The Writer’s Wanderlust is not about physical travel. For starters, I’m not a huge traveler. It’s not that I don’t love new sights, sounds, and adventures, I just don’t like the process of getting there. I don’t like packing and unpacking, the long ride or drive to the destination, and my sensitivities always need a day or two to recover from the changing atmospheres. Overall, I’m nobody’s favorite travel companion because I would much rather teleport myself to the destination than spend 16+ hours in a conveyance contraption. The only thing I do like about travel is who or what I might encounter when I’m least expecting it. I don’t mean celebrity sightings (though a real-life glimpse of Michael B. Jordan would be nice) but instead, the everyday people whose adventure collides with mine even if just for a moment. The waitress at the mom-n-pop, the nomad whose dog is tired, the young adult chasing his lover. I imagine that any of these people could become a profound footnote in the story of my life like *The stranger on the Greyhound bus was later discovered to be the winner of a Nobel Peace Prize on the way to collect her award. However, it’s more likely that they will simply become the inspiration for the wanderlust journey happening between me and my writing. It’s an adventure outside of what I had planned to write. Instead, the writing finds me.
These moments and chance encounters, for writers, become the catalyst for character development, plot rising, foreshadowing (my favorite), and all manners of literary devices. What appears to have been a normal day is set ablaze by the tiny unknowings that dance seductively between the writer and this character who may not have a name and doesn’t reappear other than metaphors or juxtaposition. The stranger on the train has no idea, even years from now when they pick up a copy of the writing that was inspired by the way they flipped through a magazine without looking at the pages, that they threw a loop in my plans and inspired me into a writer’s wanderlust.
Writer’s wanderlust is the opposite of writer’s block. Where writer’s block is being stuck and waiting for the writing to reveal itself, writing wanderlust is the embrace of every line, word, inspiration, and idea. There is no care for how bad the writing might be or how convoluted it all sounds. Like travelers on the road, you simply partake and allow everything, everyone, and every moment to be an inspiration. Then, you dive into the tale with all fury and animation. Who is the woman with the orange pants and polka-dotted overcoat? Why is that man holding back tears with his coffee? Is that young girl running from home or running back to it? Conversations you can have if you’re brave enough to engage or stories you get to write when your writing wanders.
What’s most intriguing about the writer’s wanderlust is that there is no lane. The sci-fi writer can become a poet, the romance enthusiast finds mystery, the contemporary blogger gets lost in a dystopia. Yet, because there is no goal to achieve or deadline for an editor, there are no rules about how you write or who for. You simply, with lust for your passion, wander into whatever writing avenue tickles your fancy. For once and maybe for once in a very long time, you write for yourself again; for the love of writing again.
My writer’s wanderlust, much like the only thing I like about actual wanderlust, is fueled by the thrill of the unknown. Though I dislike the lines at the airport or the shared air of carrier buses, I welcome the adventure that is — going from one place to another while opening myself up to the possibilities of Que Sera, Sera. In my writing, I embrace the chance to put down my editor’s to-do list or my due-dated assignments and wander around in the unexplored spaces of my own creativity. Even if the stops I make on the way have no correlation to my destination, I get to the footnotes and unplanned commentary. It is within writer’s wanderlust that I find the adventure of writing again.
About the Author
Paula Michelle Gillison is a Richmond performance artist and writer. Her work has been published by the Billie Holiday Theater and YHMAB. She is a member of the Writer’s Den, Tuesday Verses, Slam Richmond, and teaches at Life in Ten Minutes. Her blog “For Lack of Better Words” is read internationally. The author of “Under” and “Parables & The Gold Plated Things,” she is currently completing a book of short stories and a self-help guide entitled “So Shall You Slay”