Hello fellow Wordsmiths,
How goes the writing? Echoing Lee Ann's question, what are you writing these days, or is it a secret? I've heard conflicting advice on whether our energies as writers are better spent discussing our work with other writers or putting our proverbial pens to paper. What do you think?
All this talk of writing conferences has me revisiting my notes from the two Nimrod conferences I've attended at the University of Tulsa. In 2008, the theme was "Making Tracks," and I thought it might be interesting to consider writing as means of travel. How do you think this is an accurate metaphor? Or where does it fall short? Do you write with a destination in mind or as an exploration of the territory?
And in answer to Lee Ann's question, I thought I'd share a bit of wandering I did for a creative writing prompt a while back, no further qualifiers:
Entering the office, she felt at once overcome by the generic gray surroundings and comforted by the knowledge that she had a place in the world, a place to do something worthwhile, even though it wasn't what she wanted to be doing.
She was stuck, five days a week, eight hours a day, at a computer, trying to block the stream of office gossip that flowed continuously around her. Intent on doing a good job, fingers flying over the keyboard, she was dreaming up another life, a life that included adventure and exploration in distant places.
She liked to imagine how far she could get from the office in those eight hours.
On foot, she figured twenty five miles. It might be a stretch, but she knew she could walk four miles an hour, but could she keep that pace for eight hours? She'd never tried. She could be back on the farm tonight, walking in the river bottom land as the sun set.
Or, if she took the car, she could be almost to the ranch in Texas, out in the hill country in time for supper. Would Grandma have made soup? She could taste the warmth of cream and onions, celery and potatoes, punctuated with black pepper as the air conditioner in the office kicked back on. The taste of the soup still in her memory, she shivered as frigid air poured down on her from the vent above her desk.
If she were to drive to the airport instead of making her commute to work, she would fly across the whole western US and be in California or Oregon. She would go back in time, and it would still be early there. Early enough to take a long walk and have tea before supper. Then they'd all go down to the beach and remove their shoes, even though it would be too cold to walk barefoot. She could feel the sand between her toes.
It was then she realized she had kicked of her Vaneli heels and was digging her toes into the gray carpet under her desk.
Where does your writer's wanderlust take you? What happens when you return? Are you able to appreciate your present surroundings more fully for having explored other places, real or your in imagination?
What would you write the folks the back home about what you have seen, heard, or experienced in your travels? All the room you have is on the back of a postcard. What would you write?
Image: Road in the Ozarks
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