Surfing the Unwritten Page: How Writing is Like Surfing
The natural elements have always been a boon for writers. The history of literature is littered with allusions to flowers, mountains, and forests. One inescapable element that is prevalent above all others is the sea. It’s boundless freedom, the shadowy depths from which all life springs have inspired some of the greatest works from Shakespeare’s Tempest to Melville’s Moby Dick.
Our interactions with the sea aren’t limited to gazing into its wondrous deep, and the poetic nature of its waves was harnessed by ancient Polynesians, observed eventually by 18th-century colonialists such as James Cook. Writers such as Mark Twain and Jack London commented on the simple beauty of surfing in their travel journals, and we can consider surfing very much like we consider writing.
