One of the thought processes that inevitably strays through my mind at some point while jotting down these posts is the temptation to turn whatever activity I’m going on about into a metaphor for writing.

It’s probably inevitable for the out-of-work freelance wordsmith to see his obsession in everything he does — as in those cartoons where the hungry hero begins to see his companion with a roast chicken where his head should be, it’s hard to think of anything else.  

So the other day, when describing a cycling expedition, it was very tempting to shoot off at a tangent, like: “just as in writing, the embattled scribe must toil up a heartbreaking gradient before the beautiful view (that is his art) is revealed.”

Or when writing about Daniela’s sourdough breadmaking: “just as the early-rising baker nurtures the starter, kneads the dough, leaves it to proof, and commits it to the heated oven, presently to issue forth a fragrant, nourishing loaf, so the writer plies his painstaking craft.”

Or even, “mounting the ladder to fix the finial, the handyman – not unlike your humble scribe – must carry in his over-filled hands his sharp tools, his carefully-prepared finial, his Liquid Nails, and his vision of a revitalised roofline, all in the service of creating perfection of design and function for the delight and instruction of his audience. Which is like writing.”  

You get the idea.

Years ago, in that golden time when a university provided me with a cosy study and six groups of impressionable students per week to discuss poetry, we’d parse the works of Seamus Heaney. The old Irishman’s early work was perfect for this kind of thing: often you could tease the week’s poem open gently, through leading questions to the rapt students, until the big reveal: “it’s really a metaphor for . . . writing, don’t you think?”

Take for example, his childhood memory-cum-credo, “Digging” – here read by the man himself.

Heaney recalls his father’s committed physical labour as a younger man, skilfully unearthing potatoes or cutting peat:

Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, going down and down
For the good turf. Digging.

“Could it be,” I would coax my wide-eyed scholars, “could it be that he’s drawing a parallel between digging and writing?”

Especially when he says:

But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I’ll dig with it.”

And he does it again and again – have a look at “Follower”, where his father’s artistry with the plough is the metaphor:

An expert. He would set the wing
And fit the bright steel-pointed sock.
The sod rolled over without breaking.
At the headrig, with a single pluck
Of reins, the sweating team turned round
And back into the land.

“So what do you think,” I would disingenuously ask my tutees, “what do you think this skilful labour is like?”
“Writing?” they would chorus.

Of course, our Seamus was talking about more than just writing. When he compares his pen to a gun, that’s quite powerfully suggestive in Northern Ireland in 1966. And “Follower” is also about fathers and sons, and all the inescapable, complex emotional ‘issues’ that arise between them. The last line is devastatingly honest – and beyond the scope of this superficial meditation to even begin to assay.

Anyway, to keep this account vaguely plausible, I think fossicking would be the best metaphor for these scribblings: “just as, in writing, the embattled scribe must scrabble through a mass of filthy dross before uncovering the nugget of pure gold that is his art.” It’s a bit like Seamus’s ‘Digging’, just not as good – let’s face it, Heaney’s the one digging up nuggets while my treasures can only dream of resembling his father’s potatoes. So to speak.

Still, I do rather like the idea of writing these little crumbs of ‘content’ as fossicking. For one thing, fossicking is an amateur activity – and this little venture has so far yielded precisely no revenue for its chief fossicker.

And as part of fossicking, you can’t use power tools – for which read ‘powerful intellect’.  Or indeed, explosives . . . for which you may read, perhaps, ‘great, earth-moving flashes of inspiration’. In this context, ‘squibs of the damp variety’, I think you’ll agree.

Ultimately, there’s one thing every fool knows about metaphors and analogies – which is, don’t take it too far. Don’t strain the similarities, or they become ridiculous. So it’s time to hang up my word-shovel, dry off my fossicking pan, clean the mud off my writing wellies. Today’s panning in the stream of my consciousness has ruptured the lumbar region of my creativity without turning up much in the way of paydirt – you might even call it a load of old schist.