“It was at this point that Bilbo stopped. Going on from there was the bravest thing he ever did. The tremendous things that happened afterwards were as nothing compared to it. He fought the real battle in the tunnel alone, before he ever saw the vast danger that lay in wait.” – J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit
The road goes ever on and on, or so we are reminded in Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring. Not one of us knows the path in its entirety, nor the ultimate destination (though we may have plans and expectations). We don’t know the bridges washed away or the new ones built in their place, the dangers and surprises, the joys and rewards, the obstacles that stand in our way. We cannot know the pain we will suffer, the misery we will endure, or the beauty of hidden vales and treasured halls. We can have no way of knowing what failures we will suffer, what companions we will lose along the way. Nor can we begin to hazard a guess at those who find special places in our hearts and in our company. For life is indeed a journey, fraught with great peril and built on the courage to move one furry foot before the other and trusting in the Fellowship we build around us.
But what if we fall? How far can we fall and will we be dashed upon the rocks below? Can we enter the dragon’s cave and come away unscathed? The answer is no, we cannot come away unscathed. Like our characters, we writers take risks and with those risks come suffering. With those risks come scars. Yet, like our characters, we grow through these perils, through this adversity. Life is an adventure. Art is an adventure. Writing is an adventure. You cannot come meekly to the empty page. And the very act of writing is to open your soul to the world and bathe in vulnerability. This is, however, the curse of the artist. How does one live both in the realm of art and in the realm of the world?
It would be easy to stay safe in our Hobbit holes, drinking ale and smoking pipeweed, reading stories by the fireplace that other people have written. People do that and they are content. Perhaps that is one of the things that makes the artist different from everyone else, because face it….we ARE different. Stories sing inside my heart and propel me forward, unable to stay long in the Shire. The fires of adventure burn inside my chest, always threatening to consume me and I fear at times that I will be consumed, or that I will choke on the ashes should I dare to stamp it out. I am an artist, I am a writer, as much as I am a human being. This identity is an inseparable union. It is at my core and it both excites and frightens because the mountains always beckon. The road always beckons. There are battles to fight, songs to sing, dragons to face and roads to travel, ever on and on….
Perhaps the only way to retain sanity, to sate this appetite, is to pour every ounce of ourselves into our writing. Hold nothing back, open your veins on the paper and bleed the ink of your soul, your heart, your head, onto the paper. It is both terrifying and exhilarating. It is agonizing and liberating. It is beauty and pain. It is art, it is life.
To truly be a writer, this is the only way and yes….you will suffer scars. You will suffer burns and you will never, ever be the same again. For if you choose to take up the pen, you will suffer the cut of the sword.
The alternative, however, is far worse….a life without risk offers little reward and stories cannot be forged in cold fires.
I hope to see you upon the road, my friends. Perhaps we’ll share a story or two around the fire.
-JPM
