I am often asked about how I created the story of COMPASS NORTH.  There really isn’t one simple answer.  Most writers will tell you that much in their stories emerges as they write.  For example, when I was writing the scene about Meredith first arriving in Homer, Rita just appeared.  There was Meredith, sitting in the diner wondering what was going to come next, and suddenly a very cranky elderly lady materialized in the parking lot.  I hadn’t planned for Rita to be there, but as I wrote the scene, there she was.  It’s always a bit of writer magic when that happens.

The general idea for COMPASS NORTH, though, arose a very specific source.  In the terrible tragedy of 9/11, scores of people died, and many of them were lost without a trace in the conflagration that occurred.  Their friends and families grieved for them without having any physical evidence of their death.  And yet, it’s certainly likely that some who worked in and around the World Trade Center just happened to be away from the scene at the time the planes hit.  Perhaps someone had gone out for coffee, or was delayed by traffic and late for work that day.  For most people, escaping such a horrible fate would be followed by a joyous reunion with their loved ones.  But what if...what if the person who barely escaped was terribly unhappy?  Isn’t it possible that as a sudden opportunity arose to disappear, that person might be tempted to slide away from a life of misery?  And there are other calamitous accidents where escape into a new life might be possible.  What about the sinking of a large ship on the open ocean?  Passengers might be lost and never accounted for.  My mind started to play with the idea of a terribly unhappy person suddenly presented with an unexpected opportunity for a new start.

I believe that there are monstrous moments in everyone’s life, periods of time when despair seems insurmountable.  For some unfortunate people, this deep well of unhappiness may look so bottomless and hopeless that the act of walking away, turning their back on their life, may seem like the only option.  

But of course that’s not an easy path to take in today’s world of global connectivity.  That’s where Alaska comes in.  Alaska is certainly not a wasteland or the end of the world, but there are places in Alaska where arrangements that are “off the grid” can be made.  (I think these types of arrangements can be found all over the world, but they are easier to accomplish in remote locales.)  

So put these pieces together--a catastrophic tragic accident, a desperately unhappy person, and a place where the opportunity for reinvention just might exist--and there is the genesis of COMPASS NORTH.

In COMPASS NORTH, Merry takes up pottery.  Those passages lean heavily on my personal experience in the past four years or so, as I’ve plunged my hands into clay and tried to throw on the wheel and hand build ceramics at Pottery Northwest in Seattle.

I’m not very good at it.  In fact, some of my efforts are downright embarrassing.  It’s always a bit of a surprise when pieces come out of the glaze kiln.  In the last firing, the bowl I expected to be a rich ruddy red turned out to be a subdued green.  But I still get great pleasure from pulling out my bag of clay and starting a new project.  Working with clay teaches me patience (a lesson I constantly need to revisit) and is wonderfully contemplative, even if the results sometimes aren’t what I’d expected.

I’ve had a similar history with yoga.  I’ve been doing yoga on and off for decades.  I’m convinced I will never be better than an “experienced beginner”--my term, which means that I do know enough not to hurt myself, at least most of the time.  Lynne, my yoga teacher, would frown at me if she heard me say that I will never attain a high level of competence in yoga.  She would consider that negative thinking. In fact, although I enjoy class, I lurk at the back of the room with the other stiff people.  Yoga helps me avoid a sore spine and shoulders, but I don’t think I’ll ever float through a graceful sun salute. (Sorry, Lynne.)

But I’m often reminded of the power of doing things I don’t do well.  As adults, I think we sometimes get too comfortable with being competent.  We like doing things we are good at, and we are hesitant to jump into new activities, because we know we won’t do them with expertise right away.  When we’re younger, we’re accustomed to the learning cycle--we understand that when we start something new, we’re not good at it right away.  A lot of practice and failure goes into learning something new, and maybe we’ll never be expert at it.  Maybe we’ll just muddle along and enjoy it.  As an adult, I’ve found that accepting this reality is challenging, and it frequently requires me to check my ego at the door (which isn’t a bad thing).  Sometimes I have to remind myself that the pleasure I get from working with clay or dropping into a downward dog isn’t conditioned on my attaining perfection. 

It’s a lesson I have to relearn all the time.  (And, if you’ve read COMPASS NORTH, you know that Merry has to learn it too.)  Hooray for failure!