This Writer’s Life – It’s Like Refolding a Map

by Melissa Corliss DeLorenzo

maps Remember maps? The paper ones you kept in the glove compartment of your car. I recall we had ones for most of the New England states, one of the entire country, New York, some West Coast maps used on a trip down the Pacific Coast Highway and a bunch from Colorado left over from when we lived there. Now more often than not, we rely on driving directions gleaned from websites, car navigation systems or my husband’s mobile phone.

I was never particularly adept at readings maps. This is an understatement as I actually can’t find anything on a map. Even on a mall map where there is the you are here red star, I still have no idea where I am or how to get to where I want to go. In fact, I mostly learn how to navigate my way around by being lost first. Often, if we are lost (which happens less and less with navigation tools), I have been known to say, “Wait, I think I have been lost here before,” and that’s how I get found again. Something suddenly becomes clear or recognizable somehow.

Maybe because it’s a state I have found myself in frequently, but I think there is value in being lost. There is a lovely process of getting un-lost that can be quite revelatory. Sort of where I find myself now with my manuscript. My characters have meandered into corners, wandered down dead ends and I can see one or two specks far out on the horizon speeding away from me. But maybe being lost is not such a bad place – maybe being lost will reveal aspects of my characters and the novel as a whole that I may not have been able to see if I’d had a map all along.

The charming and interesting things about those maps is the process of being stuck behind them, swathed in a huge sheet of paper, and, of course, refolding them. Recently, as I was schlepping the groceries into the house, my twins got into the glove compartment and opened up a number of maps. Honestly, I’d forgotten they were even in there. (The maps, not the kids.) I was tempted to ditch them (again, the maps, not the kids) into the recycling bin rather than attempt to refold them. That is an artful skill, to be able to refold a map. But, I realized as I gave it a go, simple and almost ruminant if you just take your time and follow the creases that are already there, waiting for you to find them.

Have you gotten lost in writing a piece? How did you find your way out? And how did being lost impact the shape of the work?

Book Giveway!
Hey, don’t forget about our upcoming book giveaway. Read The Writer’s Life Q&A with Catherine Gildiner on November 3rd, share your thoughts and qualify to win a copy of her book, After the Falls: Coming of Age in the Sixties! See the announcement for details.

Melissa Corliss DeLorenzo is a writer, reader, yogini (when she can squeeze it in), mom, part-time Office Manager, a homemaker and the Coordinator and Writer for The Writer’s Life blog. She loves to cook and take long walks with her kids and is a woman who wants to meaningfully exchange and intersect with other women writers. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature from the University of Massachusetts and a Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. Currently she works at a web development company (because part-time Office Manager buys more groceries than Struggling Writer). She is at work on a novel and a short story collection. Melissa lives in North Central Massachusetts with her family.