Coming to the end of another journal

I'm coming to the end of another journal

and the pages feel like leaves tossed by the wind

filled with the hopes of spring

the longings of summer

the despair of autumn, 

the silence of winter.

Each page reveals the passage of time, 

days gone that will never return, 

memories of a life lived, 

dreams of all those I love 

who are gone forever.

I can hear the silence of days when 

words refused to come 

and can feel that sense of dread

that always comes when I reach

the last page and it feels 

like I'm standing on

the edge of a cliff.

And I know what's next:

I must take a leap if I want to keep writing.

It's time to start a new journal. 

And, suddenly, there's a blank page

in front of me that gives hope.

The snow will melt,

the leaves will bud again, 

spring will return, 

and with it the longing for summer 

and for life in all its mystery and glory.

 

And so I'll begin once more 

and try to fill each page 

with words of love, 

grateful for the gift of words, 

for the gift of a voice, 

for all the memories

each page contains

when I come to the end

of another journal.

Full steam ahead

Full steam ahead

you mustn't look back

no glancing over your shoulder

at the pages you've written

or the days that came

before this one

eyes front

even though you can't see

what's coming 

you must step into the unknown

with hope

with faith 

it will all fall into place

even if you don't know how

(you never know how)

but here we are again

writing

filling the blank page

(how wonderful is that?)

still not knowing 

where the words come from

or how they find their way 

onto the page

they just do

guided by an invisible hand

an angel, perhaps, 

watching over you

There are secrets you can't see or know

There are secrets you can't see or know

until you begin writing.

Your pen opens the world 

like a key unlocking a door.

Each page is like an empty canyon

waiting for the echo of your voice

to fill it.

Sitting at your desk is like watching 

the waves of the sea, waiting for them 

to bring the mysteries of the deep to the surface 

so you can sort through shells and seaweed, 

sea glass and stones, and find whatever 

your eye deems worth saving.

Paper is like sand

holding memories

until time washes them away

like footprints on the beach.

We are here, then gone.

Poof!

And all that's left behind

are these words

which someone may-- 

or may not -- find 

one day.

On Writing: John LeCarre

The other day I picked up John LeCarre’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, his best-selling novel about spies and espionage during the Cold War, and started reading the introduction that he'd written in 1991 for the book, which first appeared in the United States in 1974.

Two things struck me about what LeCarre had to say in retrospect about writing the book, the first in a trilogy.

He had written a manuscript, an unfinished version of the story, and had stored it for years in a desk drawer before he started writing the story in earnest.

And that unfinished version didn’t even contain George Smiley, the main character.

There’s a third point, too, and it's the most surprising point of all, I think. 

You’ll discover it when you read the excerpt below:

I have always wanted to set a novel in Cornwall, and to this day Tinker Tailor is as near as I ever came to doing so. The unfinished version that had lain in my desk drawer for years before I started writing the story in earnest did not contain George Smiley at all, but opened instead with a solitary and embittered man living alone on a Cornish cliff, staring up at a single black car as it wove down the hillside toward him. I had chosen in my imagination a spot not unlike the little harbor of Porthgwarra in West Cornwall, where the cottages lie low on the sea’s edge, and  the hills behind seem to be pressing them into the sea. My man was holding a bucket in his hand, on his way to feeding his chickens. He had a limp, as Jim Prideaux has a limp in the version you are about to read, and like Jim he was a former British agent who had walked into a trap set for him by a traitor inside his own service, called “The Circus.”

My original plan was for the Circus investigators to put this figure back into harness, in a way that would provoke the unknown traitor to try his hand again, and thus reveal himself. I wanted the entire story to play in contemporary time and not in the flashbacks I later resorted to. But when I got down to writing the book for real, I discovered that I was painting myself into a corner. I could think of no plausible way to pursue a linear path forward while at the same time peering back down the path that had brought my man to the point where the story began. So one day, after months of frustration, I took the whole manuscript into the garden and burned it, and began again.

LeCarre burned the whole manuscript. 

And, after months of frustration, he began again.

  

Burning the manuscript didn't mean he'd given up on the story. 

It meant just the opposite: the story was starting to come into focus.

Try to remember this when you feel as if you've come to a dead-end, an impassable wall, and are ready to burn your manuscript.

Each draft, even those we feel we must burn, helps us get to the next stage.