What landscape makes your writing more powerful and authentic?

What kind of landscape am I?

This was a question I asked myself during a writing workshop. I thought I knew the answer, but it turns out I’d no clue.

Heather Walton, author of Not Eden: Spiritual Life Writing for this World, was teaching a workshop I attended at the University of Toronto. She had us go through comparing and contrasting different landscapes to discover what one resonated most.

I loved this exercise, as it’s not only about what you like but also about how the landscape makes you feel. This question is especially pertinent for writers because the landscape you feel most attuned to at any given moment can actually help you be a better writer.

Think about when you go for a walk in the park, and then all sorts of ideas for stories come flooding into your head. Or when you’re in a café in your hood and you suddenly feel like you could move mountains with your writing.

Yes, turns out that “city” is also a landscape, which I definitely think it should be.

Truth is, sometimes I’m a city, while other times I really feel like I’m a forest. But really, a lot of the time I’m a rushing river!

Sometimes you may feel pulled to a certain landscape because it reminds you of where you grew up, while other times that landscape might be just what the story you're working on needs at that time.

In my (other) newsletter Ink & Earth Chronicles I focus on the landscape around my treehouse in the Gatineau Hills surrounded by maples. I sometimes wonder how this naturescape influences my writing, especially given that my senses wake up to all the flowers and other aromas in my midst, particularly in springtime. I've no doubt this landscape brings more immediacy and liveliness to my writing.

So, in the workshop at U of T, I went through the exercise and heard myself blurt out in front of the whole group of writers: “My ideal landscape is a desert!”

Was that me who said this?

I couldn’t believe it as I’d never even been to a desert, and my idea of what one was like was mostly based on movies where people in vintage cars race through barren landscapes beneath big skies, limp cigarettes hanging from their painted lips as they pull into old-timey gas stations.

I’d no idea what the desert was or what it could offer me in the way of writing and creative sustenance.

Speed ahead a few months and I ended up travelling by car from Vancouver, BC to Nevada in the (you guessed it!) desert, writing in a root cellar with a view of a canyon.

Life’s strangely wonderful at times, don't you think?

An opportunity had come up for me to write the second draft of a non-fiction book in a remote area of Nevada and my writey sense (like Spidey sense) jumped at the chance. While there I saw wild horses, antelope, donkeys, and lizards scampering on the dusty ground at my feet! And my writing was as far from arid as you get. In other words, I had lots of words to pour onto the pages of my book, which pleased me no end.

Obviously, most people can’t just pick up and leave their lives and hightail it to the desert or any other landscape their heart might fancy.

However, you can still do something similar from home. I would suggest tuning into the places you find yourself in your every day life and observe how these places may inspire (or un-inspire you).

Let's say you’re working on a series of poems about water, why not find out where the creeks, rivers, or lakes are in your city or town, and pay these places a visit? Actually visiting places that inspire you will provide nourishment for your writing and take you to unexpected places in the imagination that you hadn’t considered or even dreamed of.

Local parks can provide unlimited fodder for your creativity. And so can busy streets and local cafes. So next time you have a bit of time, bring along your notebook or laptop, visit a landscape that calls to you, and sit yourself down to begin writing.

Here’s the exercise that I did to determine my preferred landscape. Try it out and see what you discover about yourself.

1. Choose one of the following as your preferred landscape. Think about what one has meaning for you and why. If the landscape you long for isn't here, then insert your own.

Forest

River

Desert

Mountain

Now write a story of two to three paragraphs featuring you as that element. What do you feel? What do you see? Don’t worry about what the story looks like. The important thing is to capture your impressions as vividly as possible without censoring yourself.

Consider how landscapes help shape your writing and see if you can change up your landscape--even in small ways--to discover how your writing might bloom as a result. Photos by Lissa M. Cowan.