The blank page is an awful thing to witness; it is devoid of substance and lacks meaning, and the interpretation of it is not much more than seeing a blank slate. For the sheet of white to garner the reader’s interest, one must commit to filling it with something that pulls the reader’s eyes forward to explore the thoughts of the person who left the breadcrumbs. Due to the limitations of language, there will be long sequences of machinations that may or may not reveal things of interest. So, why do the streams of words that flow from some fingers carry travelers to new and interesting places while someone else expending an equal effort fails to engage the reader’s curiosity in quite the same way?

Words create images painted in colors and characters that satisfy the dreams not yet imagined in hungry minds yearning for meaning. But, meaning is an abstraction of current conditioning that allows the person to navigate those things at the margin of perception. We cannot write about hobbits, gnomes, sprites, and fairies without the folklore that allows us to consider their presence. Dinosaurs, monsters, aliens, and the like are possible because we’ve seen their artistic renditions and, in some instances, proof of their existence due to their fossilized skeletons.

So, when the storyteller wants to bring others on a journey into the unknown, it is their responsibility to architect the structures that render the invisible horizon into sequences of moments painted in language. As the musician borrows from the palette of tones to create melodies, the writer will borrow letters and words that must sing while simultaneously offering images and landscapes that are meaningful enough to become a working narrative or even new folklore in our memory while certain passages take on musical-like qualities and play as a soundtrack giving meaning to our gathering experiences.

As I go forward creating an ocean to contain this unseen universe, I must remain aware of the need for symbiosis in which disparate parts relate well to one another, just as fish don’t fly to the moon. Cadence should dictate that time is linear, but when it does jump around, it will serve the story to complete a grounding in the subject being familiarized to the reader, who I hope is adopting the story into their own lore. This has me circling back around, wondering what it is precisely about any yarn being spun that takes possession of the brain cells such that it is retained for a lifetime. The answer can only be that readers have found some small or large part of themselves within the pages with wishes that they were part of the story or fortunate that they avoided the situation. Does this imply that what’s written is either fantasy or a lesson?

How could it be anything else? Well, the easy answer there is that it can be both, although the reader may not yet have enough knowledge to glean where the learning is, or might they be so learned that they understand that there is no fantasy but only potentialities? — Written October 2021