The writer’s journey is paved with bumpy roads, sharp turns and many dead ends. If you write to live you are probably paying rent. If you live to write, someone else is probably paying the rent. Having done both, I believe that if you are doing what satisfies you, nature will support you and you will succeed. The real blessing, however, is when you fill up just by doing it.
I once interviewed a Benedictine monk at his abbey in Baltimore, Maryland. An amateur sculptor, he invited me to see his studio in a shed behind the main building. During our frigid walk through the bare March gardens, I asked him what was the aim of his monastic life; What did he hope to accomplish when he could serve so many people who were suffering in the world? A handsome, soft-spoken middle-aged man with a happy face and inner light replied, “It’s not the goal. It’s the journey. My life’s journey is inner and no less difficult than yours.”
In our few hours together he gave me much to ponder about journeys and goals and the vast differences between the two entities writers must deal with, information and wisdom.
For example, while information is a journalist’s lifeline, it is the journalist’s responsibility to get it right. With the myriad of ways to gather information today, getting the facts right should be relatively easy. Tell that to Dan Rather. Maybe yes CBS they would not have rushed to get the story, they would have understood the story correctly.
The fiction writer also has to clarify the facts. A story that takes place in 17th century Japan should taste, feel and smell of the time. The writer has to virtually live the experience as he writes about it. The outward journey is research; the inner journey is beyond verbalization.
The visionary Joseph Campbell defined the archetype of the hero in The hero with a thousand faces. George Lucas took from hero’s journey and gave us Star Wars. They are all inner and outer journeys.
If indeed life is a journey, the writer’s journey is fraught with unique obstacles. Writers are in deep contemplation with their muse (writing), slaying the dragon (rewriting), searching for the Holy Grail (agent or publisher), confronting inner demons (rejection, ego), fighting the dark side (con artists). In Star WarsLuke Skywalker has his Yoda and Obi-Wan for wisdom and courage.
In Matrix, Neo has Morpheus and the Oracle. What do the writers have? Hopefully, our intuition when we listen to it and our perception when we have an open mind.
Writers constantly borrow from other writers, so forgive me if I quote Dr. Wayne Dyer. “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” He actually borrowed it from a monk who died a few thousand years ago. But it does not matter.
In my rush to publish a manuscript, rather than trust my own perception, I was quick to judge and nearly hired a less than honorable literary agent. The discovery backed me up. When I started getting emails from other writers who had the same experience with the same scammers, I started to see the humor in them. My narrow perception of the incident gradually opened to a panorama.
It’s interesting how the big picture tends to reveal just how small and insignificant the cheaters and deceivers really are. But things happen on everyone’s journey. Whether they are creatures of a genius’s imagination, or our own uncertainties on those slippery curves in the road, there will always be the dark side. We cannot know how near or far the goal is. We know that information without wisdom is dangerous. And it is the journey that makes us wise.
