Andrea MacPherson

This has been an interesting few weeks for me: first, the inevitable shock and awe at my computer crashing, and facing the possibility of books and collections lost; then, the joy of saving the work, and getting a new computer [MacBook Pro - still adjusting]; then a weekend at the Surrey International Writers’ Conference and the Vancouver International Writers’ Fest, where I was forced to consider and articulate my own work; and the publication of my first piece of non-fiction with Prism International. It’s had me thinking about words, and strangely being unable to actually work with those words.

It’s been a slow couple months for me, in terms of my own writing. I assumed this was because of my heavy teaching load this term, and because – of course! – I could scribble in long-hand [as I always do] but not transfer onto computer. This should not have presented a problem, but it did. It was, I now see, a convenient reason not to write. But the better question was: why did I need an excuse at all?

I’m in the throes of trying to finish a draft of a novel, and at the same time am falling slowly in love with the idea for a new novel. I’m in limbo. And, as anyone will tell you, that is not a good place to be. Do I need to commit to one, finish it through? Or can I give myself permission – and the gift – of allowing myself to write what is inspiring me at the moment? To write in hot, fervent flashes of prose that might be good. Or might be complete rubbish.

I heard myself tell 30-ish other writers this weekend that the important thing was to write the story you are passionate about. I heard the words, and then I wondered, why I am not taking my own advice? Perhaps because writing is a craft, it’s work – I know no one wants to hear this – and if I never made myself finish one project before starting the next, I would never complete a chapter, nevermind a whole novel. Passion is wonderful – essential, grand, breathlessly wonderful. But hard work and perseverance, however dull they may sound, really are the thing.

So, a friend of mine informed me that there was another cover using my book image – imagine the shock and horror! I understand the need – it is a beautiful, if melancholy, cover – but it shocked me that they would want to use it. And, to be honest, it’s the second time there has been another book using the image I had agreed to….

I’m told by a certain computer guru friend that he has been able to save the work from my hard drive as well as all the photos archived there. A huge sigh of relief by me. And from others, Why don’t you back up? It’s a question that continues to baffle me – why don’t I?

This weekend means laptop shopping for me – because, while he was able to save my work, he could not save the laptop – and the purchase of something on which to back up. I promise.

My laptop has frozen – completely. Words are trapped in some limbo, grey and sluggish and waiting to be rescued. Say your prayers for me.

We took a trip to Ka’anapali this summer, and when I returned a friend said to me, ‘Well, it must have been relaxing – you wouldn’t have to see any “sites” there’. The assumption, I suppose, being that because it was Hawaii, because it involved a beach and sea and sunshine, and perhaps because it was the States, there was no culture or history there. This surprised me, and got me thinking.

I find travel to be a boundless source of inspiration. I’ve published a collection of travel poems, and most of my fiction owes, in some part, its inspiration to travel. I’m not entirely sure why this is, why I am more comfortable writing about the view down a dormant volcano than the view from my kitchen window [where, sadly, the geraniums are coming to an end]. Perhaps it’s the surprise of a new place, a new culture, being bumped up against something surprising. Each place I visit leaves some sort of fingerprint on me, smudged and sticky, regardless of its locale. Tropical, dusty, rainy – it makes no difference to me.

When we were in Nuevo Vallarta last year, I didn’t write about the sea, or about the way the palms lined the walk, but about the Feast of Guadalupe, and the way the streets bulged with white. And this time, coming home from Maui, I had a poem about a missionary’s wife and the gift of a commode tucked in my pocket.