Drifting but not directionless

The writing road

My eyes shot open when I heard it—something large and nosey sniffing around outside the tent. I sat up alert, staring into darkness and listening to the snorts of what I assumed was a man-eating bear. I thought maybe Zena was sleeping through it, until the animal nudged her side through the tent and she sprung up and into my arms, like a Looney Tunes character who’d been poked by a sharp cactus. “It’s ok, it’s ok, it’s ok,” I repeated, talking out loud to convince myself and, I hoped, scare off the animal. It worked. I listened to the silence for confirmation of its retreat—silence that was cut off by Zena’s hysterical laughter.

“We were so scared,” she laughed, and rolled onto her sleeping bag.

—

I woke up to the sound of a golf cart rolling along the gravel, then a man shouting a suspicious greeting. We’d gotten to the campsite after dark, having taken our sweet time digging for salt crystals in Oklahoma, and we didn’t pay. Honestly, we meant to. But there was a sense that no one had been to these woods in ages. Probably one of us would have succumbed to a moral tug and left money in the box on our way out. But the man beat us to it.

Zena was already up, being one of those people who could seemingly survive happily on five hours of sleep, likely sitting at the leaf-littered table writing poems in her notes app. I listened to their exchange through the tent walls. His gruff voice, like gravel in buttermilk, accusing us of being like the hippies in their Subarus who come and split without dropping a dime; Zena’s smokey Cleveland accent reassuring him. From my sleeping bag, I heard the man softening towards her courteous charm. She gave him the money and off he rolled.

It was our last day on the road. By evening, we’d be back in Cincinnati, eating the rest of our tinned fish before the poetry reading. I was hungry and determined to get one more idyllic meal in, but we overshot our mountain man diner and ended up at an old breakfast restaurant in St. Louis. At the table, I pulled out my notebook and tried to make sense of what I’d written during the trip. There wasn’t much. We’d promised to read only from words we’d composed from the road. I had nine hours to come up with them.

—

We were on mile 1,500 of our trip when I finally asked Zena to drive. She’d offered earlier, but I’d wanted to feel the pull of the deep midwest from behind the wheel. Now, prairies behind us, I took out my laptop and began typing away in the passenger’s seat in between bouts of conversation. When we switched back, I dictated the rest of the travel essay out loud while Zena typed. I felt fortunate I was able to finish from the wobbly front seat of a 2004 CR-V, but not surprised. The freedom of the road had me inspired, filled me with ideas and creative energy that I was desperate to let out. If I was capable of writing this essay while fighting off mild car sickness, I was sure a book-length work was within reach as soon as I had the chance to sit still at my desk.

“Can I tell you about three book ideas I have?” I asked. “I don’t know where to start.”

We were just hours away from returning to Cincinnati now. After the reading, Zena would zoom off to Cleveland and our whirlwind trip would be over. Both of us were looking beyond this dreamy voyage and wondering what would come next. From behind the wheel again I shared three concepts, my shy explanations interspersed with many “likes” and “yeahs.” It’s sort of humiliating to share a dream, but I knew Zena was a safe space.

When I finished, she was looking over at me with her big, earnest eyes. “I think you should do all three,” she said. “In that order.”

Roadtrips are a mix of certainty and the unknown. The road itself is unwavering, the direction incessant. But on that route anything could happen—a big rig could roll, rain could pour, a nosy feral hog could scare you shitless. I enjoy pivoting around such surprises. I know where I’m headed and I’ll make it there rain or shine.

Back home, empowered by that feeling, I sat down to write My Book. The process was very official to me. I walked to my favorite book store and bought a new notebook, even though I have a massive stack of empty ones already in a drawer. I joined a writing group that meets in the mornings to work on projects for two hours first thing. I cleared the clutter from the antique writing desk in the living room and made that my Book Office.

But I have never been organized enough for perfect consistency. I sleep too late and miss half the writing group, I forget about the notebook and write messy ideas in my notes app instead. At every detour I falter. When the feral pigs of book writing strike there is no one to laugh me out of my fear.

I think I’ll always fail to meet my perfect standards of practice. Luckily the standards aren’t the work itself. And whose creative practice even fits into a neat little package? Melissa Broder, for instance, has written multiple novels by dictating a draft on walks or drives.

Even when I think i’m not moving, the direction is still there. It doesn’t look picturesque, but mile by mile I make my way.