With a blank screen and a keyboard anything is possible… anything. You can fly across the formless void and create worlds. The ratchets of time can be sprung and its rivers ebbed back and forth according to your reality.

Life too, is in your hands…to be created or destroyed. People never die and creatures speak. You can part the waters and let believers smell the sea mud as they cross into a promised land.

A lover’s death is felt by millions and their collective hatred is brought to bear on a dictator that never lived. Everywhere children wave wands and cry out “Wingardium Leviosa” Imagination is infinitely more palatable than life. Stir up revolutions or change history forever: consider Rowling, Marx, Newton or Plato.

Do not stare so blindly at the canvas. Write… write until the words fade and the people behind the page slowly appear. When you do, readers do not see words… they see dreams. Your battles will be fought in a thousand sacred places beyond the screen where there are no clocks. The arches beckon: enter and you will see visions so fine that readers weep.

When you reach a plateau, be still. Somewhere there will be another arch, sometimes beyond your vision and sometimes right before you. Write until you reach it. There will always be plateaus to cross before the arch: they are as much a part of writing as death is a part of life. Some have hills and valleys or light and shadow: whatever the metaphor… write beyond it. Pleasure is not possible without pain.

Love your language: listen to its metre, rhythm and rhyme. It is the substance of your art. Refuse to trade in mechanics: letters, grammar and paragraphs. These are the tools, not the piece. You are able to set the price – base or precious – refine it well.

Devote yourself to the masters. They have gone before to lead you across the pages; never astray. Look beyond their words and never, never accept another’s interpretation… that is merely someone else’s unwritten dream. You may attempt to copy but the muse will flee. Perceive their visions and fold them into your own... sparingly. When you stand on their shoulders, good and evil are within reach: choose wisely.