Ways to Write

I was chatting to a friend over coffee recently and they mentioned they'd been to a writing course and the instructor told them always to write by hand because it freed up creativity.

I'm sure that's true for some people. In fact I'm sure it's true for many people and I even expect there's research out there to back it up. And obviously helping people develop their writing is in part about helping them with their writing process. But for me the problem comes when a process suggestion becomes a rule.

I used to write longhand, in pencil. (Using a pen paralysed me, it felt as if ink made the words unalterable.) But it turns out I have terrible fine motor skills so my hand could never keep up with the stream of thought running through my arm. Not to mention I can't spell at speed, so looking back on what I'd written was enough to throw me into despair.

Now I can't really type either and I'm still not going to win any spelling bees, but my two fingers can put enough on the screen that I know what I meant and I can go back and fix it up when the flow stops. When I discovered the word processor (I'm that old!) it let me be creative in a way paper and pen just couldn't. I can type anything because with a click it disappears. No one but me will ever know what a shockingly bad sentence I'm capable of.

For me, writing is all in the editing. I used to tell my coding son he needed to write me a program that put random junk on the page so I'd have something to edit. (Careful what you wish for!)

Even in my first draft, I'm editing as I go. I'll write a sentence, a paragraph, a scene and then realise the idea and most of the words are right but whole isn't. I'll reverse sentences, change tense, reorder paragraphs and voila, clumsy, unsubtle text develops flow and depth. (Well, I think so anyway.) I need to shore up the foundations before I can build on them. With pen and paper, I'd have a scrawl of crossings out and intersecting arrows to insertions all covered with a smear of hand-heel ink that even I couldn't read.

Some people (I suspect) use pen and paper because it guides them forward. (It's not called the puke draft for nothing!) They may well be trying to avoid exactly what I'm trying to do. And that's a good way to write, if it's right for you. But it's not the only way, because our brains are all different and each has a different key to unlock it.

Word file showing the changes in one scene I've written.
This isn't first to last draft because when I try to do that there's literally nothing lining up

Lucky

 

Twenty five years ago this month I was diagnosed with cancer. First of all I just want to say, look at me, still here. I'm pretty happy about that.

But twenty five years ago, for a year my and my family's life revolved around surgery, chemo and radiation. And then the best part of a decade of medications with with their 'tolerated' side effects. And still the sneaky little blighter tried to stage a comeback a few years in, but we evicted it.

Twenty five years is a while, so my medical experiences are not current but there are a few things I learnt in that year and the ones after and I'd like to say them out loud -

Cancer did not make me a better person. It did not make me re-evaluate my life and see the world in a new perspective. It might for some people, but it just made me tired and grumpy. And intolerant of people's bullshit. 

It was not a blessing in disguise. Having people tell me there had to be a silver lining or that everything happens for a reason was not helpful.

Everyone has their own approach. Mine was evidenced based western medicine. Random strangers (no friends, I'm glad to say), telling me I was poisoning myself was not helpful. I was poisoning *it*, the side effects on me were necessary collateral damage

The most important thing my friends did for me was to be normal. Doing stuff we usually did - grabbing a coffee, going out for a meal, seeing a movie. I was thinking about cancer every waking minute, respite from that was what I needed

The other day someone reminded me I told them this - One of the women in my support group talked about how hard it was not to cry in front of her kids. The facilitator asked, what message are you sending to your kids if, when something this bad happens, it's not okay to cry? This is one of the most important things I've ever learnt. Hiding your feeling doesn't let people in and it's not a viable strategy for longer than half a second.

I'm not a spiritual person but I made a bargain with the universe. Or not so much a bargain as a demand. I wanted ten years. There were things I had to see through. I've had twenty five so far and no reason to believe there won't be many more. I'm one of the lucky ones

And maybe that's the final thing I learnt. Way more of life is dumb luck than any of us is comfortable with. I was lucky to have a doctor who insisted on an exam because it was my first visit, when I thought that was totally unnecessary. Lucky to have been in countries with excellent public systems and good doctors who took my questions seriously and considered alternatives. Lucky that when things went wrong they got noticed quickly. I was unlucky to be on the wrong side of almost every statistic - the number of times I heard a doctor say 'but for someone in your category that is very unlikely', only for it to be the case - except for the one that counts.

Life went back to normal in the end - or mostly. There's still a few niggles. I'm a bit more risk averse than I was. Some of the treatments left scars. I know it had an effect on how my kids view the world - I wish it hadn't. And I still have the occasional sleepless night when I wonder whether that ache in my back is a harbinger or just, you know, the stupidly heavy box I decided was absolutely fine to lug by myself.

I know there are many, many people who had all the same medical advantages as me, who were healthier than me, fitter than me, younger than me, more deserving than me, had better odds than me. Who did everything they could and still ended up on the wrong side of those odds. Yes, all those treatments gave me a chance to be here all these years later, but the fact that I am is still luck. That's the nature of the disease. 

I've lived longer than both my grandmothers which tells you something about how far cancer treatment had come in the sixty years prior. Almost every treatment I got had been developed since their times. So I was lucky there, too. And I have an inkling of how far it's come in the last twenty five. Without the science that drives that progress, the luck means nothing.

Scribblings

I used to know this girl who wrote a lot. So much scribbling. As a favour to her I thought I'd put up one or two things here. Be indulgent, it was a long time ago and she was young.

Staring Out a Quiet Schoolroom Window 17

In silence there is the beauty of reality.

Beneath a blanket of traffic-hum

Peace, monotonous and uncontrasted, goes unnoticed.

Nature within artificial angles

Has roots in the earth,

Green among brown.

The evergreen autumn tones of buildings

Contrasts with the twisted trees, spring green.

Like footbound girls they are formed to man's conception of beauty.

Beauty

So I was out for a walk with my other half the other day, and a young woman leaned out from a passing car and yelled at us. It took me a few moments to parse what she'd said, but her words were 'You are so beautiful'.

Now, I can say with no false modesty, I'm not. Especially not from behind when tramping up a hill. But the way she called it out, I believe she meant it sincerely. After thinking about it for a few minutes, I came to the conclusion that this is what she meant – The universe is beautiful. You are part of the universe. So you are beautiful. 

And a total stranger's expression of love and wonder at the universe kept me buoyant for several days.

But it made me think back a few decades, walking with the same other half in the city one day and a guy leaned out of his car and yelled 'Your girlfriend's a dog.' And at the time I didn't think 'what he means is life sucks and I'm part of life therefore...' I wrote him off as a jerk and I didn't take it too much to heart (except I still remember it all these years later) although I definitely thought it was directly aimed at me.

Why is that? Why do we interpret the stinging words literally and the soothing ones generically?

Maybe I was, for a moment, beautiful. Maybe the afternoon sun lit us up and made haloes of our hair. I'll never know. 

Reading List!

This is something I never expected - I'm on an official school suggested texts list, under Extended Texts. And in nice company!

So, if there's any Year 11 South Australian English student who wants to hit me up with questions - I'm here.

https://www.sace.sa.edu.au/web/english/stage-1/support-materials/suggested-text-lists

STEAM Powered!

Excited to have (virtually) sat down with Michele from STEAM Powered for a great chat about the not so straight line from computing to novel writing with a side trip into the importance of robotics competitions and bookbinding - https://youtu.be/0Ue2wdrFq3E

Searching through a box for something else, look what I came across last night. Cheery background reading for Before This Is Over/An Ordinary Epidemic circa 2009.