Quite a few people have said to me over the last 10-15 years “Tony, you should write” I usually responded with some excuse about not being good enough, who the hell wants to read what “I” write, I don’t know where to start, there are “Millions” of people who write so much better than me and so on. It is true! It is also a copout, true, my command of writing structure is “naive” fluidity comes to a sudden halt and the “point” I might have started writing about regularly does a “Ronnie Corbett”. The subject I initially want to write about starts as a mini book in my head and then as soon as finger hits key I realise I can’t type fast enough to get it all out, and then it’s gone. It occurs to me that it might be better to have a hinged skull and then when I get an idea I could lift the lid and mould a piece of A4 over my brain and let the essence of what I felt soak in, it might not be legible but it might have a certain artistic merit!
Last year I bought “Dragon naturally speaking” a software program that is supposed to translate the spoken word into type, sounds good? I did have reservations about sitting at the computer “talking” to it and I also feel daft speaking to nothing; it didn’t make any difference because after loading the program and spending hours “training it” it still wouldn’t write what I was saying! I think my “diction” is quite good but Dragon seems to think not. I am not averse to a little editing but this would have been like translating Urdu into Inuit! The truth is I do like putting thought to screen; sometimes I do think I have a point or opinion that has some originality to it and get excited about putting it on record. I also think there is a certain part of me that likes being scrutinised or it could be a need to have some feedback about what I am doing or thinking, whatever it is it probably has a root in some sort of insecurity.
My mind works (or doesn’t work!) in a strange way, it is unfettered by convention it drifts and switches, goes off on an obscure tangent from the original thread, races and then slows to a sluggish pace leaden and dull and then fires back up at a speed I can’t follow. It sees a shiny object, an unrelated synaptic spark sneakily “pops” in a different place and I can’t ignore it! I can visualise my noodle from without and I see a vast pattern of Christmas tree lights flicking on and off but not in a sequential order there might be an “Uzi-like” spurt and then nothing, zilch, squat, bugger all sweet FA nada it has gone as quickly as it came. When people tell me to “live in the moment” I have to wonder if they know what that means (to me) I don’t think I have ever planned anything in 40 years, the “Moment” is all I am. Yes I “have” made decisions to do something but they have always been poorly thought out, reckless for my own needs, whatever place I am in at the time dictates my next move, if that sounds fairly normal, and I haven’t given it any thought, bear in mind that it has depended entirely on “reaction” imagine that feeling you get when you have to suddenly swerve to avoid something in the road, now imagine that as a constant journey; Imagine doing that for 40 years, you may not even be on the road now but still there seem to be millions of objects to swerve away from. It isn’t really possible to miss everything and sometimes a collision is unavoidable.
Someone, well, a few people have said to me, I have some great ideas, I should try and put them into practice “just go for it” is it fear of failure? I can’t quite grasp that concept because I have had considerable “failure” (although I am not really sure by what barometer that should be measured) and it doesn’t really bother me now. I have also had some success (by my own barometer) I have had a lot of very good advice, genuinely helpful people with pure and good intentions for helping me get out of whatever place I am in. I have seen the frustration on their faces when I respond with an “ah but” and even heard myself laughing at that “ah but” seeing it for the feeble excuse it is and determining to sort it out. I sometimes think other people have a harder time understanding me than I do! Measured by their own aspirations I must be bloody frustrating. To some it seems I am like the council house tenant who wins the lottery say 40 million and says “I am going to get a nice Georgian style door for the house”
But the most perplexing part of my inertia (for me) is subject matter! If I was to try and make a living writing, what on earth should I write about? I have already discounted fictional novels; Academia is not even an option especially as my essays at Plater were described as “Journalistic” by my tutor, and journalism? Despite my dismay at some of the trash written in the name of journalism I “have” looked at various routes into that arena and haven’t yet found one amenable to my “style” of writing. “Oh Tony! More bloody excuses”!
OK I have an idea J (by the way, that “J” is a smiley in word that for some reason becomes a J when copied to my blog) as an exercise in motivation and a test of my real writing ability, let me ask you to suggest a topic for me to write 5000 words on and the genre in which it should be written. You know, humour, current affairs, fiction, biography etc, anything you like, please do not suggest writing about the inside of a ping pong ball, that was suggested at school and is frankly daft. Anyway, I am still working on it!
I know only a few people read my ramblings and it is not a particularly rational means of deciding where I should focus my writing but it will be useful to me and I would be grateful for the input. Just out of curiosity, who else pours out a few cashew nuts and then eats all the broken bits and half nuts before starting on the whole ones ?
Please excuse the appaling punctuation. i would certainly need a smarter editor than microsoft review.
