Princess Diaries

Sifting through my online lit newsletters, one writer’s anecdote caught my eye. An Australian magazine had invited authors to respond to the prompt: ‘What I Wish I’d Known about Writing’.

Shirley Le, whose work I’m not yet familiar with, had a visceral response. When she first announced publicly that she wanted to write, her cousin suggested that she might be being a ‘A Bit Of A Bloody Princess’ (her capitals). In other words, who did she think she was? 

Who do we writers think we are, especially the memoirists amongst us. It’s a loaded question and one I suspect particularly relevant to Australians*. While we might privately search ourselves for an answer, the question can be conversely asked of us by friends, colleagues, by editors of renowned magazines, or even come from our families (one’s brothers for instance!).

When I told a friend years ago that I wanted to write, she asked what I’d write about. ‘Me,’ I said flippantly.  ‘Well, that wouldn’t be very interesting,’ she replied. And she had a point. Yet, no matter the response from the outside world, writers should not be deterred from telling their stories, whatever the quality. 

Later in Shirley Le’s career, while deeply ensconced at a writers’ colony one year, she became paralysed with fear and decided to phone a friend. The friend said that Shirley had always been a bit of a gossip, so why not write in that vein. Her moment of revelation came, and Shirley set about writing the tale she’d come there to tell.

For some, discovering who we are will only happen by getting the words down on paper and seeing what’s reflected back. What works and what doesn’t. The memoirist might find that she’s as much the antagonist of the narrative as she is the protagonist and that she truly is a ‘bloody princess’. A fiction writer might discover a new character trampling through his story, thereby deepening its layers.

We don’t know what being human actually means unless we’re in the business of finding out. The idea of the writerly search is put most eloquently by poet Emily Dickinson, who wrote, ‘I am out with lanterns, looking for myself‘.’ Many of us are.

*Australia is known for what’s called ‘Tall Poppy Syndrome’ ie cutting them (a person) down to size.