Getting it wrong to get it right
In which Jennifer muses about creative evolution and growth
I enjoy writing these craft posts, not only because they focus my mind on my own writing, but also because I believe you guys find them encouraging. This is important to me, because I really do want to encourage our readers to think about their writing, and to reflect on how much they know. Truth is, though, the more I know about writing, the more I know I don’t know. This knowledge helps me bring a beginner’s mind to each project, so when I have a new idea for a story or a novel, I feel like a child taking up a paint brush for the very first time.
How do I do this again?
Haven’t a clue, but I’ll give it a go!
My gut has always guided me, in writing as much as in life. I create organically and instinctively, throw out my word net and catch the pesky critters as they fly by in the aether. This approach has thus far served me well, and my very best stories just sort of fell onto the page in a frenzy of tapping fingers. Tap, tap, tap, and there it was, a freshly minted tale, a brand-new page-turner. Usually, it needs only a few finishing touches and a good polish, plus some feedback from my valued peer readers, to get it to the point where I can declare it complete, or as close to complete as any artistic project can be.
I know many other writers who likewise rely on the muse of the moment, and who agree with me that, when we plan a short story too deeply, we can lose something along the way. Indeed, I have often had a really good idea then planned the heck out of it, to the extent that I lost interest and moved on to another project. For me, art has to come in a breathless moment, and blindside me. If the work captures a little of that wild creative energy, if it is suffused with the wonder I felt in the act of creation, then the reader will, I hope, catch the feeling of that moment too.
Having said this, I believe that instinct and inspiration are rarely effective unless one has learned good tools and techniques. For example, I have at times been inspired to create abstract paintings. An image comes to me, a grand vision for an incredible work, but I lack the skills to produce it. On occasion I have attempted to produce pencil sketches of such pieces, but the result has always been poor. Without the right tools and techniques, the image was wasted on me, leading me to wonder if it had perhaps called to the wrong house.
However, when literary inspiration comes, I’m primed for it.
I might fumble around for a bit, but ultimately I will know what to do, and equally how to do it, because I have learned. This learning has taken many forms, including training courses and craft books, but my greatest teachers have been failure and the work of other writers.
Risking failure
Hardly anyone is instantly good at creative writing. For sure, we might have all the words and show promise with our early efforts, but it takes time to develop as an artist, no matter our form of expression. Remember the pictures you painted when you were a child, of a tree, your home, your family? Though you might have instinctively understood focal point, they most likely lacked depth and perspective. As you grew, so too did your world, and your representation of it became three dimensional. The more you drew and painted, always with the wonder and playful attitude appropriate to your age, the better your work became. You played, experimented, expressed yourself, learned from your mistakes, and tried to do better the next time. Even better if there was a prize to be won, because there’s nothing like a little competition to motivate us to excel.
The same is true of writing. I had to write many poorly executed stories before I wrote my first truly satisfying one. I progressed by degrees, learned from rejection, experimentation, observation. Each new story was an attempt, one I was sure would be accepted by a journal. When it wasn’t, I looked at the story again and realised that it wasn’t as good as I had at first thought. Then came my first placing in a competition, and soon after my first publication and my first competition win. Oh joy!
I guess what I’m really saying is that I evolved, and I am still evolving, still making mistakes. The important thing is the doing, the attempting, the willingness to push the envelope as far as I can with each new project.
Having the courage to risk failure, that’s the trick!
Learning from other writers
Art, like science, tends to be derivative. Einstein couldn’t have happened without Newton, I couldn’t have happened without Chekhov and Joyce. Now, I’m no literary genius, but I can pen a decent tale. My ability to do so is based not only on the writings of those who came before me, but also my contemporaries. This is not to say that one should copy, but we can be inspired, and see something in someone else’s work that makes us question our own. Perhaps we see a technique we haven’t tried, like the use of repetition or white space, and decide to give it a go. Perhaps it is the depth of character which impresses us, and makes us want to dive deeper into that aspect of our next project. Building and releasing tension, I’ve learned some new tricks about them recently, and also form.
Unpacking an amazing novel by a brilliant writer allows me to develop a deeper understanding of the techniques they used, and thus absorb some of their method for myself.
Donal Ryan showed me how to write about the extraordinary lives of ordinary people, Nuala O’Connor’s writing taught me the value of lyrical prose, Neil Hegarty showed me alternative forms to a straight-forward linear narrative. My dear friend Barbara Byar showed me, in her brilliant and soon-to-be-released novel In The Desert, how to get wild with all three of the above. You might write something, structure a sentence or a story in a way that sparks my imagination, and gives me permission to think in a slightly different way. With a little practice, the techniques become my own, executed in my own unique way. Perhaps another writer will then see what I’ve produced, and adapt the methods to their own work.
Every writer encourages me to venture to new places with my writing, and risk ever greater literary experiments.
Error, derivation, evolution; we learn from our mistakes and from each other.
The formula, then, to being a good writer, is to write a lot and read a lot.
Doing so with an open mind and a playful, childlike attitude engenders learning, and as each day passes, we know a little more, we write a little better, and we grow as artists.
It just so much darned fun, isn’t it?
Best job in the world!
By the way, if you’d like to read one of my recent stories, check out yesterday’s New Irish Writing section of the Irish Independent newspaper.
The story is called Somewhere Near Waterloo.
Somewhere Near Waterloo is such a wonderful, poignant story. Congrats on the win!
lovely :)