Writing Bad

‘But M, you seem so nice,’ a writing colleague once said to me. ‘How do you come up with this stuff?’ Did she mean rage? ‘Where does it come from?’

I shrugged. First of all, I’m not that nice. Secondly, being a writer is different from living life as a regular human being. The human is there to get along in the world, to be ‘nice’. The writer is there to get to the truth – no matter how unpalatable. For the writer, the two may never gel. But that’s okay.

Five years ago I was lucky enough to attend a writing workshop in Italy. I’d travelled across a wide ocean to write scenes from a childhood that I’d preciously found difficult to depict.

A small breakthrough came with a story called ‘The Turf Club’ about my veteran father.. The scene about his drinking can be read in the anthology Jewels of San Fedele. 

Set in an Australian pub, the scene takes place between Dad and a young neighbour of ours. While the story is true, I was not present at the event, so I needed to imagine what had gone on there. It was easier to narrate the story if I was at arms’ distance from it.

Prior to this class, I had no idea how to approach the subject of my father’s vulnerabilities – such as drinking – or even if I should. (Women – nice creatures that we are – might find such scenes more difficult to write than do male writers.)

But the memoirist’s job is to tell the truth. Or as Samuel Johnson says: ‘Books that don’t do any harm don’t give any pleasure.’ 

Kaylie Jones, our teacher, encouraged us not to fear the opinion of others ‘You mustn’t care what people think,’ she assured us. We were to silence the inner critic. Easy to say, but hard to do. Still, each morning she led us through a meditation that helped relieve us of the burden of being afraid. It seemed to work.

So, I raise a glass of chianti to ‘writing bad’. Here’s to finding ways to write about what matters most. To be nice or not nice. Writing well, on the other hand, may come later, and is the subject for a later post! Stay tuned!