Don't write.

The library says nothing, and speaks. There are no words to hear, but there is no end to what is said. And each person will hear something not heard before. Or since. To the one who now enters, it says:

Don't write.

What?

Don't. Write.

Don't write?

Yes. Don't write. Or, no, don't write. Whichever way, don't write.

Why not?

Because you are not ready.

Not ready for what?

What must be written.

And how do you know I'm not ready?

Because I have seen what you will, eventually, write. Must write.

How have you seen it?

Because it is in a book. And that book is here.

Where? I want to see it!

You cannot see it.

Why?

Because you have not written it. Yet.

Uninspired or (just) tired?

Yesterday, I read the latest post by Nimue Brown on the wonderful Druid Life blog: Where is my inspiration?

It struck several very deep chords with me.

For the best part of a couple of years, my day job has been increasingly stressful and pressured and has demanded more and more of me both intellectually and emotionally. During that time, it’s been increasingly difficult to find the inspiration to get new personal projects going. And when I have found something I want to say, I’ve tried to weigh up honestly whether I feel that someone else has said it already, or said it better. If they have, then where's the use in my writing about it, too?

And then, there’s the feeling that, as Nimue says, I could be doing something more useful with my remaining energy! And when I take a look at what others are doing, I tend to agree with Nimue's assessment that ‘The world has more writers than it needs...’.

(But then, there is, for me, the pull of poetry. It’s always been my first love in writing terms; it is the one thing I manage to keep going and is the one thing I think I’m reasonably good at. If there is to be a book with my name on it one day, I think it would be poetry.)

I continue to wrestle with the best way to balance the ideas in my head, the desires in my heart, and the time and energy available to me. Perhaps, for now, I should just see where these feelings are taking me; perhaps the inspiration (the Awen) will return. In the meantime, Nimue's post has helped me to feel less guilty and anxious about my lack of motivation and inspiration. For that, for now, I am thankful.
 

Getting to the point

Like many writers, I am deeply interested in not only what people write, but how they write. And by that I mean literally what they write with: the medium they use to get words onto paper.

Up to the early 1990s, most writers would have used a pen or, perhaps, a typewriter to express their thoughts or to craft their story. But from that point onwards, the use of a computer became a possibility for more and more people. And in the last 30 years or so, we have gone from desk-bound systems to hand-held devices via voice-recognition and stylus input. In recent years, writers have pondered (and shelled out money on!) devices as diverse as the Palm Pilot and the Psion Series 5 in search of the perfect way to write.

The creators of such technology promised us the future, gave us yet another operating system to learn and left us with one more collaboration of metal and plastic to file away in the kitchen drawer. The paperless utopia that so many spoke of never arrived. But the writer's search for the perfect method continued.

As part of my own search, I came across this article a few months ago which reappraises the role of the humble pencil. Unlike the many smart technologies which are available to the writer, the pencil is pretty much foolproof. As the writer of that article says:

The world's most-used writing implement happens to be the least expensive. 

It never crashes or dries out. It works in outer space, underwater and everywhere in between. Technical support consists of a sharpener.

Since then, I've been slightly obsessed the pencil. I've been reading numerous articles about those who regularly use them for their own writing, and have been investigating - and investing in - some of my own, including the Mitsubishi Hi-Uni and my favourite, the Tombow Mono100.

As I've spent time using them, I've found that the pencil has made a huge impact on my writing. Firstly, there is the advantage of writing by hand rather than using a keyboard and screen. There is a lot of research to show that we think more freely when we write by hand, and that the act of writing by hand forges useful links between thought and movement. 

Secondly, I find that I write more efficiently by hand. When I use a keyboard to write an article on the screen, as I'm doing now, I'm thinking as I type. I spend a lot of time deleting and rewriting sentences and even whole paragraphs. But when I write by hand, I find that I tend to form the next sentence fully in my mind before committing it to paper and, as a result, I rewrite only a handful of words. This picture of one of my recent sermons suggests that writing by pencil is still a viable option in the 21st century. I also love the way that it has a sense of personality and character.

Sermon for the 21st Sunday after Trinity, with a Mitsubishi Hi-Uni pencil, grade B

But is this just a phase in my writing? After all, I once owned a Psion Series 5 and considered it to be the solution to all my needs. (Needless to say, I no longer have it.) I guess it's possible, but when you're already using the simplest, cheapest form of writing tools, why make it any more complicated?