A Sea of Words

Introduction

I am currently reading “Queen of The Swords” the second of the “Swords of Corum” books that I wrote about in the article below) by Micael Moorcock, and came across one of the obstacles that the protagonists have to overcome, the Lake of Voices. Every drop of water in the lake is a tormented human soul and as they row across the lake the souls cry out in anguish, driving the rowers mad. The spirit of the lake tells them to join the souls in the lake and their anguish will be soothed but they reach the other side and this results in the human souls being freed from the evil spirit of the lake.

This is just the thing that kicked off these thoughts on reading and writing, and you may think I am just creating word waffle, but I do like conceptualising situations sometimes and I hope I can stimulate something in your mind.

To Sail On The Sea Of Words

From the Lake of Voices I started to think that we are always sailing on a Sea of Words as readers, and we are fed by the creators of tales, stories, poems and articles like this.

The Creators are the rains and rivers that pour into the seas and keep them moving and buoyant, nourishing the wildlife and growth in the seas and oceans.To the readers who sail on this sea of words these are the books, the Vocal stories, the articles , the news the titbits that we read, consume and usually enjoy.

Every word a reader reads has been created by a writer, and sometimes that writer is themselves.

When a creator publishes a story or a book they are adding to this wonderful sea of words.

Like the oceans of our world, the sea of words can never be mapped although we do have reference libraries, bookshops and online references such as wikipedia. These are all repositories of words for the readers who navigate these literary oceans, and we all do that to some extent.

Navigators of Literary Oceans

For almost all of us, especially if we are connected on social media, we sail on this sea of words, navigating literary oceans on Google , Facebook , Twitter and outside of that we read magazines and newspapers and books.

I currently have two books on the go, the one that inspired me to write this piece and Clive Barker’s “Imajica” that I restart every time I finish it on my Kindle Fire. In total there are about two thousand pages of words for me to devour.

I know my metaphors are all over the place in this article but you know I love to try new angles and very often fail miserably, but if we don’t try then we won’t progress. The known route is a good way to go (like me in “Imajica”) but if I did not check new paths then I would still be reading “Biggles” and maybe “The Hobbit”, and that is not to put those books down but I read them before I hit double figures in my age, although “The Hobbit” gets a rerun every so often followed by “Lord of The Rings”.

Conclusion - Coming Back To The Shore

Sometimes I don’t read, I watch television , play music, walk or just shut myself off and meditate. But the thing is, if I did not read I would not be able to do so many things in my life.

Sailing the seas of words has taught me much and will teach me so much more going forward.