The hero’s journey: a writer’s quest
This blog post is written by Luciana, a second-year Creative Writing student at York St John University.
Accustomed to imagining fictional realities and writing all about their characters and plots, I started thinking about how all people are the main characters in their own stories. As proposed by writer Joseph Campell (1949) and reimagined by screenwriter Christopher Vogler (2007) many of these good, archetypal heroes inadvertently go through journeys divided into a series of twelve stages (The Ordinary World, Call to Adventure, Refusal of the Call, Meeting a Mentor, Crossing the Threshold, Tests, Allies, & Enemies, Approach to the Inmost Cave, The Supreme Ordeal, Reward, The Road Back, Resurrection, Return With the Elixir) in which they essentially learn something and improve internally. This new knowledge allows their character to enrich and become a better version of themselves, so I thought, why not look at myself from the eyes of a reader, venturing in my own hero’s journey and reflecting on what I have been through as a writer from the faraway land of Bolivia, lying in the heart of South America, who moved to England for university to follow my everlasting passion of becoming a professional author?
Every good protagonist has a past that explains a lot of their decisions and actions, and every knowledgeable reader knows that is not where their story really begins. However, every respectable writer knows that even if it is not obvious to the eye of the spectator, it is relevant to their formation, and they make sure to give it to them. A glimpse of what will come, of how their decisions will be made. Reading has always been my favourite hobby, and in my case, my literary past begins when I was two and my parents read bedtime stories to me. There are many books that became key moments in my life, accumulated to make me the reader and writer I am today. I could talk about them endlessly, but some of the most notable ones are the Goddess Girls series, which sparked my never-ending admiration for Greek mythology at the ripe age of nine, the whole of the Harry Potter series, an obsession that started when I was eleven and even though it has quelled since, it will always be a part of me, and Tierra, a book I first read when I was fourteen and since then it has firmly settled in the spot of my favourite book ever, never trembling or doubting its position. But no one really cares about those. As I said before, these facts belong to a past that is mostly just mine. Readers would not really need to know these facts to understand the story.
One time, at a birthday party, the clown asked me the then hopeful now haunting question of what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I jokingly answered “an adult”. All the kids laughed and I felt quite proud, and for some reason that has become a core memory for me. Now, as an official over-eighteen adult, I see how silly that reply was, for becoming one was part of my destiny, the secondary effects of growing up. It was an undeniable fact. But now I realise that maybe becoming a writer was also part of that fate, written in my stars long before I made my choice. But I was not going to wake up one day and automatically have my life planned out and ready to be lived. For that destiny to become a reality, I had a long road filled with different paths, decisions, and obstacles to journey through first.
The true tale of my quest, in which I search for my place in the world as a writer, begins with me in my Ordinary World. The setting is Cochabamba, Bolivia, a place where it is often difficult for readers to thrive, for original books are rarely sold at affordable prices and those that arrive are never the popular ones. In a place where memes are more appreciated than literature, authors and readers are often misplaced as outcasts, different from the rest. Writing and reading have been my passions since I was a little girl who dreamed of exploring fantasy realms and traveling to faraway lands, and to pursue a career in the literary world was my biggest dream. Since I was twelve, I possessed a Kindle, a tool that gave me an advantage, what I thought of as a weapon of wisdom, and we have been through endless adventures together. I was also very lucky to have two parents who have always inculcated the habit of reading around my house. But even before that, for me, reading wasn’t singular. It came with a sister, a companionship that became my own: writing. I once grabbed a pencil at four years old and then my writing never stopped. The stories I wrote were plenty, yet a lot unfinished. My first story was about a dog, Bobby, who had the ability of becoming invisible. Then I wrote about Santa Claus and his missing cookies, two sisters that travelled across their country, and a girl with the power of things changing colors every time she blinked. Hundreds of different stories, characters, and plots have come to my mind since.
Years later, as COVID and lockdown settled in the Ordinary World, making it a scary place to be in, the embers of a Call to Adventure began to shine. I took back my hobbies of writing and reading, two things I had put pause on when the novelty of being a teenager became more important than merely reading about them. But now that I had a lot of time on my hands, more than a single person needed, I decided to use it to invent others. It all began with an idea, that sparked like a lonely firefly on a clear night. I grabbed my net and caught it, acknowledging the Call to Adventure and refusing to let it fly away. It was an opportunity to escape the real world and enter a fictional one, created by me. And so I got to work: I developed characters, imagined a new country, and organised a plot. And in an eternal period of thirteen months of hard work I wrote the first draft of my first novel, Golden. With pride shining, another metaphorical phone rang offering a second Call of Adventure, and this time the caller was my future. I was seventeen years old, and I still didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. My interests ranged from reading about fantasy lands to traveling to very real places. In the midst of university research, in which my career options were narrowing down to psychology, geography and international relations, one appeared that seemed like an oasis in the middle of a desert of uncertainty: Creative Writing. It not only made sense, but it felt right.
Along the way of my choices, I Met my Mentors and pondered with them. They were no bearded strangers wearing gowns and dispensing riddled wisdom, though. My mentors were my parents, who supported me in my decisions from the beginning. There was never any pressure from them, a civil engineer and a psychologist, to follow their professional paths, for their mindset is that kids are not supposed to be the clones of their progenitors. And they have worked extremely hard throughout their lives to make sure that my siblings and I acquire the best education possible, even if that meant sending us to the other side of the planet in order to make all our dreams and goals come true. I am quite lucky for that opportunity of choice, forever grateful too. That left me, though, with a feeling of uncertainty, an intention to Refuse the Call. Choosing to study Creative Writing on the other side of the planet came with a lot of risks, and the fear of stepping into the unknown haunted my thoughts and opened a door for self-doubt. But that’s the curse of every creative, and I learned that the ones who succeed are those who choose to take the leap.
Dedicating my life to writing certainly presumed a danger, especially when letters and books were so often underappreciated where I come from. But I was sure about my decision, and writing and editing my book only helped to strengthen that choice. During my university application process, I had the incredible opportunity to embark on a journey to a new land with my dad, where we visited eight different universities scattered across the United Kingdom. From the Midlands to Wales to the north of Yorkshire, we managed to compile pros and cons from each one of the places and narrow the list down. Making my decision was not easy, but the one university who since the beginning played a winning hand was York St. John. The city was gorgeous, and the university checked off pretty much all of my boxes. I seriously imagined there was no better place where a writer could thrive, with all the cobbled streets and quaint coffee shops welcoming even the craziest of ideas. I was ready to call York my home away from home.
And so it was time to Cross the Threshold. After months of decision-making, weeks of doubting and daydreaming, and days of saying goodbyes, my bags were packed and my heart was excited. Yet my mind couldn’t stop wandering, as I had never lived so far from my family, and Bolivia had always been my home. In the 3rd century BC, the mathematician Eratosthenes calculated the size of the planet by setting the earth’s circumference at 250,000 stadia, which is equivalent to 40,000 kilometers. Centuries later, modern technology and mathematics measured this circumference more precisely, only to notice that Erastothenes’s calculations were incredibly precise for the time, as it was now set at 40,008 kilometers. The distance between Cochabamba, Bolivia and York, England is exactly 10,037 kilometers. A little more or a little less depending on what point you measure from, but in short, a quarter of planet Earth now divided my existence in two. The place where I had spent most of my life in, where my family and culture was based, and the city that would soon become a core part of me and my future memories. It was time to step into an adventure abroad in order to find a second place to belong.
Once there, as any good story hero, I encountered many Tests, Allies, and Enemies. Besides the academic trials of becoming a university student and writing and communicating in my second language, the first and scariest of the Tests was living by myself for the first time ever. I was suddenly in charge of everything that meant taking care of myself, and it was both utterly terrifying and weirdly exciting. Cultural shocks were small tests I knew were coming but mere knowledge couldn’t do much to prepare me until I experienced them first-hand. In this category enter two main ones: the freezing weather, which I am still not sure is one I will ever pass, but I have grown to understand it and try to live with it, and the food, a true disappointment as a proud-of-the-flavour-in-her-country’s-dishes Bolivian. A Test that never stops reappearing, that despite defeating it many times it still continues to threaten me, is homesickness. Missing important moments in the lives of my family and lifelong friends is hard, and although calls and messages help to feel less far away, there is nothing like the feeling of being in the same room as them, hugging them and celebrating, enjoying, reminiscing, and crying together. But I knew these were all sacrifices that needed to be done in order to accomplish my mission, my dreams and my purpose.
Luckily for me, I have met people who grew up on the other side of the world, speaking other languages and growing up in different cultures, who became essential in my life, helping make my time away from home special and worth it. I also counted with the brace of strangers, over sixty thousand people who followed my creative writing progress on videos I posted on Tiktok and encouraged me to keep going even when I wanted to give up on my projects. I know for a fact that the whole process of change would have been even more difficult if I didn’t count on these Allies’ support and friendship, and the memories I have made with them will be treasured in my heart forever.
With time and for different reasons, a few of my most trusted friends came to become Enemies, and the most unexpected people became Allies. Life is full of surprises, and I am convinced that everything happens for a reason and every person enters (and leaves) your life with a purpose. As a writer, I encountered some monsters that haunt like true Enemies: the dreaded Writer’s Block and the cajoling Procrastination. Whenever it feels like I have defeated them and won the battle, it turns out they will come back and more ready than ever to attack again. The good thing, though, is that now at university I surround myself with a community of other writers, Allies on the same side of the endless writing war, that share those same Enemies. That makes defeating them significantly less tedious and writing much more inspiring.
As I Approached the Inmost Cave, in my case finding a balance between writing for university and writing for myself, which also meant publishing my novel, endless doubts invaded my mind. Were my stories good enough to be told? Did I choose the correct career path? What was I going to do once I finished university? Was I improving as a writer and as a person? Would my voice as a Bolivian author be appreciated internationally? What’s the future of human writing now that artificial intelligence seems to be attacking all the creatives? I’m still not sure if I possess the answers to most of these questions, but I have started to make peace with the fact that I wouldn’t be doing any of this if I wasn’t meant to. Everything will eventually make sense.
Publishing my book became my Supreme Ordeal. After over three and a half years of hard work, sleepless nights, endless doubts, and with the support of my family and friends, I went back to Bolivia during the summer of 2023 and dedicated it to the publishing and marketing of my book. I had found a publishing house for it, and so I organised two book launch events in Cochabamba and Santa Cruz. Besides that, I went to various schools in my city and talked to and gave writing workshops for students who could be interested in reading my book and would like to try writing their own stories. Seeing people supporting my dreams and enjoying Golden was extremely gratifying and an experience I will always remember fondly. All of my characters will always live within me, but also amongst the readers that dive in their pages.
However, a new set of unexplored challenges was waiting for me on The Road Back, some which I have yet still to complete. Translating my book to English so that it reaches a wider audience as well as publishing it internationally. While I figure out how to be successful at these tasks, I can begin to apply everything I have learned so far in my new environment and continue to educate myself because there is no end to knowledge. And I accepted that my heritage and culture could be used as a powerful weapon, for I have the opportunity of making it known on the other side of the pond.
I have not yet lived through the last two phases of the Hero’s Journey, the Resurrection and the Return with the Elixir. I am still lacking plenty of experience to allow me to say I have, but I am sure that when I do, I know I will have been through so many changes as a person and as a writer that my character arc will indubitably be there. Even though I’m not quite there yet, I can still reflect on my progress so far and plan on how I will tackle said phases. As a writer, I want to make sure I tell every story within me. I plan on squeezing my opportunity and making it my mission to make people fall in love with reading either again or for the first time, and if they do it through my words, I will feel more than accomplished. Eventually I realised that it didn’t matter where in the world I was standing, what language I had to write in, or how many obstacles were put in my way, I was meant to be a writer.
To find out more about what led our students to study here with us, check Grace’s blog where she shares why she chose to study at YSJ.