Relics of Franklin’s 1845 expedition, from the Illustrated London News, 1854
When I falter on my journey to publish some notable, award winning fiction that changes the world’s understanding of the written word and alters the cultural landscape forever, I recall the 19th century voyages of Sir Franklin Scott. He made it his mission to find the Northwest Passage through the Arctic. Just as many publishing writers have submitted countless short stories or novels to publishers and have only been rejected, Sir Scott attempted to locate the passage countless times. After his final voyage, Sir Scott’s effort was lauded in songs, stories, and paintings.
Like Scott’s final voyage, my writing career has run aground and become locked in ice as an unexpected shift in climate keeps the ship frozen for years with limited supplies. Because they have not been well equipped for such severe hardship, my short stories have also died from pneumonia and Pott’s Disease—most of them early in the journey. The few that survived developed lead poisoning, stopped behaving rationally, and began to cannibalize each other—passages of text copied and pasted from one story to another, revised, and pasted back again—as evidenced by the marks on the bones of exhumed remains. The handful that survived feverishly and incoherently headed south on a long sledge to Canada, lugging lifeboats behind them, lifeboats that carried such essentials as silk handkerchiefs, scented soap, slippers, hair combs, and many, many books.
Did I mention that Sir Franklin’s fame was posthumous and undeterred by a failure to locate the Northwest Passage? No?
Sir Scott and the entire crew died, but in my case a few stories survive, eking out an existence among the Inuit thriving in the harsh Arctic landscape.
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