All part of the same universe

At some point I've become simply a writer. A writer of many things. It's been nice lately to read comment about me from a senior research fellow of my acquaintance and far more senior than I, that I produce "written and verbal communications with a lovely and enviable style". I take that as a huge compliment. A former boss once told me many years ago I "write like an angel". I was still very much a novice but the hyperbole was so encouraging and gave me the confidence to press on.

But it's not without some agony. Academic writing for publication is immensely challenging and for those to whom it doesn't come easily (like me), we have to learn by doing. The doing involves not only the countless hours of deep and almost painful thought, and the struggle to make clear what is half-formed in your mind. But when finally somewhat satisfied that you've said something worth saying and send it for review, you prostrate yourself before the reviewers who can be savage - dismissive and impatient - in their critique. Thank goodness for the more constructive ones who help you see what you're trying to say. Over time you learn the resilience to just sit with the feedback, consider it dispassionately, and find what it takes to go back to the keyboard and turn your work into something of greater value, or acceptability. In one recent experience, this was enough, and the editor pronounced the revised work needed no further changes. Celebrations! Ego satisfied! In a previous instance best forgotten, the battle to get a book editor to accept that I couldn't possibly make changes to the chapter that he was insisting on because it would actually misrepresent the research, was epic and exhausting.

There are other types of writing I do well that involve less struggle. Plans, reports, proposals, rationales. These come easily to me and others tell me I'm good at it. But what I'd like to find more time for is the more creative, reflective and even allegorical writing that helps me make sense of where I happen to find myself in experiencing the world. When I'm attentive, there are moments that speak to me of deep truths. I have to be listening and alert, and commit to the stretches of time required to tell the story. One such was included in a collection lately, at Serendipitous Encounters. Underneath the narrative it's about my sense of connection to the energy/ies of the universe, my place within it as one form of energy and matter essentially no different from other forms, And hence I have certain duties and moral obligations to honour that belongingness to all things.