Stories. These are how we make sense of our world. And every story, whether a news story, a sports event, a historical drama or a fantasy epic, has certain elements so familiar that we don’t even really think about them. There are heroes and villains, inciting incidents (what started the story), all kinds of steps forward and back and sideways, and a resolution. And there is a setting, a place or places where it all happens.
Place has been a focus for my research, my writing, and my musings for many years, and recent events have served to bring this into ever sharper relief. The ubiquity of the internet has led us to think that place doesn’t really matter, after all, we can virtually visit any place on Earth and beyond. This of course is an amazing gift and can open our eyes to sights, ideas, and stories we could never otherwise access or imagine. But seeing something on a screen is not the same thing as breathing that air, feeling that soil beneath our feet, as ‘being’ there. Presence matters. Place matters. My laptop doesn’t care where I am, but my soul does. Place isn't just ‘space’; it’s history, culture and people. It’s myth and meaning. It’s what makes home, home.
It’s been a while since my last blog post, a whole summer in fact. However, I have made good use of this time; I have this summer shifted into a whole new ‘place’. In the most literal sense, I have moved over 4,000 miles from Canada’s Pacific Northwest to a quiet market town in the heart of the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire, England – a place where my head and my heart have lived for many years. It’s taken awhile for the rest of me to catch up, but it is absolutely worth it. In a more metaphorical sense, I am also shifting into a whole new place with my writing. I’ve moved away from the ivory towers of academia and into a more grounded place where myth and magic, history and heroes, live in the very landscape.
Here, I wake up to a story as old as the earth, to the wind fluttering through trees, whispering ancient secrets and up-to-date weather reports. I wake up to birdsong, the busy twittering of swifts, the raucous laughter of gulls, the staccato utterances of magpies. I wake up to stories.
I feel an immense sense of freedom here, and belonging. For many decades, my life has revolved around journal metrics and gatekeeping and a constant undercurrent of anxiety over lesson plans, deadlines, and grading, over ‘publish or perish’, tenure, and petty (and sometimes not so petty) office politics and pressure. Now, as a recovering academic, I have come to understand that those aren’t the heart of learning. We had – I had – forgotten that what really matter is the truth of connection, of narrative, of stories.
This doesn’t mean that I’ve given up on research and rigour in my writing. I still love research and learning, the thrill of detective work and discovery. Authenticity still matters, but now my focus is more on the stories within the stories, the history and myths that inform our each and every step, each and every day. Where the story takes place is central to so many other things: flora and fauna, culture and customs, wildlife and wonder and all the things that add depth to our sense of place. Our conscious minds may not be aware of this, but our souls are.
My main creative project over the past year and going forth is my first full-length fictional work, a cozy historical fantasy set in the17th century Scottish Highlands. Throughout the writing of this, I have meticulously researched every aspect of the setting – the language, music, knowledge, food, flora, fauna, and more are all based on the history, climate, cosmology, mythology and innate magic of the Highlands.
I now have a complete first draft of this book, although the editor in me knows there is still work to be done. In future blogs, we will explore various aspects of the writing process, including such things as story structure, authenticity, emotion, and the importance of research, resilience, and perseverance. I am at the point where I need to take a deep breath and wade into the querying trenches in search of an agent and publication. I am well aware that this is likely to be a long and possibly very difficult journey, but as my main character herself discovers, the only way to understand the destination is to go on the journey.
And so this is my new direction and my new place, my new story, or at least a new chapter. I look forward to sharing these stories with you in the coming months from my new Forest home.
