Writing

I sit in the early morning and wait for inspiration. Any moment now it will awaken with wonder, at first, cautiously in the folds of my imagination. It too needs to know that I am ready. The traffic light turns red to green. It is here in this quiet place that inspiration collides gently with possibility before it shoots like a firework into a festival sky. It is in this frenzied fusion of remembered experience and not knowing that originality finds its voice. Here, in this precious space, I trust what’s coming as if my life depends on it. Feeling like a pedestrian who's been down this road before I step out of the way and let the pen take hold. I’ve learned to appreciate the stillness in dawn’s pregnant pause as the darkness waits for light, unmoved by the electrical current flowing through and beyond me. It too will find its place as it reaches out for someone else. Maybe the readers who take the book off the bookshop shelf before they bring it home where it becomes a part of them as well.

I heard the writer and actor Claire Dunne talking on The Tommy Tiernan Show about the creative process. Her advice was to imagine when you write that there is no such thing as money. And that’s exactly what I do. Not on purpose. Instead, it happens all by itself. So much of life is directed by this need to earn a living as if we owe our existence to something beyond the simple act of being. Only when I write am I able to leave the feeling of absolute necessity behind. Here I don’t even have to try. The writing process allows me the space to be. Without any noise or unnecessary fuss, it makes the decision for me. It is here that I feel completely safe. Hours go by without me noticing. It is here that I feel totally alive. It’s what I want to do most in this world. It’s here that I feel at one with everything, freed of the burdens of every day. It’s here that I have learned to turn the volume down and to really listen to myself. I want writing to be my universe, my reason, apart from coffee, for getting up in the morning. It is here I get to be unburdened of what’s mine.

I can listen to writers talk all day. Writers such as Marian Keyes on the BBC’s Imagine when she explained how London and creativity freed her from Ireland’s suffocating straightjacket of theocracy. Louise O’Neill. Claire Dunne. Roddy Doyle. It’s not who they are that matters, it’s more about what they’re not. The jobs they were able to leave behind to follow their heart. Listening to them discuss their creativity makes me want to pick up the pen again. It’s why I’m sitting here right now, lost in taught until thought takes over and leads me to where I need to be. Here I have no control. Here I’ve earned the right to let go. I’ve done my homework, but it’s not the kind we get in school. The storyline weaving its way through the backstreets of my mind I have walked by too often. Finally, I’ve learned to follow the thread until it picks itself up and reveals the next sentence and then the next one until it becomes a book. Writing takes place on a need-to-know basis. If I try too hard I know I’ll drown the flow with unnecessary noise. The voice of inspiration comes from somewhere else. I’m not sure it’s even a voice, more like a feeling, a stream of consciousness probably describes it best. It’s certainly not a choice. It’s something I have to do and when I do I feel all the better for it.

It’s almost as if the words precede thought. The flow of an easy waterfall descending into self. There’s a dignity in being a storyteller that’s not easy to find elsewhere. Writing is a private act. I don’t have to tell anyone I’m doing it if I don’t want to. I can sit in the joy alone and reflect in the reflection of its beauty. I can hold it alone in my hands and wonder at its wisdom. It is here I am unaffected by the caution. Indeed Tommy Tiernan, no stranger to the creative act, advises burning all of your bridges before you start over again. Never get too defined. It’s best to figure it out as you go along or if you’re able, let it figure you out instead. Writing has a way of wrestling you to the ground. Shaking you down until all the silver sovereigns rattle out of your pockets onto the floor. The only option is to surrender to its beat. Often, that’s only the beginning. Afterward, there’s solitary confinement, but the good news is you’re spending time in a prison of your own making. A simple place where you can make some sort of sense of what’s gone before. Here, people and places that may have harmed you can be safely brought to justice. Here you can use them as inspiration and in doing so set yourself free of their memory and more importantly their influence. Here whether the fuckers like it or not, and frankly who cares, either way, get to play a part in your overall redemption.

Here I can be present, without fear of judgment, not even from myself. It’s always now when I write. Writing time is never ever wasted time. My only job is to make myself available, something I am doing more now, even if it still feels like it’s never enough. Writers have to learn to stay close to themselves, to say what they want to say by letting what lies deep in the undercurrents find its own way out. We have to learn to trust the majesty of our inner voice, even when it’s filled with pain and suffering, more especially then because that’s where its finest work gets done. When I write I have to be comfortable enough to ask myself what it is that I really want to say and to trust the answer when it comes. Writers have to know when to stop, to say that’s enough for now, even when the clocks stop ticking and time passes without a pause. Even inspiration needs a rest after a while.

I sit back and take a breath. I get up and walk down the stairs to the kitchen. I put the kettle on, my mind taking a step back when I look out the window at Suzie, the next-door cat, climbing the backyard wall before she leaps headfirst into her own territory. I try to let go of the buzz of what’s gone before but it takes a few minutes before I can catch up with Suzie’s faith. I pick up Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell and begin to read and when I’ve finished my cup of coffee I’m ready to begin again. My mind twitches in anticipation of what’s to come. It might be good, it might be shite. There’s no way of knowing, but it doesn’t matter. Here in this space, the journey is much more important than the destination. In all aspects of our lives, it always is. Often the journey is all we have because we are always coming from or going somewhere. It’s here in the in-between that we really exist.

Everything is careful elsewhere. There, you have to play by the rules. Pay the mortgage. Listen to the news. The same old shite day after day pumping out a culture of fear, guilt, and shame in equal measure. A place where we are beguiled into ticking everyone else’s boxes. And yet, it’s here on the empty page that true danger lies. I recognize the need to step into it and allow it to chew me up and spit me out. Writing is what I love to do the most. I am captured by its energy, the doubt, the danger as I move purposefully towards the cliff edge. There is no safety net below or up above, only the fear of knowing what will be revealed. Like Suzie, I have learned to jump headfirst into the abyss. It is here that I find come face-to-face with the true naked rawness of self. It’s so close that I am able to touch it as it unfolds its butterfly wings. A simple transformation that is never complicated. I hold its grace in the palm of my hand. I marvel at its simplicity. I smile at its elegance. I tumble forward into its arms until there’s nothing below me only blue sky.

My thoughts catch on the jagged edge of the words as they spill out. There is no pain to be found here, only acceptance. It’s like being back inside my mother’s womb. Like the memories that sustain me, writing also carries me to places I have not yet seen. It keeps me warm when it is cold outside. It throws its arms around me when I’m at my most vulnerable. It guards against doubt. Here I have to trust the deepest darkest parts of myself and find the energy and the will to go on. That will that comes from the white light that lives inside. Here it really is darkest before the dawn. I’ve learned a way of going there so that I can come back safely. It’s a lot easier that way. That way I get to stare the doubters down. I get to hustle my dreams and turn them upside down and inside out. Here I can hang them out to dry on a windy day and wait for the rain or sunshine to come, it matters not. All that matters is its own good time.

If I ever get tired of writing, I know I’ll be tired of life. There’s no other place I’d rather be than looking down at an empty page, at that moment when I am waiting for words and story to come to me wild and free of limitations. Ideas that are vibrant in their own magnitude and empty of judgment. It is here that I feel calm in the company of who I really am. It is here that I have learned to simply be.