ABSTRACT
This chapter is interested in the cartographies that are immanent within and central to the process of literary creation. 1 It takes inspiration from Sally Bushell’s concept of the ‘text as process’, which urges us to look not at the final published text, but at the compositional materials that come before the written word: the rough drafts, the revisions, and the manuscripts that go into its making (Bushell 1–8). Taking account of these materials allows us to see literary creation as a simultaneously, continuous and discontinuous process: one that is both tied to the material text and its meaningfulness; and one that is separate from it and meaningful in its own right. In this chapter, the emphasis is less on the textual practices of creation and more on using Bushell’s work as a point of departure for exploring the spatialities of creation: the gamut of geographical experiences, both real and imagined, that are part of a writer’s being-within-the-world. It begins by offering a broad overview of critical approaches to literary creation, before moving on to address its absence from and potential for literary GIS. It closes with a focus on the life and work of Arnold Bennett (1867–1931) – a novelist, essayist, and journalist long associated with the region known as the Staffordshire Potteries – and explores how his everyday spatialities were an intrinsic part of his literary practice. Central to this is a consideration of whether (and if so how) these spatialities can be mapped in a meaningful way.
