Day 15: Clinging to the craft

1. An ink-stained index finger.
2. Lists of poems and stories to be written. Pages of notes. More pages of doodles.
3. Toenails clicking as he scampers down the hallway: I wake around mid-summer and discover the weasel of inspiration has run away with my words.
4. My throat is sore, voice hoarse. I sip ginger root steeped in hot water, sweetened with honey.
5. I write a poem to call my voice home. My voice remains down by the bridge, pouting, smoking Gauloises, flirting with the local boys, pretending not to hear me.
6. Words, pictures; different sides of the same coin.
7. Keep your writing friends close (Siân and Jenny, Moleskine notebooks, my grandfather's desk, Uniball gel pens, a hot cup of tea).
8. Keep your writing enemies closer (doubt, indecision, anxiety, DVD box sets, itchy feet, crochet needles, transition and change).
9. Whatever you have to say, get it down quick and slam the pages of your journal shut before it can slither away.
10. Do not let your dancing feet and fidgeting fingers make you forget why you were placed on this earth.
11. Write like you are 5 years old and making mud pies in your grandmother's garden.
12. Allow the terrier to have the last word.
13. The blank page is a boat; sometimes you must ship your oars and let the current carry you far out to sea.
14. Best write in blood; better still if the pages are also sweat and tear-stained.
15. Write as though you were turning over a vegetable garden or digging a grave; put your back into it.
16. Once the thing is grown, time to get out the secateurs and cut it right back to the ground.
    
17. Do not step on the fingers of those who have gone before you as you scramble down the ladder of writing.
18. Take not a torch but a guttering tea-light. It will periodically plunge you into darkness; the shadows it throws up will haunt and terrify you. This is all to the good.
19. Give no thought to whether you will find your way home.
20. Draw a map; scatter breadcrumbs; parse your sentences and diagram your plots; trace the stream to the source. It is possible that one day you will make your way out of the forest of dreams.
21. Feather your nest with whatever you glean, crowlike, from the dusty verge.
22. Pick pockets; turn over stones.
    
23. Do not lie; beware of telling the truth; do not seek to be virtuous; be kind; use your anger and fear and undiminished joy to flood your inkwell.
24. Watch the river; learn the lesson it is trying to teach you about ebb and flow. Do not fret if this one task takes the rest of your life.
    
25. Sleep alone.
26. Wear furs; wear emeralds; wear mittens; drink vodka and cranberry juice; do not be deluded into the belief that because you can write you can also sing.
27. Reveal as much of yourself as you can bear to; then let slip a little more.
28. Let your armour be a silk chemise, your spear a leaky fountain pen. Go into battle barefoot. Take caution by the scruff of its cashmere-soft neck and drop it over your balcony into the silty depths of the Ouse.