The Geology of Writing

Writing is a subterranean activity. You dig and dig looking for ideas following seams of discovery, conscious and unconscious, deeper into the underworld piecing together tunnels and caves, fractures in our awareness and fissures of brilliance. Somehow, far from the mine mouth we find what we we’re looking for, often the lodestone is nothing like we imagined but we cradle it tenderly and nurse it to the surface, tracking the labyrinth of spilled words back to the sun and then in the bright brilliance of day we are amazed, staggered by the many layers and shades that our brilliant prize finally offers.

The writing of my last book was a very long exploration of story’s stratification. Walking the Earth’s Spine started out as a ‘simple’ adventure story. The recounting of a 2,700 kilometer solo trek I made through the Himalayas. I blasted out that first draft fifteen years ago in a rush of visceral energy, got to the end of it, happy with the number of pages I’d generated, but then went back to re-experience what had been a life changing event only to realize that what I had written sounded nothing like what I had experienced.

I had written the book in the form of the travel adventure tales I was reading at the time; a quest with big goals; to become the first person to walk alone along the western length of the highest mountains in the world. What I’d done was put together a narrative on the logistics of taking a very long walk, the whole thing was light, almost superficial, there was little there that hinted at the incredible depth of the feeling I’d gone through in four months of being alone in the wilderness. What was missing?

I was fascinated with the physicality of the Himalayas, I had been a trekking guide for many years and loved the purity of feeling I got in the mountains. The idea of clarity in the peaks was something that stuck with me. Maybe this was the missing link. For a few years I returned to my research looking deeper into the flora, fauna, geology and history of the mountains. Slowly I incorporated those thoughts into the text. I liked what I had brought to the story but still it lacked the depth I’d experienced. I needed more.

I considered why I had spent so much time in those mountains – I was there for eight years on and off – and a fascination with the religions of the region was one of the big drawcards. Looking at my manuscript I realized how much time I’d spent with religious figures; pilgrims, monks, saddhus and ordinary Indians, Pakistanis, Tibetans and Nepalis. I came to believe I had been on a spiritual quest, looking at the relationship between the physical Himalayas and the Himalayas of the mind, the mountains that take on religious form in the Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim and Animist traditions along the range. More years of research and writing brought forth more drafts, again I was happy with the additions but again I couldn’t reconcile what I had on paper with what I had felt – and now time and distance was lending the whole experience a mythological quality.

Then a few years ago I was in Kathmandu where a friend read the manuscript. We had dinner a few days later and I asked her opinion, she said she’d made it through the first ten pages and produced ten pages of notes to consult in the discussion. This was disheartening. However, upon finishing the manuscript she really had only one major comment, “Jono, there’s something major going on in the background. That’s what you have to discover.” I dismissed her remarks saying that this was MY story and MY story was about a very long walk in the Himalayas looking for connections between the region’s spiritual geography – full stop.

A few days later I was rereading a section of the book where I approach the glacial source of the Ganges River, the most sacred body of water in Hinduism; it was an incredible sight, a stream that becomes a river that defines a religion and a nation emanating from a wall of turquoise ice while the twilight sky above is painted in pink and purple. When I reached the source I was exhausted, I sat down by the nascent stream and unexpectedly began to cry. I had always wondered at this reaction, I’d reasoned it off to emotion, to being in a place of magisterial beginnings, but thinking about it again all those years later I was inexplicably struck by a sense of déjà vu – the quietude, the cool air, the half light, the overwhelming emotion – when had I felt that before, and it struck me, the last time I had experienced those elements was when I had seen my dead brother’s body in a cool, dark hospital morgue.

Fireworks went off.

Why had I gone to the Himalayas? Why had I stayed there so long? Why had I become so attracted to the religions and landscape of the region?

Like a puzzle whose pieces spontaneously slot together memories began to fall into place. Underneath everything I’d piled onto it, the trek had been about my brother Gareth and my understanding of his tragic death – for so many years I had been in denial and when finally I saw the light so many of the experiences and understandings I had been through on the trek finally made sense. I rewrote the book, yet again, and finally when the exhilaration of understanding had stilled I reread it and discovered that the glue was there, the depth of what I had been through finally started to shine through.

The telling of stories is hard work, but at its heart are unimaginable treasures.

Jono Lineen is a writer inspired by landscape and humankind's relationship to it. His first book, River Trilogy, was a comparative travelogue of three of the world’s great rivers and their connection to the populations living along their length. His second book, Walking the Earth's Spine, narrates the story of his 2700 kilometre solo trek across the Himalayas and its link to his coming to terms with the tragic death of his younger brother. For more on Jono and his writing, visit his website.