I can’t quite believe this day is here. I did the thing I thought I couldn’t do, and ‘The River’ – the song that I co-wrote with awardwinning singer-songwriter Danni Nicholls – is out in the world today! (Listen now on iTunes / Spotify / Youtube etc). Read on if you want to find out what this extraordinary experience felt like.
‘So what do you want to write a song about?’ Danni’s face beamed out of my laptop. ‘I’m not sure really. Life. Time. The detail and the vastness. The not knowing. The wanting to know. The not needing to know.’ Danni Nicholls is a professional singer–songwriter who generously agreed to co-write a song with me, as a fearless writing test. When I began to think about this book, I pondered what would be the most challenging writing experience I could imagine, and that was it. I love music, but I am not musical, so songwriting seemed out of reach, and co- writing sounded even harder, because it would involve spilling unpolished liquid words onto the ground in front of another human being.
‘And how do you feel about doing this?’ Danni asked.
‘I’m terrified,’ I answered, before I had the time to check in with myself and see how I was really feeling. When I did that I realised that actually, I wasn’t terrified at all. I was unsure of how it would work out, so I was a little nervous. I felt vulnerable knowing that I would have no room to edit the words that came out of my mouth before Danni caught them and wove them in with her own. But the overriding feeling was actually one of excitement.
During those three hours of co- writing The River with Danni, I had a strange sense that the song was materialising in the space between us, as if our separateness had dissolved at the edges to make room for it. We often talk of writing as a solitary pursuit, but actually, whether our co- creator is a singer–songwriter with Americana vibes or the creative energy of the universe itself, we are never alone in our work.
This reminds me of a commentary on the collaborative Japanese poetry genre, renga, in which alternating verses are linked by successive poets. Writing about this poetry form, Kyoto University professor Tadashi Ogawa said:
The essential basics of renga lie in both self-abandonment and the participation in za, which is ‘the opening place’ belonging neither to one’s self nor to that of the others. In short, what matters most is to abandon the ‘funk hole’ or ‘dugout’ of the self and enter into the ocean of a shared life with others.3
This was exactly what we had to do in order to co- write the song, and what we have to do as individual writers in order to co- create with the energy of the universe.
The River is OUT TODAY! You can listen on iTunes / Spotify / YouTube etc. If you like it, please share it with your friends!
And if you want to write the things you thought you could not write, I really encourage you to get a copy of my brand new book The Way of the Fearless Writer which is OUT ON THURSDAY! Remember, if you pre-order your copy, you can get FREE access to my brand new writing class Autumn Light which starts on October 17. Just order from any retailer, then fill in this short form. (If you have already done this, thank you! I will be in touch on publication day with details of how to access the class.
Be fearless! The world needs your medicine, my friend.
Beth Xx
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