December 7th 2022 - Know yourself, then write what you know

I've always felt like I need to convey something when I'm writing.

Like a message. Something I've learnt or felt or thought that I'm wanting to share.

I've always thought that stories are the best way to share those messages but I'm wondering if that's really correct.

I often wonder, if I have something that I feel needs to be said, why not just say it? Why does it need to be gift-wrapped in a story?

For instance. I sometimes feel that I spend too much time wishing my life was different. There, I've said it now.

Do we need anything extra?

I've been thinking about experimenting with a different form of writing. Something a little closer to life - a little more autobiographical.

Not a memoir. People who aren't famous and say they're writing their memoirs make me heave slightly. Definitely not a memoir.

But I'm wondering if there is a form of writing where I could present a character who is essentially me in a disguise and then push him through various stories.

If the old idiom is to write what you know, then surely I, as the best authority on myself, should be able to write myself quite well.

A story I'm working on now has a central character who is very close to me. I wonder how different it would be if I took that extra step and just made him me (in disguise as a protagonist).

Or is this all just really arrogant and conceited? Am I overthinking this a tad - most likely.

In short - I think I should try writing with a character that is essentially me, and pushing them through experiences I think about from my own life to see if the things I want to say can be said in a clearer way than trying to communicate the same thing implicitly through a story.

Simple.

November 29th 2022 - Box Sets by Roddy Doyle (Life Without Children, Vintage, 2022)

I just started reading this short story collection by Roddy Doyle (the first of his that I've read) and the first story has done something interesting which I immediately thought "I should note that down somewhere". Here seems as good a place as any. If this is my writer's diary then recording little tricks I find other writers doing is probably a good thing to put in it.

So, Box Sets. There's something interesting going on with the narrative point of view in this opening story. It's in 3rd person and has a certain distance from the two main characters, Sam and Emer.

What caught my attention were instances of a scene being described and then later edited. One scene ends with "He [Sam] threw the mug." It's only a couple of scenes later that this moment is revisited and padded out with further details. We learn that Emer had said "I'm leaving" before Sam "[throws] the mug at the wall, above the cooker."

It's an interesting technique. The lack of detail around the first time we encounter this moment allows the story to progress. The subsequent actions of Sam that we see in the next scene seem like a massive overreaction. A cyclist rides into him and Sam throws the bike into the sea... but then we shift back and find out Emer has told him she's leaving just before this happens. New context comes in to partly justify his mood at the time of the incident we've just witnessed.

I like this technique. It feels like a kind of acceptable cheating. To partially withhold information, but sort of reveal it through the actions that follow on from it, and then fill in the blanks.

Nice one Roddy Doyle. I shall read on.

November 24th 2022 - Doing My Actual Job

Had a day where my actual day job sidelined some writing I wanted to get done today. But I guess that's the gambit of trying to write whilst working full-time. I have some time this evening but I always feel more sapped trying to write after day job work.

Side note - I never liked the idea of writing whilst working - it always felt like I was cheating somebody somehow... but I found Jem Calder talking about this on the BrickLane Bookshop Podcast and I found his words very helpful.

This evening I finally managed to do the 200 in 50 exercise. Just in time as I'm due to meet my writer friend tomorrow where we'll compare second attempts.

Here's mine:

The Noah Network

The Noah network worried.

One Noah, named Noah, worried a lot.

Noah had never seen a badger. Or a hedgehog.

It was not his kind of thing. He was not that kind of Noah.

Now the network said to collect two of each. Two of each wild thing.

He was glad to be some where, where the wild things were not too wild.

He had to find them. Two of each badger and two of each hedgehog. Were there different kinds?... Different kinds of badgers and different kinds of hedgehogs?

The Floods.

That was the thing.

Floods. Floods. Floods.

The network worried.

The floods were not kind.

Noah worried he had left things too late. How was he to find two of each badger, two of each hedgehog and two of each other wild thing, when he had never seen a badger or a hedgehog?

Some Noah’s said it was already too late. Some Noah’s had already seen the flood. Their wild things had already been lost.

Their badgers lost.

Their hedgehogs lost.

Noah had never said the things he worried about to others.

The thing he worried and worried and worried…

He worried he’d be better named something different.