things that make up the big picture. Chances are I won’t land a book contract or an editing job overnight. I have to commit to small goals, like taking a few hours a week to write or submitting a story to a competition.

Whether you believe in New Year’s resolutions or not, search for inspiration. Look for small ways to enhance your life, rather than struggle to maintain unmanageable goals. Instead of approaching a new year consider the 365 new days that make up a year and when you find yourself consumed with the big picture or battered with thoughts of failure, consider what Anne said in Anne of Green Gables. “Isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet.”

Posted in: on Wednesday, 31 December 2008 at at 18:30 2 comments  

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost

Robert Frost said The Road Not Taken was a “tricky” poem. Decades later, debate over the poem’s meaning continues, yet whether or not the four stanzas are literal or ironic, the idea of a road “less traveled by” holds my fascination.

My photo albums are scattered with pictures of roads, some less traveled, others well worn. Trees border most of the roads, with undergrowth threatening to claim the path. Some are in open spaces, following fence lines, cutting across meadows, weaving through cemeteries and trailing through gardens. Others, the gems of the bunch, are roads that bend, leaving mystery and guesswork to what might be around the corner, just out of view. I seek out roads, often finding them in unexpected places. Sometimes I’d like to think roads find me.

What I love about Frost’s poem is that whether it’s about individualism or regret, the road “less traveled by” manages to capture a bittersweet quality of life to which we can all relate—how choices can potentially change our lives forever and how, as citizens of this world, we can’t help but reflect on choices and how they have guided our life journeys. Frost boils it down to a simple, yet poetic “slice of life” moment. A man pauses at two roads in a yellow wood.

When it comes to writing, there never was a “pause” moment for me, just simply a decision to begin. I decided I wanted to be a writer when I was twelve years old. Oddly enough I can remember the exact moment when, sitting in one of my grandparents aged recliners reading a book by L.M. Montgomery, I had the idea that maybe I could create my own characters and stories. I started out with poems and books that never made it past the first chapter or two, though it was fun to continue calling them books. I tried a few short stories, but didn’t feel any connection with them. Along the way my love for writing deepened, carrying me down roads I would never have imagined, including moving to Britain to pursue a masters degree in creative writing and discovering an affinity for short stories.

Like the two-fold interpretation of Frost’s poem, my fascination with roads goes beyond the literal. I love what roads represent. With their twists and turns, beginning and ends, roads are a fitting metaphor for life. They make us consider choices, where they lead us, and how we come to be where we are.

Lately I have been doing a lot of reflecting on the roads I have taken. You can’t help but question past choices when student loans come due. I’ve wondered, like Frost’s protagonist, how things would have turned out had I taken a different path. What if I had decided to be a veterinarian or a park ranger or a psychologist? I certainly would be making more money and I wouldn’t get the awkward “oh” response I get now when I tell people I have a degree in creative writing. Let’s be honest, creative writing isn’t the most marketable degree when it comes to finding a job in the real world. “What do you plan to do?” I often get asked by the "oh" crowd. I laugh. “That’s a good question,” I say. I'm still trying to figure that one out.

But writers are used to these stumbling blocks, just as they are familiar with the many roads of life—something in the analogy sits comfortable with us. When we are not busy creating characters and roads for them to travel, we are traveling our own roads of discovery as writers. Being keen on reflection, we are also natural observers of life, trying to figure out how and where we fit, and our writing fits, in the bigger scheme of things.

Like some of the pictures in my photo album, the writing path is not always straight and easy. Perhaps that is why I write. Perhaps that is where the drawing power lies—in the challenge of facing the unexpected and what might be just around the bend, waiting to be discovered. When I think about my choice to be a writer, I am Frost’s protagonist, standing at two roads diverging in a yellow wood and when all is said and done, I know the road I chose, for better or worse, “has made all the difference.”

Posted in: on Monday, 15 December 2008 at at 20:42 1 comments