letter from a bohemian writer

must reads | a letter

Mar 06, 2024

*You can read my latest series about a nomadic traveller under the must reads section—poetry, fiction and articles are also available on my homepage.

Dear Reader,

How after all these years, compulsion still draws me back to the page. In all its creamy blankness, coupled with the formal nature of those strict black lines, waiting for me to position vulnerable fragments of thought first written in a moleskin. Carried round in a satchel at times like a stone, and at those other times, as though a love letter delivered with a kiss.

There is a transfer from mind to page that I now understand as creative process. But first words and thoughts must be drawn from a subconscious place. This is often an uncomfortable extraction. Deliverance only comes when I feel there is something to say, beyond fleeting moments of self-reflection that often arrive in the quiet of another dawn hour.

Sometimes, I question if I will be able to begin again, what feels at times to be a cruel process of thought dissection: scalpel and scissors, guts and bones. Voices and shapes that came to me in dreams or were first presented as memory, are often painful to extract. There have been hundreds of books and a million plus words. Many days spent out of mind were also dedicated to the craft. But doubt is as ever present as the sun when trying to create something that fulfils a creative soul. Doubt can orbit you like the moon.

Once I had a mentor, twice I studied degrees in classrooms. The road took me away like waves towards outsiders, bohemians I longed to meet somewhere removed from the page. I found the unknown overseas in unexpected places. But it is the compulsion of process: ink to page, refine and shape and go again that kept gone experiences alive.

Within this form of subtle and unsubtle emotional struggle, there is often a beauty to be found. One that returns me to a creative place that takes the form and shape of story. Sometimes as though a return to lover, one you understand will never love the way you need but loves you enough to feel whole. And at other times, beauty arrives like an explorer coming home from new lands, muddied and parched, thirsty to put down something found. And then there is everything in between, of course. Those sterile days of fruitless labour spent as writer, also hold value when with the page. Even if not worth keeping what is found, the process means something one does not fully comprehend yet, but will in time with distance. But there is knowing, that only if one keeps returning to the page can words seed and blossom.

It is the reflection of a past spent absent of mind that inspires the work. But first there is a space blank as canvas that requires focus, to be still as a monument, empty as a promise unkept, I don’t know why. Creation only comes once leaves are blown up by autumns final gust, only to meet an earth that helped them grow. Metaphorically speaking; I require my mind to stir and empty before able to write.

Last night I slept with the light on. A rare happening does not always have to feel supernatural. Something about that amber glow allowed my mind to feel at peace with the shortcomings that accompany pursuit of story. There was a good woman beside me in that room, images on walls meant to inspire: Basquiat, Rothko, a picture of a grandmother who once brought generations of family together. I felt the warmth of love press against my skin. Bed sheets heated limbs tired from a day swim to relieve the body from workforce obligation. But I needed the lamp light this night. Shadows cast against walls reminded me of fisherman I watched at sea from a pier as a child. Fathers and sons throwing nets across waters known to be irregular and volatile year-round, risking life for the continuation of life, I don’t know why.

Gripped by a fear that I was failing in my creative pursuit, I needed light to go again.