A wise old story teller told me that being a writer is like being a mother; once it’s happened you are always that even though you may do other things.
If you’ve been reading my posts for a while, you’ll know I go on a bit about Neil Gaiman’s analogy of the Map and the Mountain to describe my writer’s journey. As long as I keep my eyes on my mountain, all paths will take me there sooner or later.
Much joy comes from looking back at my footprints and making sense and patterns of the skipping and hopping, the times bogged in quicksand, the tools and helpers that bring me back to the path. I am especially interested in the unexpected kinks and twists where to the outside observer nothing seems to be happening (ugh writer’s block), but internally my map is recalibrating, transforming, updating with roads newly built to take me on the next leg.
The past year has been a bit like that for me; a shift from learning to navigate with a UBD roadmap to following the GPS. (Directions made even more indecipherable when teenagers change the accent of the GPS narrator and refuse to teach me how to change it back.)
Turning left, right, left to get my bearings; getting myself out of deadends; forgetting to fill the petrol tank; yes, I’ve lost sight of the mountain a few times (hidden by dark clouds, mist and fog, or mistaken for a mere hill). But, then, signposts appear, illuminated by the sun, reminding me: look up, look ahead, remember what happened. Remember who I became, am, becoming.
Keep going.
Stories published, kind reviews, a Queensland Writers Fellowship. And today, a little Q & A was posted by the Queensland Literary Awards about what I’ve been reading and writing these past months since being awarded the QWF.
“Creativity has its seasons: the sprouting of story seeds, the rapid flourishing of words on the page, editing the story for submission and publication, and restoration and replenishment.”
(I enjoy my overegged writing metaphors…)
Kali Napier 