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The quotation from T.S. Eliot’s "Little Gidding" seems to perfectly express the essence of writing. A writer needs to become an explorer. Each time we face a blank sheet of paper or our computer screen, we begin a new journey. There’s the same buzz of excitement and, more often than not, fear. We want to get somewhere. We want to see, in front of us, a glimpse of our destination. But what? Where? How?
Often, writers welcome an assignment; a subject, a line, a theme, a given premise. An assignment calms the flutter of anxiety over the question, What?, provides a goal, however insubstantial, however departed from in the subsequent writing. Armed with the chosen prompt, you can put one foot in front of the other, and set off, having yielded the responsibility for our journey to some other source. Without an assignment, completely dependent on ourselves, we consult notes, gaze at paintings, flip through journals, open our how-to writing books, wait for that trigger of inspiration. Beginning a new piece of writing is like a step into space. Will we fall, or will we fly? And where will we get to, if we get anywhere at all?
For me, the greatest joy in writing is this tug of the unknown. A few sentences in, some exploratory words or lines written, and I enquire: Where is this taking me? What will I find at the end of this journey? Whatever I’m working on — flash, short story, or poem — this thrill of the unknown is always the same. First there is nothing, but soon there will be something; something strangely a part of me, yet unique, different. Something I didn’t even know I knew until it appeared in raw, unedited form, ready to be worked on.
Never let anyone imagine that writing is a dull occupation, inferior to travel, secondary to a night on the town, or even a new relationship. All exploration is exhilarating, and the kind of exploring we do with words can be the most exhilarating of all, even intoxicating. The poet, intoxicated with words, altering, rearranging, organizing stanza and line. The novelist, high on theme, character and plot, surprised by the way characters are taking over, the plot seems to write itself. A flash that appears on screen, or page, as if created by some supernatural force that we sometimes call our Muse, other times inspiration. These are a writer’s gifts, a bounty to compensate for loneliness, discipline, sacrifice, rejections, disappointment, and those temporary losses of confidence.
When I first began writing I didn’t fully understand the connection between pleasure and writing. I saw writing as hard work, and I imagined every line I put to paper should be a finished one, as close to perfect as I could achieve within my limited experience. I wrote poems at first, struggling with thesaurus and dictionary, hesitated, changed, woke in the night rearranging words, worrying over format. In those days, I was hard on myself, critical, often scornful of my efforts when compared to the writers I read and admired. I didn’t yet equate writing with exploration. I wasn’t ready to let go, to allow words and ideas simply to take me, to enjoy the journey, and the views along the way. Later, with time, I gradually evolved a less rigorous, more easy-going approach. Relax, I instructed myself. Don’t insist on control. Have confidence in what you don’t even know you know. Trust the play of your mind, its secret, gathered experience.
Explorers need to have trust. Whether prompted by an assignment or after culling my own notebook, I embark on a journey, starting from one point and travelling, in language, towards some unknown place, which is the first finished draft. And when I see what I’ve arrived at, there’s recognition, and a rush of excitement, because the work I’ve produced offers a new version of experience, a new way of seeing it.
"To arrive where we started, and know the place for the first time."
The poet’s words perfectly describe this arrival at first drafts from
the starkness of blank pages. Our explorations along different routes, different paths, take us into new territory, allowing whatever needs to surface to appear in front of us; our inventions, our discoveries, our destinations.
What I write doesn’t always work. Sometimes, I need to jettison my words, start over again, a situation familiar to all writers. But I do know that the finished story or poem I find at the end of each journey will always be something new, strange, yet wonderfully, miraculously, myself in a new guise.
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