Excerpt
. . . Words have power. They change people. They cause revolutions, both social and personal. They flatter, they please, they move. And they hurt. I have never believed in the old proverb ’sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me.’ Like many others, I learned from experience that like stones, words can be weapons, and they are dangerous. The wrong word can break something inside a person. A stray sentence, overheard by a child, can burrow deep, building layer upon layer of scar tissue around it, changing the course of that child’s life, so that they live every day in reaction to it. As a child I was drawn to words, but I was also afraid of them. Reading helped me to see that like stones, words can be used to create something powerful and beautiful. Much later again, I realised that like a stick used to splint a broken bone, words can also be used to heal.
Writing began as a source of solace in my turbulent young adult years – though looking back now, I see how turgid my creations were. But eventually I began to develop a style, a voice and a small amount of self discipline. I began to understand that writing wasn’t all about inspiration. That becoming a writer was equivalent to agreeing to a lifetime’s apprenticeship. At least 90% of writing is craft based, which involves learning many technical skills – building three dimensional characters, plotting, structuring, exposition, pace, tension, description, dialogue. . .Over time these skills developed. I wrote short stories and travel pieces – some of which were published. I completed a BA in writing and literature and then went on to do an MA in creative writing in Britain. To support myself I began assessing manuscripts for literary agents and publishers in the UK. Then, back in Australia I continued editing, taught creative writing, and eventually went back to my early love - myths and symbols.
Despite many setbacks, I have continued to write, with small successes – publications and grants - luring me on every time I was tempted to give up. Nowhere Man, my first novel, about a homeless man living on the streets of London, was a study of identity and statelessness. It found me agents in the UK and Australia, and was admired and rejected by publishers who believed it was too bleak to sell as a first novel. I wrote another novel, Gathering Storm, less bleak, but still exploring the same themes, this time through family history and genetic inheritance, but also from a broader cultural perspective, in relation to nationhood and citizenship. In seeking the truth about her past, the protagonist, Storm, searches forwards in the form of a journey, backwards into history, to the source of her problems and metaphorically inwards to uncover the wounds which have formed her. As the story unfolds, Storm moves towards an understanding of psychological and physical exile and finally towards resolution of the conflicts within herself. In a way Gathering Storm is a coming-to-self novel. It is a work of fiction but its themes mirror my own.
All my life I have stayed close to storytelling, drawn to it in an irresistible way. Perhaps it was linked in some way to my adoption as a baby, an attempt to articulate a wound that was preverbal. Or my way of not just healing the past, but creating something beautiful from it. I can’t remember the exact moment when I realised that writing can be a healing process. It was a culmination of years of experience as a teacher, editor and writer, which made it clear to me that writing is a cathartic process for many people – a way of expelling or even just looking at the demons that haunt them. The seemingly simple act of framing a story, or understanding the motivation of a single character can challenge the foundations on which a person has lived their life. I became fascinated with the transformative potential of both the process of writing and of story itself. Last year I began a PhD and embarked on another writing journey – this time into non fiction. My thesis, Story: Mapping the Journey to Self, explores the structure of stories and storytelling as metaphors for the inner journeys we make.
What is it that stories give us? What makes them so important in our lives? According to Christopher Vogler in his book, The Writer’s Journey, ’stories have the power to heal, to make the world new again, to give people metaphors by which they can better understand their lives.’
As a child stories provided an escape for me and a window into other ways of living. As an adult they became a mirror in which I could explore myself. Stories are a natural part of us, deeply embedded in our psyche. They impose order on chaos. They enable us to reach out and connect with each other. They provide us with ways of thinking about how to live within our society, helping people to place themselves in relation to the world. And they help us to make life meaningful. Through story we can understand the transitions within our lives, by looking back to see the cause and effects that have led us through time. We can identify those dramatic movements from one stage to another: childhood to adolescence, to adulthood, marriage, the birth of children. . . But we can also look forward and learn to accept through story, the inevitability of the transition into old age and ultimately, death.
On one level stories are pure entertainment. On another level they serve to reinforce the social order and prevailing attitudes. But on a third level, story is subversive, in that its very structure is a map of the process of becoming oneself. As both a reader and a practicing writer I have come to believe that stories are linked to personal evolution, they are metaphoric maps for the developing self. Although stories wear an infinite variety of costumes, there is a fundamental commonality between them. No matter how sophisticated our storytelling has become, how many flashes forward and backwards, how many diversions, there is still a basic structure that can be traced right back to humanity’s earliest stories - and by implication to blueprints of our common psychology. Whatever their genre or medium, many contemporary stories mirror heroic myths, both in their structure and in the elements that make up their plots. Each story involves a character leaving the safety and stasis of their ordinary world and being plunged into a new and dangerous world, one in which they don’t know the rules and where they must undergo a series of adventures. The second stage of the journey involves accepting change – stepping into the abyss with no idea what lies ahead. Like birds we must be willing to fall in order to fly. Risks are taken, and if successful there is a reward of some kind. The final stage involves returning to the ‘ordinary world’, understanding and integrating the reward and using it as is appropriate. A new status quo is reached and the hero has changed in some way.
According to Vogler, ‘The Hero’s Journey and the Writer’s Journey are one and the same. Anyone setting out to write a story soon encounters all the tests, trials, ordeals, joys and rewards of the Hero’s journey. . . Writing is an often perilous journey inward to probe the depths of one’s soul and bring back the Elixir of experience. ‘
The very act of writing is a heroic journey. It changes the writer. It is an act of faith. To write a novel is to descend into the underworld or step into the labyrinth, with only a few clues and no guarantee of a way back out again. To write a novel is to step beyond your limitation, embarking on a journey with no known destination and often no ticket. It’s a dangerous process, exhausting and filled with apprehension, but it’s also a magical journey. Aside from the joys of becoming a mother, I can think of nothing more rewarding.