I am seated here again beside my candle engaged in my occasional nocturnal pursuit of composing a meditation. Unlike Marcus Aurelius, whose own Meditations are the inspiration for mine, I do not present to the reader lists of philosophical maxims or observations. My own philosophical observations  (if any) arise from descriptions of places I have visited, people I have met or have admired and from revisiting my memories.

The Romantic poet William Wordsworth (1770- 1850) explained that poetry is inspired by ’emotions recollected in tranquillity.’ He might be describing these modest meditations.  For it is only in tranquillity, in stillness, that I can be detached enough to glean some small seed of philosophy from moments in my life. If we cannot learn from our memories, from what we have lived and felt, what can we learn from?

Books, you might say, or the internet. I would consider using the internet as ‘casual learning’ as it is not so easy to assimilate information and deeply reflect upon it, at least, that is how I find it.  Learning from books I find easier, perhaps because that was my method of learning since my childhood. That must be be true for most of us who are not young enough to have been exposed to the digital revolution in education. I feel I can bring my whole self to a book rather than a screen, which includes my life experiences and memories of course and hence there can be an interplay between the book and myself. The book may even bring memories to the fore in my consciousness.  Although, it must be admitted that memory can be deceptive and even chaotic and confused at times. Hence the need for the cool air of detachment. 

Cool air or rather the lack of it, has been on my mind these last few days, because of the high temperatures we are currently enduring. I have also been thinking about cool water lilies. I have been looking at photos I have taken last week of  water lilies at Swanwick in Derbyshire while attending the annual  Writers Summer School there. I spent some time stopping and looking at patches of water lilies on my walks around the lakes in time out from the week’s activities of talks and workshops.

Water lilies are among my favourite flowers. If my back garden was big enough and grand enough I would have a pond of water lilies. One of my favourite places at Kew Gardens is the water lilies hothouse where they have the largest one on record. There the lilies recline resplendent on the dark waters, colourful, exotic and expansive (like myself – well expansive anyway!).   

The water lilies at Swanwick are much smaller but no less colourful: deep pink petals with white tips, enthroned on large dark green leaves. They float on top of the lake, congregating together in shady corners. Just as we delegates have been congregating together and hopefully floating ourselves, born up by new ideas and perceptions, by the deep but gentle waters of creativity.

I have mentioned the  Swanwick water lilies before in one of my meditations. That was in 2019, after my second visit and now I have just completed my fourth (as 2020 was understandably a fallow year for the Summer School). It was on my first visit, in 2018, that I was encouraged to write this blog. New ideas and new directions always emerge from that place.

Swanwick has two lakes adjoining each other, but strangely no swans! It has extensive gardens and terraces and is an Edwardian house with modern extensions, housing the dining and conference rooms and a large residential block too.  As I would return from my lakeside visit to the water lilies, I would see some of my fellow delegates moving around on the terraces to another talk, to their room or to tea, cake and more conversation in the lounge. Conversations with others who share our burning interests or enthusiasms are as important as the talks and presentations on offer at any conference.

As writing is a solitary activity so conversations with other writers are essential to keep going. It is why individuals join writers’ groups, not just to get feedback on their work and to learn from others and to receive hopefully support and encouragement,  but to feel validated as a writer sometimes. To make being a writer seem real. The same is true of the writers’ summer school.

I do not think I have talked so much over the six days I was there. One evening I even developed a sore throat. I was giving talks myself on scriptwriting, four one hour sessions over four days, which led to more conversations from delegates so perhaps that contributed to it. It was good to be teaching again and to adults for a change who were eager to learn, unlike my former students at times! I have never felt so much at home there as this time.

Because we are all together for a intense six days, over that time we become an informal community, forming an invisible bond. This is quite extraordinary when you think that every year this unofficial community fluctuates. Not everyone attends every year and there is always an influx of new people. Yet over the days we are together, amidst all the activities and chatter, that bond silently evolves. It reminds me of rehearsing and performing a play. For a short length of time the cast become a community – as at Swanwick.

I was reminded of this informal community when I arrived at Derby station in 2021. I walked over the enclosed bridge with my luggage and down in the lift as usual to wait for the coach to take delegates to the summer school. Looking over the bridge as I waited for the lift I could see some familiar faces below at the coffee bar who would be getting the coach with me. I felt quite emotional as I hadn’t seen them for two years and we had all gone through the pandemic in the meantime.

In my mind’s eye I am returning to watching those delegates ambling around the property as I wander up from the lakes. Why are they here I ask myself? To learn, to improve their writing in some way, to find out about different genres of writing, about the world of publishing perhaps or how to self-publish. They may want to spend most of the week just writing, using the summer school as precious time away from home to concentrate and create. They might be successfully published themselves, or trying to get published, writing may be their career or a sideline or they may be an enthusiastic amateur.  They might be writing articles, short stories, crime novels, children’s books or poems or plays or just scribbling. They all have a passion for writing, they have to write. To make sense of the world in some way through words (as I am doing now).  They all need a creative outlet otherwise, as the American Dorothea Brande (1893-1948) observes in her excellent 1934 handbook ‘Becoming a Writer’, without a creative outlet life can be ‘unhappy, thwarted and restless.’ I have felt this myself at times.

What have I learnt from my week at Swanwick, you may ask, even though I was a tutor there? Well I have learnt many things from talks and conversations. And from the adult students on my course, just as occasionally I would learn something from my young students when I was engaged in my teaching career. I feel inspired to get on with ‘Driftwood’ my collection of short stories, having had a consultation with another tutor.

Most of all, I have learnt that it’s all about the writing and not the end product. It’s not about winning a poem or short story competition or the Booker Prize for a novel or even to be published in some way, wonderful though these would be. It’s about the writing, the process.

The great Russian theatre director Konstantin Stanislavksi (1863-1938) came to same conclusion about acting: the process, the in depth research and rehearsals were as important than the final performance. In the last stage of his life he formed his own studio of young actors who concentrated on the process and performed rarely.

It is all about the writing, the process. Because I have to write.

Ave atque Vale – until the next blog.

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Neilus Aurelius