“Write the way you can and not the way you think you’re supposed to,” says Susanna Clarke, author of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell and, most recently, The Wood at Midwinter. “I’ve only ever had any success by doing my own weird thing, following the path that’s in front of me.”

Clarke sounds like Jane Austen to me: “I must keep to my own style & go on in my own Way,” Austen wrote to the Prince Regent’s librarian, James Stanier Clarke, in 1816. “And though I may never succeed again in that,” she said, “I am convinced that I should totally fail in any other.” (Stanier Clarke had suggested she write a “Historical Romance illustrative of the History of the august house of Cobourg.” You can see photos of Austen’s letter on the website of Jane Austen’s House Museum.)

Here’s what I saw on the (literal, rather than metaphorical) path in front of me on a hike at Graves Island, on the south shore of Nova Scotia, a couple of months ago. The sky was overcast when we set out, but by the time we had hiked around the island, the sun had come out.

We’ve had a great deal of snow and ice here in Nova Scotia recently, and I enjoyed looking back at these photos from a time when the hiking trails were still clear. I’m looking forward to visiting Graves Island and other favourite hiking spots again before too long. These parks are such a precious resource.

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Here are the links to the last two posts, in case you missed them:

Adjoa Andoh’s tribute to Jane Austen (Andoh praises “the bite of the Austen voice”)

“A more convincing consolation” (on reading Austen for comfort)

Read more about my books, including St. Paul’s in the Grand Parade, Jane Austen’s Philosophy of the Virtues, and Jane Austen and the North Atlantic, here.

Copyright Sarah Emsley 2025 ~ All rights reserved. No AI training: material on http://www.sarahemsley.com may not be used to “train” generative AI technologies.