I’m always astonished by the fact that books ever get written. How is it done? How does anyone write a book? The process seems impossible. An enterprise beyond my comprehension. It fascinates and frightens me because it appears so alien. The mere idea of putting pen to paper is a psychological mountain that is utterly petrifying.

I once had a dream where I stood a few inches before a shiny building. It wasn’t a normal building. It emanated power, mystery, an impossible aura of impenetrability. It appeared to be made of a dynamic, living material. I was aware of an awful dread within me. There was something I needed to do. Something I had to do. I had to look up. Such a simple thing. All I had to do was will the muscles in my neck to raise my head. Try as I might I, couldn’t do it. My neck shook with terror at the mere idea of doing so. A black nausea accompanied my efforts and yet I persisted. I managed to go against an unspeakable force exerted by this monolith for an iota of a second. What I saw vaporised my soul. This thing, before me, went up forever. I have the same dread with writing. Yet I have to do it. I have to look up.

My love of writing is old and new. I often feel like I’m a fraud, a charlatan, an imposter and yet, as the prophet in Ecclesiastes reminds me:    

What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.

I’m beginning to see writing as if I were a child again. I’m about six or seven, playing with friends in a lovely garden that has swings, roundabouts, slides. Of course, it’s a sunny summer’s day and I have the wonderful knowledge that I’m safe, loved. There is in me no sense of time, no anguish at its passing. From the garden, there are many paths that lead off into woods, forests, mountains. Paths that may lead to all sorts of adventures.

I have an idea that writing is mystery. Not the mystery of a good whodunnit, the twists and turns of a thriller, the reasons why we fall in love with this person and not that one, the journey of an innocent child to a dictator, or a lonely, unloved man, or woman in a care home. The mystery is not what we write, but that we can. That we share something that it is universal. Not a particular piece of writing, but the idea of writing itself. Of course, how, and what we share depends on so many other things that are equally as imponderable. It’s one of those paths from the magic garden that can lead to a monumental headache.

One of the things I remember from university was the oft stated dictum that one can’t teach another how to write well. The nuts and bolts are there for all of us and perhaps, simple enough, although I’ve heard many people attest that English is one of the hardest languages to learn. So what did my university tutors mean? Is there no Way to learn how to write well? Perhaps my old friend, Seng-t’san, the third Zen patriarch, might be of help:

Words!
The Way is beyond language,
for in it there is

no yesterday

no tomorrow

no today

I think he means you simply have to do it, one way or another.

You have to look up!

Nofel Nawras

Cornwall 2022