Wilderness is not an extravagance or a luxury, it is a place of original memory where we can witness and reflect on how the world is held together by natural laws.
-Terry Tempest Williams
For writers the unknown territory always looms.
The idea or the story lurk somewhere in the desert, on the prairie, high on a mountain, or in the backyard of the mind.
How do individuals move into those areas of wildness and live at the edges of the mysterious?
Where do writers learn to extend the boundaries of the self?
Creativity and the resulting writing require the permission to be lost. In A Field Guide to Getting Lost, Rebecca Solnit explains, "One does not get lost but loses oneself, with the implication that it is a conscious choice, chosen surrender, a psychic state achievable through geography."
Solnit continues, "That thing the nature of which is totally unknown is usually what you need to find, and finding it is a matter of getting lost."
Awareness achieves results.
Annie Dillard advises - keep your "shutter" open.
Ask nature a question and write about it.
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