The Twenty Manuscripts
THE TWENTY MANUSCRIPTS
When I am old I will write a pearl.
The pearl will be 25,000 miles wide
Because it will circle the world
In one second.
It will be the smallest thing
That can do that
Small as a pea under 20 mattresses.
That is why it will be a pearl.
Then the World will know
What it has lost and forgotten
And I will be gone.
Age 7
I came in from the rain and the cold. I entered the beautiful. The glorious. The safest hidden-most palace above. But it was not as I thought. Here were stronger whirlwinds to tear you to pieces, more tempestuous oceans to take you down, fiercer fires to burn away all but the gold. Yet I worked inside it, writing and writing, and boiled it all down, and smaller and smaller, until in twenty years it was no bigger than a pea, tucked away under my twenty odd manuscripts. The night was long. I slept fitfully; until I awoke bruised black and blue. But the fearful thing, the sting of the pea was a beautiful pearl; it always had been. And though I knew I was nothing, and nothing I knew, I had married my prince in the night, won the heart of my beloved, in the inexplicable ineffable palace above. The realm to yearn for: yielding the all; the all of everything good now descending.
The GENRES I find myself written in
They say:
‘Truth
is stranger than
fiction’
Yes, it is;
because it can go
much further.
NON-FICTION
I think perhaps that much of my non-fiction writing is stranger than fiction, because the truth that I have experienced has gone further, or taken me further than I could ever have imagined or invented it to go. This is why I find myself writing in this genre, autobiography, there is so much there. I am inwardly propelled in this muchness towards expressing in words & art the things that I have ‘seen and heard’ inside my own life. I do this, also, that I might more truly open and learn and go even further in to the truth; for the more, as a writer, you see and hear what you have written — through intense attention and the surrender of what you know for what you don’t — the more you perceive and the further you go as you teach yourself what you didn’t know before you wrote it. And here is joy.
An autobiography
Shipwrecked on the Sahara Desert Coast of West Africa Survival & Rescue & What Happened Next; Autobiography; (13,000 words 😉 (A Condensed Version published in BOATING NZ Magazine; July 2016)
The Saga of a Gifted Illness; Unlocking the Mystery of Schizophrenia; Memoir; (Illustrated by the author)
Fiction is
a pleasant path
to truth:
a way of making it
a surprise
and a never-ending
delight
LITERARY FICTION
I think, too, that if truth were strange in plain truth, or too hard for your reader to swallow, you automatically choose ‘beautiful writing’ or literary fiction to work it in; for here it is set free to dance and play and say more of what you really wanted to say and not offend, but be entirely enchanting. Truth must enchant if it is ever to enter the heart; and love, the enchanter, the response and the porter that opens the door. Truth outside the insides of a person is useless. It is worse than useless, for it hinders, leaving the reader poorer by knowing than richer by not-knowing in seeing through the chinks, the inklings and twinklings that were in between, which spontaneously combust when free of the dampening borders of solidity outside. Literary fiction, for me, is a more pleasant path to uncomfortable truth; a way of making it a surprise and a treasure in which to delight.
The Journey of Merlin the Wild in the Song of Wales (Arthurian historical literature)
‘ON A DARK AND STORMY day in March I saw, as it were the figure of a man upon a hill overlooking a cruel battle below. He seemed greatly distressed and I could sense it was a turning point in his life. I felt that he knew in himself he would never be the same again and that as he descended the hill he descended into himself and knew a time of inner horror and remorse. I also sensed that though this period of darkness was traumatic it would eventually bring him his heart’s truest desire and spiritual wealth beyond all imagining. ‘
A Twelve Month Journal of Inner-Life Short Stories. Creative Memoir; (Illustrated by the author)
‘…I BEGIN MY TREE JOURNAL IN JULY because that is where I was, in that particular year when I felt ready to write some sort of a memoir; some sort of a creative retelling of my story, in stories, rather than in a single chronological narrative. I had already done that in my autobiography DAWNING… But I knew there was more I could write, and in another vein altogether..’
A Circlet of Inner-Life Short Stories from the Light Tree JournalCreative Memoir; (Illustrated by the author)
‘IN A STRANGE LAND all sorts of things can happen; nothing is familiar or predictive and so there are endless possibilities of things you can do in it. Even going far distances in such a land wasn’t necessary; not at all; for as everything in it was new there was something wonderful to find and do right where you were in it.’
Prose & Poetry & Art; A Book about Books; (Non-fiction & Literary fiction) A Rain of Booklight & Inner-Life Short Stories;
(A Novel; unfinished)
Poetry, for me,
is an exercise
in finding, not an art
form, per se, but
a stretching of
abilities
in faculties unknown
POETRY
Poetry: I just can’t help it. Maybe it’s something to do with being Welsh; and the song in you whether you were aware of it, or wanted it, or not. At times, I am selfishly sad that the truth which is inside comes out like poetry when I had no intention of writing it as such; (e.g. the Arthurian historical fiction.) Poetry, for me, is an exercise in finding, not an art form, per se; but a stretching of abilities in faculties unknown and for the discovery of the real thing. ‘The pearl of great price.’ That’s all that matters for me in my obsession for writing and writing, and never stopping to do anything with it, even up to twenty unpublished mattresses to sleep upon: it was the jewel in the sting, the real thing in the shell, and sharing just that. The poetry of the intuit emptiness, the finding made incomprehensible through fullness to protect you, till even the shell wasn’t needed.
Again, and further, if truth were still strange in literary fiction, too hard for your reader, even there, you automatically explode into ‘nonsense:’ non-sense (in one part of you,) and sense inside no sense (in the other) and completeness; for here it was loosed and set free to lift up, take off and fly away to everywhere, saying even more of what you really wanted to say but didn’t know what it was or how to say it until you did. You just let go, and it happened, just like that.
Poetry of the Spirit; Volume One (Illustrated by the author)
‘Some years ago I had submitted a few of my poems to a poetry society and had received a rather scathing reply in return. It seemed people could not understand them; and this was a problem. And so the rejected poems I began to call ragged writings because I was left in tatters. Mortified I gave up. Misunderstood and confused I didn’t write in this vein for another two years. Then turning it around, choosing to count it all joy, love filtered through and understanding came; and with it acceptance of my strangeness and I began again where I had left off…’
Poetry of the Spirit: The Ragged Writings of Everland; Volume Two; (Illustrated by the author)
‘. . . How easily and unconsciously creative expression becomes enmeshed in conventional practice and current trends put up walls. But all around us are living pictures of ourselves which can give us insight into that crippling universal reality. As it is in the world of Nature, so is it in all things. The living ‘flowers,’ of a single ‘plant,’ come to ‘bloom’ for awhile then die for new ones to flourish; in their continually necessary temporal cycle of life and death continuous renewal and the way of LIFE for all things. But we are not so wise as the flowers. We hang on to ‘the stem,’ refuse to fall, and miss out on what’s next. But not so the flowers; they know this is the way of things, and fall happily and so continue flowering; and Solomon, in all his glory, was not so wonderfully or wisely arrayed as one of these. ‘
Poetry of the Spirit: The Ragged Writings of Everland;Volume Three; (Illustrated by the author)
‘The Ragged Writings of Everland could be compared with paintings. Just as the forms and colours of a picture produce a certain emotional effect in us, in its communicating without words, so a piece of writing communicating in seemingly unintelligible words, in words within words, can have a similar pleasurable effect on us, also. Beauty can be as much in the sound of a run of words, as in the sight of a play of colours in an abstract painting. But like everything else which affects our consciousness, we need to learn to become conscious of such a thing, lest it pass us by. ‘
Sharing inner truth
with children
through mystical
magical tales
that inspire
We underestimate
their ability
to see further than us.
A series of picture books
gently increasing in
wisdom, insight & joy
These were the kind of
stories I searched for
for my own children
but couldn’t find;
so I had to write them
myself
for my grandchildren
CHILDREN'S LITERARY FICTION
Some years ago, I read a novel, a romantic thriller, by much-loved author, Mary Stewart; THE MOONSPINNERS. Within her story was an ancient Greek lullaby legend of the Moonspinners. It captivated me. Such a tale was universal and would therefore appeal to children of all ages and I rewrote it for own pleasure, because I loved it, and couldn’t forget it.
Realizing the necessity for bringing beauty and inner-truth into the lives of young children, it wasn’t long before I found this story setting me off upon a new tangent, a new genre, and I wrote a series of six picture books/ text only, (possibly, a seventh;) stories of ‘the real thing’ that all of us seek, underneath.
Learning more ‘in boiling down the pea, smaller and smaller,’ and simpler than ever, I saw, as I did, that we underestimate our children and the next generation’s ability to see further than us.
I was excited, because what I found myself writing now were the kinds of stories that I had searched for, for my own children but couldn’t find — in which was that beauty one never forgets that sets the heart alight, or at least lights a candle and keeps it burning, underneath — beauty of spirit in stories for young children — mystical, magical tales, woven with the silverbright threads of ‘the wisdom from above’ that strengthens as it inspires.
A Lullaby Story (An ancient Greek Legend, Retold)
The Beauty is Inside
Journey to the Secret Place
The Magic Where You Are
When the Trees Talk
The Quest for a New Name
The Story of Light & Life!
The Way Through (…A work in progress)
‘When the whisper of a child’s voice carrying a message
for the future becomes a roar, then we will have peace.’
GENRE OVERVIEW
And a summary of it all — the different genres I write in? — the seemingly different formats to my endless scribblings? They are all essentially one and the same, just different shaped holes through which I was tipped out.
The logo of this site is the shell of the chambered nautilus. Its shell . . . split in half . . . cut open that all its chambers be exposed . . . all the holes . . . all the spaces inside which could be alternately flooded or emptied for its sinking or rising, revealing ‘the ladder’ of its descent to the depths and its ascent to the above . . . both of which were absolutely necessary for the maintenance of its living existence. And this is the essence of the TWENTY MANUSCRIPTS inside me.
In me in my shell was that annoying grain of sand: my inconvenient truth . . . the grit in the oyster that doesn’t go away, but by virtue of its troubling presence . . . which is absolutely necessary . . . causes a pearl to be written when it was seen and accepted and exposed. Line by line, season by season, my own fallen dirt was being slowly and painfully and continuously overlaid with God’s glory, his own, and not mine.
And then wheels within wheels: being set at the four points of the compass in him in the centre and moving in every direction at the same time, finding the impossible ordinary because he did everything.
Hearing, by not-hearing
Seeing, by not-seeing
Not having my own ears or eyes
Broken, split in half, the grail within
‘But we have this treasure in earthen vessels,
that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.’
-2 Corinthians 4: 7