"How do I know what I think until I read what I write?" quipped an author many years ago - probably E.M. Forster. Or Flannery O'Connor.

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The act of writing requires the ordering of facts and ideas into words, phrases, and eventually whole propositions. If all writing is, at core, an exercise in persuasion, the first target must be the author.

Because of its deliberative process, writing carries heavier responsibilities than extemporisation - talking off the cuff - even if the best columns and books read like they are just that.

"Writing is exactly what it says it is," wrote the late, great columnist, A.A. Gill, "it is black and white".

I confess, I thought of the "... read what I write" truism as I started this column because I knew it would be one of those. I hoped to find my way through the fractious mess laying strewn in the wake of the Bondi terrorist attack, the Seinfeldian saga of Adelaide Writers' Week (at which I was to attend), and the vast, unbridgeable space between current disagreements.

But how to make sense out of so much pain and so many diametrically opposed "values", especially as, "apparently", all are held in good faith?

The Bondi attack itself was chillingly clear - a heinous premeditated massacre of innocents driven by the most profound and irrational hatred of Jews.

Its response, however? Faced with such horror, genuine national leaders - politicians ordinarily at loggerheads over teased-up differences on business regulation, energy policy and taxes - would prioritise the national interest without prompting or hesitation. That is, they'd converge for the same patriotic reason they believe in the Parliament, the rule of law, and the Test eleven.

And from that starting point, they would have committed to act as one purposeful unit emphasising national unity and........

© Canberra Times