The Wonder of Creative Writing

L.M. Montgomery, author of many famous titles including Anne of Green Gables, has touched and inspired my heart in so many ways it would take a book to share all her influences on my own writing. If I had been around in her day, I dare say we would have been good friends. 

When asked to write the story of her career, Maud laughed. She thought a career should be something ‘exciting’ and ‘spectacular’ and although she eventually experienced some of those moments, she had many years when the business of writing was a ‘monotonous struggle’. None the less, she shared her story in a series of essays for a woman’s magazine that later became a wonderful booklet The Alpine Path – The Story of my Career. For those interested, it is available at many good bookstores. 

L.M. Montgomery calls the writing experience a pilgrimage. Many of us share her view. We are pilgrims on an alpine path—one that is often hard and steep. As every writer knows, the journey has many ups and downs, twists and turns and although there are many battles and sometimes moments of discouragement, we must dust ourselves off when we fall, get back on our feet and continue that upward climb. For one day, if we don’t give up, we will reach our ‘aerial spires’ to our ‘City of Fulfilment.’

Writers will usually tell you that writing is a passion—something we must do. Writers cannot help but write. There is a burning in our hearts. Dreams and voices fill our minds awake and asleep. And once a story takes seed and we begin to nurture and water it with research and other sources of inspiration and training, that germ turns into a bud and eventually becomes a full-blown rose.

There are many ‘kindred spirits’ on the path to help us along through their teaching and own creative works. All writers know, we must read books to write them and study techniques to sharpen our craft. Then there is inspiration—a beautiful cascading wave. It may take on a new shape, colour or momentum but like the sea, it continues to roll on and spark creativity in another. It is the gift that keeps on giving. In that way, the career of writing is not so lonely as one might think. Writers often support each other. We can attend a book launch, a writing course, join a social media writers’ group. Today there is so much more available to help us on our journey.

 It has been said, we need stories. Narratives are essential to human life. Flowing through all creation is a story that branches off into many directions. It is a gift that cannot be quelled or denied—even in the worst of times or in the quiet slumbers of the night. Breathings of imagination, sometimes hidden, are waiting for the first spark to catch fire in the cavern of a creative soul.

 As poet William Wordsworth advised: “Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.” And as L. M. Montgomery wrote, “We must follow our airy voices…” We must not lose heart through the difficult times or let anything ‘lure us from our quest’. Dedication will eventually bring reward. Books will blossom from our labour.

 

 AWAKENINGS

I

The inner musescape

asleep for a century—

once shrouded

in briar and thorn—

now rises   trembling

amid the dance

of sun on leaf,

and leaf on rose...

II

Joy leaps   looking back

when shattered mirror

fell upon the earth

and golden tear

melted frozen heart;

when the Artist's key

slipped inside the lock

and opened Vision

to a world— where Truth

and Beauty   humbly walk.

— Cindy L Spear —

“The Alpine path, so hard, so steep—
That leads to heights sublime.
L .M. Montgomery”

Anne of Green Gables Dress Up