Voice, Process and Robert Frost

1941

I was meandering around my collection of notebooks with quotes within their pages and stumbled across this piece of gold:

I never write except with a writing board. I've never had a table in my life. And I use all sorts of things. Write on the sole of my shoe.

~ Robert Frost~ (1874-1963)

circa. 1910

This made me question myself not only as a writer and my craft of writing, but also my overall ambition and drive. Virginia Woolf exclaimed that every writer (especially women) needs a room of their own. In Frost's case not having a table wasn't his point. No doubt having the finances to purchase a table was not the issue. Rather he thought outside the box and figured out what worked for him.

Robert Frost's personal life was riddled with grief and loss. His father died of tuberculosis, when Frost was 11, his mother died of cancer in 1900. In 1920, Frost had to commit his younger sister to a mental hospital, where she died nine years later. Mental illness plagued Frost's family, he and his mother suffered from depression. His daughter was committed to a mental hospital in 1947. Frost's wife, Elinor, also experienced bouts of depression. They had six children. Their son Elliot died of cholera, their other son Carol, committed suicide. Their daughter Marjorie in 1934, died after childbirth, and daughter Elinor Bettina died three days after her birth in 1907. Only Lesley and Irma outlived their father. Frost's wife, who had heart problems throughout her life, developed breast cancer in 1937, and died of heart failure in 1938.

He lived a life filled with much sadness and no doubt found it a challenge to find time to write. He did what Hemingway said to do: "Work every day. No matter what has happened the day or night before, get up and bite on the nail." Frost did this and will remain a positive influence on writers everywhere for years to come. Frost was honored with four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry so it's really not worth mentioning that his way really did work for him. Many have looked to one of his most famous poems for the answer.

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

~

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same.

~

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way.

I doubted if I should ever come back.

~

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Instead of this poem being about the regrets, one may have perhaps thought it's about Frost's way of living life. He took the road less traveled and it made all the difference. He used what worked for him, such as the sole of his shoe. A small less traveled part of his craft, his process, but one that worked and made him revolutionary.

No matter our situation, station, financial income, do we each, as writers, demand a process to encourage and nourish our voices? I certainly have not done this for myself. I write when ever and where ever I can. I've mentioned before, I write while cooking dinner and while giving my toddler a bath. Although the writing manages to get done (mostly) it's not nearly as often or as creatively motivated as I feel it should be. I still have that ache, that inner moan of unfulfilled passion.


When I went away to Wellspring House in Massachusetts I had that room of my own. It was quiet. It had amazing natural light. It had a nice view. It was comfortable. It was inspiring. I felt free to write in my way, my voice, my process. I have not managed to create that kind of space for myself within my home or my daily life.

Then this got me thinking about other writers we are all familiar with and their process as writers. Such as where they wrote. Frost used a writing board like the one seen here.

Jane Austen described her writing as being done with a fine brush on a "little bit (not two inches wide) of ivory".

Emily Dickinson used a table similar to Jane Austin. Small, confined and alone. Emily wrote at night when everyone else was asleep, however, Jane wrote sometimes in a full room.

Hemingway always had a work space. He hand wrote prose and stood at his typewriter for the dialogue.

My point is, each writer has not only their voice, but their process that in part creates their voice. Right now, as I write this, I'm laying in bed, it's past one o'clock in the morning and everyone is asleep, my husband is six inches away with a pillow over his face. Will my voice say, I'm a writer with no process? Worse still will I have no voice of my own due to no room of my own?

Jack London said: "You can't wait for inspiration you have to go after it with a club."

My club is in hand and I'm going to go after it!