John Simmons in conversation with Johnny Lyons

John to Johnny

You’ve been on two Dark Angels courses now. So obviously I’m interested in hearing things from your perspective because these conversations should involve the whole Dark Angels audience, not just the tutors. But first, because it was first, I just wanted to ask you about reading. We met when I was doing some tone of voice work with AIB in Dublin. Our first proper conversation was not about writing but about reading. You recommended a book to me – Stoner by John Williams. The best book recommendation I ever received. I hadn’t heard of it at the time, few people had, but it then became a rediscovered classic across the world. What do you get from reading?

Johnny to John

There are so many things I get out of reading. But some of the bigger ones would include the way reading can take me beyond myself and my own limited thoughts and experiences. Then there's the unique exhilaration that comes from reading a heart-achingly sad novel like Stoner or an intellectually mesmerising Platonic dialogue or a poem by Keats or Larkin that helps me feel less alone. I also like the way reading has the power to change me in interesting and unpredictable ways, the way it can both liberate and challenge my imagination.

John to Johnny

All those things, I agree. There’s also the obvious point that reading leads to writing. It helps us to become better writers if we become better readers. So, as you know, we do a fundamental exercise on Dark Angels courses – you’ll have done this in Cornwall on the Foundation, then the adapted version in Spain. The exercise leads to writing in the style of another writer. It seems counter-intuitive but, for me, that’s an important step towards finding your own personal voice.

What it does is liberate us: “You don’t have to write as you.” But of course that’s what people do, without realising. And they do it – hopefully with increasing regularity as they write more – by paying closer attention to the individual words and sentences as building blocks of longer pieces of writing. Recognising that ‘there’s a blaze of light in every word’ as Leonard Cohen put it. This doesn’t mean choosing exotic words, just trying to find the right word, dedicating yourself to that pursuit. Then, broadening out from that, trying to make every sentence an event.

That’s how I now approach writing – but it’s continually reinforced by examples in books I read. Does any of this match your own feelings?

Johnny to John

I remember that exercise well. We each wrote our own versions of a famous novel ending. The amazing thing was none of us guessed correctly from the choices written by each of us – they were all credible.

Your comments about the relationship between reading and writing remind me of something the author Stephen King said - ‘If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot’.Yet while I was always a pretty voracious reader of history and then philosophy, for some reason this never helped me develop into a good writer. In fact, if I’m honest, I was so afraid of writing that I’d get a pit in my stomach every time I had to produce something.

Dark Angels broke this chronic spell. By doing exercises like the one above in the company of supportive and like-minded people and under the helpful guidance of the tutors, I managed finally to overcome my crippling phobia of writing. It literally happened over three magical days in Cornwall. So I suppose my main obstacle to writing was psychological, a lack of confidence and once I found a way of overcoming it the sunlit uplands literally opened up before me.

Since then, I’ve been reading far more fiction and poetry as well as writing with a degree of fluency and regularity that I couldn’t have imagined little more than a year ago. And writing, in turn, has helped me become a better and less intimidated reader.

John to Johnny

You went on the Advanced course to Spain after the Foundation in Cornwall. Recognisably a Dark Angels experience, we hope, but stretching you even further. The places we go to have a certain magic, whether that’s a stunning coastal location in Cornwall or the Andalusian national park. Did you find that the places helped sharpen your own receptiveness to the writing challenges? I often think that the location is like an extra tutor.

Johnny to John

I couldn’t agree with you more. Being somewhere entirely new and stunningly beautiful has a hugely invigorating and liberating effect. Being in an unfamiliar place can help us break free of familiar or habitual ways of thinking and writing. One of the exercises I particularly enjoyed on the Advanced course in Aracena was when we took a hike into the countryside which inspired us to write a wonderful play. Yes, place can be as important as people in inspiring us to write.

John to Johnny

Reading, people, place – all things that inspire us to write. But I think you’ve also identified the most essential: simply a greater confidence in the individual’s writing instinct. It’s so easy and so damaging to suppress it. With it we are better, more fulfilled human beings. Dark Angels’ aim is to bolster confidence, to boost the belief that you and your words can fly. But how do you maintain it?

Johnny to John

There’s a three-word answer to that one which I know you’re fond of - Just do it! And by that, I have taken you to mean keep writing, keep reading and keep talking.I think the more you can connect writing with your own well-being or, at least, with your own sense of self, the more natural it becomes to develop and maintain the writing habit. In this way, to paraphrase John Keats, writing can become as natural a part of our lives as leaves to a tree.