Rachel Drouillard

Though my husband and I live in Oklahoma for nine months out of the year, we stay with our family in Michigan during the summers. We grew up here, met here, got married here, and look forward to our trips here during school breaks. In the weeks leading up to our drive back to Michigan this May, one particular aspect of Michigan living came up in our conversations repeatedly: visiting Lake Michigan.

Growing up, I spent countless hours every summer on the Lake Michigan beach, building sand castles and throwing myself into the waves. As an adult, I still love the lake. In contrast to my rambunctious play as a child, I now prefer to stand on the shoreline where the waves lap my toes until my feet go numb from the cold. The wind bites here more than it does in Oklahoma, but it’s fresher. I think more clearly at the water’s edge. 

Even when I’m in Oklahoma, I think about the Great Lakes a lot. Beach scenes set at Lake Michigan often creep into my fiction. My writing drags me back to my roots. I tend to resist this. Since I was a kid, I’ve hesitated to include “too much Michigan” in my writing. I don’t know why, exactly. In my recent workshops, I’ve received numerous comments noting that my novels “lack a sense of place.” I set my books vaguely in the Midwest. For some reason, I shy away from setting my story in Michigan specifically. Maybe it’s too familiar. If I include “too much Michigan,” maybe my readers will see too much of me in the pages.

We’ve all heard the phrase “Write what you know.” It’s been repeated to the point of cliche. But for some reason, I’m afraid of that cliché. I’ve been asking myself these questions a lot lately: What do I shy away from when I write? What feels too vulnerable for me? And why? Sometimes I’m just not ready to write about something yet. Maybe it’s still too raw. But I have other fears too, ones I prefer to challenge: that too much of myself will leak onto the pages, and I’ll inadvertently expose–to myself and to my readers–more of myself than I meant to reveal. That fear nibbles away at my ideas until there’s little left that I can safely put on the page.

But I’m a writer. I don’t write what’s safe. I write what I know and what I’m trying to figure out, about myself and the world around me. 

This summer, I offer this challenge: Write what you know (yes, that old cliché). Write what scares you. Write what you aren’t sure yet if you know or not. Write your way to knowledge.

In the meantime, I’m going to inject my novel with a sense of place.