February 19, 2013 · 10:04 am

note found in a copy of The Cosmic Code

Stop reading. Stop being anxious about your relations with books. Assume your skills are adequate. Assume you don’t know who you are. Go away to another town. When you get there, don’t “write”: instead begin recording what you see. Describe a life you can only be on the edge of. Get those people down. Get down what they do, what they say, how they say it. Aim for observational accuracy but understand that you can only ever proceed from emotional & moral judgements you have already made. Never try to resolve that opposition. Never think beyond the problem of getting things down. Keep everything. After two years go back to where you came from, if you any longer believe that to be possible, or if you believe yourself any longer to be the you that went away. You can start trying to “write” again now.

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7 Responses to note found in a copy of The Cosmic Code

  1. Lara P
    February 19, 2013 at 10:27 am

    Oh goodness. This post terrifies me.

  2. David Lloyd
    February 19, 2013 at 12:19 pm

    I love it! I’ve put “Stop reading. Stop being anxious about your relations with books. Assume your skills are adequate. Assume you don’t know who you are.” on my studio wall. Right next to “Art doesn’t have to be good”. I often wonder what an M.John Harrison How To Write Book would be like. It would obviously be terrifying and bleak and hopeless, but it would be liberating and irresistible too. Like dark pervy sex maybe. Talking about pervy things, I actually have a recurring dream about finding in the Guardian, “M. John Harrisons 5 rules for writing the perfect sentence.” I’ve always forgotten what the rules are when I wake, and feel a bit bereft. How do you write those amazing sentences? Don’t give me the rules! What I mean is; Thanks for writing beautiful sentences.

    I’ve finished my second reading of Empty Space.I’m convinced it’s your best one yet. Better even than CotH or Climbers. It knocked my bloomin’ socks right off.

    Sorry about the lengthy post. I’m sick and off work today.

  3. unstrung
    February 19, 2013 at 12:34 pm

    ‘Never try to resolve that opposition.’ That’s the sentence that gets me.

  4. Brendan
    February 19, 2013 at 1:00 pm

    What’s most disturbing about this is the realization that I’ve already done it.

  5. Will Ellwood
    February 19, 2013 at 1:16 pm

    I often wonder what an M.John Harrison How To Write Book would be like.

    I imagine that it would be a hardback wrapped in cellophane. Its pages would be hollowed out to make room for a small pair of secateurs to use as punishment for having unwrapped the book.

    Will

  6. Mohamed
    February 19, 2013 at 6:59 pm

    You created a lot of fantastic items throughout
    your article, “note found in a copy of The Cosmic
    Code | the m john harrison blog”. I am going to remain heading back to your web-site eventually.
    Thanks ,Bernadine

  7. Josep
    February 20, 2013 at 11:46 am

    The risk, I suposse, is that you might end up writing “Coronation Street” :)