To Keep the Wolf As the Door
Why I Write
Do you know why you write? It’s been on my mind all week.
I have only read two books on the topic, The Writing Life, by Annie Dillard, and The Way to Write by John Fairfax and John Moat, which I saw on a friend’s bookshelf many years ago. I am not sure either were particularly helpful for me but they were interesting, if a bit dated. Here on Substack,
wrings out wry joy for me each week. I am fully aware Laurie Stone and I are at opposite ends of the ‘what lessons did I learn here?’ spectrum but it never stops me appreciating her writing, as what I like to read and why I want write are two very different beasts.1‘Start in the middle’, she says ‘and fail to arrive.’ 2
Good advice. I remember Peter Doggett telling me similar things back at Helter Skelter Music Bookstore when he was writing Are You Ready For the Country? and he always made me want to read more.3
Why I write depends on what I am writing; there is a vast difference between why I first wrote a book about natural art materials4 and why I write this Substack5. Similarly, the reasons why I wrote a T’ai Chi blog for my students for 15 years6 and why I write song lyrics7 have barely anything in common. That is ‘why’ as motivation or hoped-for outcome. That’s not quite what I’m stalking.8
About 3 hours ago, I finished writing and illustrating my second book, after six months’ work and a further six months’ preparation. I’d had a good day at the drawing board9, finishing pastel, metal point and charcoal drawings for various sections, and the last of the element logos. I thought I’d take myself out for a coffee and a cake to celebrate but had left it too late in the day and so headed down the wooded walk to the clifftop to clear my head. Apart from awaiting a few images from guest artists and writing some captions when they are all in place, the main work of Drawn From The Wild is over for me, and the designers can take charge until it’s time to proofread.10
Having just spent my first two full days drawing since March, and despite the deep pleasure of that, it feels very clear that my creative energy seeks out words and that has not changed over my two years on Substack.
So, in lieu of coffee and cake, which will have to wait until morning, I am celebrating by making two of my favourite things, a list and copious footnotes.
Why I write
To keep the wolf as the door.11
To surprise myself.
To remember or to forget.
To turn the earth.12
To settle old scores or to forgive them, frequently simultaneously.
To make things up or to tell the truth.
To see if I can write it and if I can’t yet, to do it again until I can. 13
To compost a seemingly dead thing from the past and find it only needs shaking in the light and now it is sending out shoots.
Because I am a fool, as a wise person would stay well out of it.
In the hope of receiving something from outside my self.
To weave a wider cloth of relationships while the loom still lives. 14
To find the others.
To put in one place all the things I would otherwise forget.
To invite connection.15
To ask questions of myself and others.
I follow my fingers to the keypad and they just do this thing…
To find out, when I read it back, what it was I thought.
To wonder aloud if I am alone in thinking or feeling something.
To pass on that which has served me well.
To bear witness.
To grieve or to celebrate, or both.
To transform the sickness in my heart until I can feel fresh blood flowing and the absence of nausea.
To put two things together which I have never seen side by side, and to see what that does to the way my mind wanders.
To proclaim how great is the Great Mystery.
To see what happens next.
To add to the word-hoard and be part of the word-horde.
To resist those who have tried and failed to silence me.
Because people I trust still respond.
Because it is like walking, when I go by foot or by thought, everything is transformed, and the possibility of change of perspective springs from stepping out from the cavern of self.
To describe everything I can’t yet make with my hands.
Because I fancy words and want to be in their company.
I still have things I want to wrestle with by writing.
On the word-walk there’s always a chance of finding something startling, beautiful or ancient and it being exactly what I need. There’s a visceral urge in me to hold that thing up and then share it with others.
That’s the telling.16
Next week we head to the States to see dear friends and colleagues, so until the end of October these weekly posts will become partly travelogue. I hope you’ll enjoy the brief change of scenery. If you want to comment, but can’t afford a subscription, just reply to this email and I’ll comp you six months for free.
This week’s good thing: Reading out loud to someone else. Since the summer, my partner and I have read to each other aloud. It’s a joy often reserved for children but I do have adult friends who also read aloud with one another and see it as a central delight of their shared lives. It can be both relaxing and engaging at the same time, whether reading or listening. It is a pleasure to know someone is putting thought into their vocal tone and pace so that you can best receive the meaning of the words. While missing reading and being read to aloud this week, I came across this lovely piece on it, which I hope will get you and those around you reading out loud whether together or alone, very soon.
I say beasts, as writing, like reading, is a living thing, not a technique. You want one with some sharp teeth, for when the thought-food is tough.
Not ‘fail to finish’ as my fallible memory had it earlier. Thanks to Laurie for taking time to put me right on that.
Except about Dylan, of course, no-one can make me want to read about Bob Dylan.
Someone asked me to, I said yes. Turns out that’s an addictive drug.
I had a very strong urge to start writing here, and it hasn’t gone away yet.
To make useful notes for the school about the learning journey.
To be part of the aural weave. To make a mood or moment audible.
Expanded footnotes this week are for Rosie Whinray. May I point you to her excellent piece In Praise of Digressive Writing?
An actual drawing board, not a metaphorical one.
It will be published by Search Press in UK and USA in June 2025.
The most fearful thing to approach is often the true point of entry.
Like a worm, not a plough.
To show the clear blue sky between the ash tree’s crown and the crumbling Norman ramparts.
And to simultaneously dread certain forms of it, of course.
From A Meadow Year… Feb 12th 2024.
Making sand of the mountain
In January, I noticed the Explore Notes feature on Substack was full of post after post of people writing about writing on Substack. How to get your first thousand followers, how to get a six-figure book deal from it, then how to teach people the secret to your success via viral posts and webinars. Some other, perhaps more writerly, writers were frustrated, surely the newcomers could write about something other than writing on Substack? Anything!
But I thought, well, clearly I was missing a trick.
So, here is my expert advice. If you follow it to the letter I am convinced you will gain untold success, influence and wealth.
‘Follow these simple guidelines to make your fortune writing on Substack’
At the head of the track, look back and call to the others
Once over the pass, collect all the ammonites within reach
Four pollarded maritime pines will mark the way, leave fossils as gifts
Fill your bottle, as this is the last place to gather water until Bealach na Bà
Shout loudly so the Cailleach knows you see her
Be glad the waterfall is slowly making sand of the mountain
Looking both north and south, feel the stretch but make no choices
Interleave every straight thought with a curved one
Resist the urge to end the sweep of the brush’s line with a point
If a cormorant passes to your left, turn around and ask at the first house for honey
If you receive honey then pass it back amongst the others, using heather stalks as spoons
At the western shore the gate opens so go through it onto the sand
Don’t be late, I will meet you at the Black House on the spit’s end
The last 600 miles take between 5 heart beats and a year or so
There is no direct path between the spit and the gate
Between my grandmother’s dream and The Run in full spate
That is why we always carry questions, love and good hard cheese.
Oh I love this! For me, your writing is like a walk in the woods leading to a wild beach (and I've been up the Bealach na Ba too): leaves, humus, birdsong, fox poo, sky, fungi, wind, flotsam, jetsam, the smell of rot and salt. A rich, fecund, soul-nourishing experience. Thank you. I'm off to dig a ditch and get muddy while I'm in this mood.
I’m going to read that list to my eldest, she loves to write and thinking about writing is just as fun x