Dipping the Quill Deeper: Along the Road to Getting Lost in Writing

by Eva Marie Everson @EvaMarieEverson

When all’s said and done, all roads lead to the same end. So it’s not so much which road you take, as how you take it. ~~Charles de Lint, Dutch-Canadian author of fantasy fiction

I search for quotations about writing by published authors and am so often moved by a particular quote that I feel the urge to share it. Simultaneously, I feel the need to research the author ‘lest I upset the masses.

“God is love” quoted by a current celebrity does not pack the same punch to the heart as when read in its original text written by the apostle John. 

Yet, at the same time, I find myself wondering why we often focus more on the one quoting as the actual quote. For example, I wanted to make certain not to offend anyone with the above quote, so I did a little research on de Lint, who is known for his mystical fiction. If I have offended anyone who doesn’t like fantasy fiction (because I know you are out there), forgive me … but the lines lead me to a point.

I recently took a car trip with a friend who shall remain nameless (unless, of course, she wishes to admit her identity in the comments below). Before setting out, we entered our destination in the car’s GPS and waited for the automated voice to tell us to “drive 100 feet and turn left.” After hearing the words, the car was put in drive and off we went! 

You should note that, according the to GPS, the drive to our destination was 2.5 hours in time-distance. According to our personal estimations (we had studied a Google map earlier in the day), this was correct. All systems were go and on point … as were we.

Two and a half hours later we heard the anticipated words: You have arrived at your destination. Only we hadn’t arrived at our destination. We were slap in the middle of some stranger’s farmland! We’d been so involved in our conversation and the sheer enjoyment of our friendship (not to mention the beauty of the landscape around us), we hadn’t noticed that something wasn’t quite right. Towns we should have driven through never materialized. Road signs that should have specified various locations as being upcoming … didn’t. Landmarks we expected to see simply were not there. 

To be honest, upon realizing that we were, quite frankly, lost … I began to laugh. After all, the joy was in the journey (to quote from another source), not in the destination. And so it was that, another 2.5 hours later (for we were way off course), we arrived where we’d intended to be all along. A little tired to be sure, but oh, but what we would have missed!

Charles de Lint understands this—we can roadmap our writing all we want. We can think we know where a project is going and head in that direction. We can believe our characters (or our subject matter) and plot points will fall in line with our plans. And, if we stick with that notion, we’ll miss out on so much! 

The writer’s mind is not like any other. Give us a single topic and watch how far we go with it. Give us a single subject or object—let’s say a wedding dress—and one author will turn that piece of fabric into a romantic novel while another will smear it with blood and turn it into a clue in a murder case. Still another will make it the focal point in the lives of five women who live in 1950s Chicago (Five Brides, Tyndale). 

When writing, let your mind go! Draw up the road map if you must (you planners) because, in the end it will help get you where you eventually want to be. But at the same time, allow yourself to get lost in the conversations, in the landscapes … in the sheer enjoyment of the moments along the way.

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Dipping the Quill Deeper: Along the Road to Getting Lost in Writing - @EvaMarieEverson on @EdieMelson (Click to Tweet)

Eva Marie Everson is the multiple award-winning and bestselling author of over 35 books, both fiction and nonfiction. She is the president of Word Weavers International and the director of Florida Christian Writers Conference and North Georgia Christian Writers Conference. Eva Marie and her husband make their home in Central Florida where they enjoy a lake view, their children, and grandchildren. They are owned by a very small dog.