Writer’s Map Fraught with Peril

Inspired by my reading list this month, I made a map to illustrate my writing angst.  (Click on it to enlarge):



Anybody been here?

As you can see, the most direct path to the Shangri-la of Creative Genius is through the Hardwork Hills and the mountainous (or should I say monotonous?) Revision Range.  This path is rigorous and challenging – one needs a lot of stamina to stay on the trail. 

            Most writers, I would guess, take alternate routes due to responsibilities, diversions, and frustrations from false starts.  Such scenic routes eventually intersect with the Road to Revision, a crossroads where we choose to stay on the current well-worn path of our lives or turn back onto the bumpy, dirty road of our creativity. 

"No Direction in Life" Book List

This is my complete February Reading List - sorry to post so late.  Check out my March Reading List which I plan to post by March 8^th.

·    New Release : The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet, by Reif Larsen; Penguin Press 2009.  What better way to find my direction than by reading a book about a boy cartographer?

·    Classic: Gulliver’s Travels, by Jonathan Swift; The Easton Press, 1976.  This was the only book that T.S.’s great-great-great grandfather read other than the bible.

·    Nonfiction: You Are Here: Personal Geographies and Other Maps of the Imagination, by Katherine Harmon, Princeton Architectural Press, October 1, 2003.  T.S. mapped his personal geographies from how to climb a mountain to shake hands with God, to the flow of dinner conversation at home, to his top-nine favorite movies and their thematic relationships.  A great way to discover my own personal geography.

·    Juvenile: S is for Smithsonian: American’s Museum Alphabet, by Marie and Roland Smith, Illustrated by Gijsbert van Frankenhuyzen; Sleeping Bear Press, 2010.  T.S. is going to the Smithsonian to receive the Baird Award.  I thought this alphabet book would be too easy for my seven- and nine-year olds, but I soon found that even I had a lot to learn from the informative text.  Fascinating stuff.

·    Self-improvement:  Maps of the Imagination: The Writer as Cartographer, by Peter Turchi; Trinity University Press, 2004.  Turchi, a writer, uses the extended metaphor of writing as mapping the world of story. 

Review of The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet

On many trips to the book store I have picked up and examined Reif Larsen’s The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet, only to put it down again.  The diagrams and pictures on the pages I leafed through were certainly appealing.  The premise about a twelve year old cartography prodigy hopping a train cross country to the Smithsonian to receive the prestigious Baird award was original, but would the story be compelling and were those illustrations in the margins merely a gimmick to get me to buy a mediocre book?

            As it turns out, I didn’t buy the book, but I did borrow it from the library.  I guess I’m like my kids – a sucker for pretty pictures.  What I discovered was that the charts, maps, and diagrams were oh so much more than illustrations of the text.  These wonderful tidbits in the margins enriched the book, serving as a means to develop characters, drop in back story, explain historical and scientific references, highlight symbolism, and overall make me fall in love with quirky, young T.S.