The Soul of Place
: A Creative Writing Workbook: Ideas and Exercises for Conjuring the Genius
Loci
Linda
Lappin
June
22, 2015
9781609521035,
160952103X
Publisher:
Travelers’ Tales/Solas House
$16.95
USD, $20.99 CAD, £11.99 GBP, €12.99 EUR
256
pages
Visiting
a place and posting a pic online is one of the first orders of travel. The next is writing a blog and the more
adventurous write travel books. How many
of us actually capture what is called the genius
loci, the soul of the place?
The Soul of Place
- A Creative Writing Workbook:
Ideas and Exercises for Conjuring the Genius Loci is the long title of Linda Lapin’s book.
Essentially, it is a guidebook designed for writers
and other creatives as to how to go about capturing the power of a place. How do you capture the spirit of your
hometown or a destination?
That she has boiled down the essence of this challenge, and
how to fix it, into 256 pages is remarkable.
Material gathered over many years’ of research into “place consciousness”
is used as the basis for the work based on observation and writing exercises.
Lappin asks: If the soul of place had a voice, how would it
sound, what stories would it tell?
She notes how D.H. Lawrence remarked that a view of a place
was not only beautiful but it also had meaning.
One of the themes of Lawrence’s fiction was the sacred link between
identity and place and the devastation that follows when that link is broken,
contaminated or exploited for economic gain.
“Are there places that give you a sense of wholeness and
empowerment, or where you feel really you?
Others where you feel depleted, sad, or anonymous?” Lappin asks as part
of one of the exercises.
This is an ambitious book – taking in everything from food
writing to writing and the unconscious.
It is also practical, as illustrated in the section headed “A final
thought about your writing space”.
I have been trying to make lemon marmalade, a seemingly
simple task but one with hidden nuances that only come known through
practice. The recipe is fine but the art
is in the practice.
Anybody reading The
Soul of Place in search of a simple recipe for recreating a place will by tested. The challenge is to be more sensitive.
Lappin opens the way for writers and other creatives trying
to find their way in. This does require
more than merely flicking a switch and boiling up the ingredients.