That Despicable Feeling

I've noticed a tendency over the years for writers to talk about writing as if their way of approaching the craft is the only way. Recently, I heard a writer I really rate and respect say words to the effect that if you didn't have a head full of stories clamouring to be told then you might think you want to be a writer but, in reality you don't: you're just in love with the idea of being a writer. The best thing you could do would be to acknowledge this and find something else to do.

I'm a great fan of their work, but I think they're seriously wrong about this. I'm sure what they say reflects their own reasons for writing and it does explain aspects of their work: their narratives so often have the quality of a myth or a fable about them. I've often wondered how they pulled that trick. The idea that they have a story in their head that they're just itching to get down – that their narratives are more story-driven than character-driven – would go part way to explaining it.

It might work for them, but it's not the only way. I wouldn't dream of considering myself in their league, but, like a lot of people reading this, I suspect, I do write, and I know that my motivation is very different from what I've just described. To me, the fictional world I want to write about is an elusive thing.

It's as if it's concealed in a circular tower, with no visible doors or windows. I can wander round it for hours, running my fingers over the surface, looking for the slightest crack that might indicate the presence of a secret door. Once I've found it, I have to find the magic, secret words that'll unlock it. (By the way, in case I'm making it sound like I'm into Swords and Sorcery stuff, I should point out I'm not). Once in, usually, I'm away. Sometimes it turns out to be no good, or a dead end, but at least I get going. With luck, once you're in and you get to know the characters you meet there, a story begins to take shape.

Not being able to find a way in can be stressful. You can work off your excess energy writing reviews, blog-posts and the like, but it's not the same. I'm guessing Raymond Carver was a very different writer to the one I mentioned at the beginning. In his story, Put Yourself In My Shoes, he creates a fictional alter-ego, Myers, and puts him through a hell not unlike my wanderings around the circular tower:

As he drove, he looked at the people who hurried along the sidewalks with shopping bags. He glanced at the gray sky, filled with flakes, and at the tall buildings with snow in the crevices and on the window ledges. He tried to see everything, save it for later. He was between stories and he felt despicable.

Later in the story, some people, knowing that he's a writer, insist on telling him a long, rambling anecdote about a stranger who died in a hotel room they were staying in. They think he might be able to use it, but of course (and this is the point of the story) anecdotes and short stories are two very different things.

Dominic Rivron

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This Writing Game - Where Does It Start?

I’ve always had ‘this writing thing’, ever since I could hold a pencil and form letters, which was long before I started school. My mother taught me the alphabet in upper and lower case, how to write the letters and the different sounds they made, called 'phonics' now.  I was lucky to have my mother at home to do this sort of thing with me, and, although I was almost constantly the new girl at various schools due to frequently moving pubs with my father’s work, I had a good education. There was a lot of emphasis on producing good handwriting in my primary schools. An entire lesson could be spent practising until each letter was perfect and sat correctly placed along the lines in the writing book. I took pride in this, so much pride that my personal signature flourishes were frowned upon and deemed completely unnecessary. Individuality was not encouraged.

Books were a thing, too. My mother was an avid reader and she read my books to me. I was determined to read for myself and proved to be a quick learner when I started school. I’m from the ‘Janet and John’ era of the late ‘50s. I don’t think the ‘h’ in John ever gave me or my classmates a problem. We accepted what we were told, John says John. I remember being ready for my next reading book then having to wait longer because I kept mistaking ‘clothes’ for ‘cloths’. The things I still carry round in my head sixty-odd years after the event! No wonder I’m a bit bonkers. Anyway, I was moved up and continued going from strength to strength.

I was aged seven and in my last year of infant school when I was introduced to Enid Blyton’s Secret Seven and The Rilloby Fair Mystery by some books that were given to me. I reached the end of the book and would go straight back to the beginning and read it again. I couldn’t get enough of Enid Blyton but her books were discouraged by schools. Both parents bought me books regularly. I must have been so indulged, but I was always reading and the more I read, the more I wanted to write. The seed was sown. It took a long time to grow.

I lost my main mentor when my mother passed away. Things can be ‘meant to be’, though, and upon leaving secondary school I was encouraged by my English teacher to keep writing, so I did. Life takes unexpected turns and leads us down unfamiliar paths, mistakes are made, lessons are learned and we move on. That makes it sound simple and straightforward when, as we all know, it very much isn’t.  Personal ambition was never far away. The writing game, it’s just there, we have to do it, even if it is something for ourselves, like a journal, it’s compelling. I hope someone reading this understands and agrees with me. I’m sure I’m not alone.

Creative writing continues to be my passion. I might get round to finishing ‘that novel’ or it might stay as it is, half of it on a shelf, the rest in my laptop. I loved writing it. I loved seeing a published short story in print. If that’s as good as it gets, I’m happy. It happened.

My poem, a tongue-in-cheek look at the future of education.  I’m glad that my grandchildren are learning handwriting and basic skills that I can relate to.

An Alternative Education

The 3 Rs soon to be redundant
Computer-led kids will be abundant
With all information mega-quick
It only takes a scroll down and click
No need for any conversation
Included in their education.

Last year’s reception class have all gone
And taken a leap up to Year One
To drag sticky fingers on iPad screens
And work out what technology means.
Will this be their basic foundation
Instead of formal education?

Numeracy, or let’s call it Maths
Has rules to follow specific paths
Beginning with learning how to count
Then adding up and sharing out.
One click away from calculation
Takes away their education.

The infants are learning to use a pen
It’s not a skill they’ll need again
For a future spent staring on-line,
Social activity in decline
With hardly any interaction,
So they won’t need our education.

When did this digital preference start?
Oh why no poetry learnt by heart?
‘Spell check’ becomes their favourite teacher
With ‘Grammar check’ an added feature.
The only future expectation,
A self-taught on-line education.

PMW 2015

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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