A personal reflection on writing – at least, the way I do it
I enjoy the process of writing. There is something satisfying, to me, in wandering into a story and exploring what it has to offer. I have been taking such wanders into my mind since primary school, but the process of actually writing the stories down probably started in high school. Mostly the story fizzled out and was discarded, along with the paper upon which it had been scribbled.
Quite often my scribbling was in order to capture something my imagination had come up with during various outside rambles. Those rambles could be anywhere – along the beach and headlands of Oyster Bay in Tanzania; in the mountains surrounding Athens; on my uncle’s farm; walking the dog around the suburbs of Canberra; on school excursions or university field trips; waiting for meetings to start (and, regrettably, sometimes waiting for them to end); wandering through the many parks of Canberra, camera in hand, hoping to find some wildlife to photograph while my mind raced on into fantasy; while woodworking, when my mind should have been focussed on the task at hand (a process which frequently resulted in me later having to fix some woodworking blunder I’d made, but there you go; the inevitable result of an undisciplined mind).
I think I can say that it has been a lifetime – almost literally – of writing: stories, many of which have rightly disappeared never to be seen again; poetry; and of course the varied forms of writing required to pass exams or to fulfil my roles in the Australian Public Service. Obviously not all of the latter were enjoyable, but writing anecdotes and fiction usually was. Furthermore, in the later stages of my Public Service days I had two semi-legitimate reasons to put together poetry: the sometimes surprising discussions that took place before, during and after meetings, or the existence of a fresh pot of tea in the office kitchen. The latter ditties were intended to inform other tea drinkers that tea had been made. It got so that at certain meetings, poetry was virtually expected of me – a development about which, naturally, I had to write:
I have this problem, you see.
Seems Suze, Graeme, Janice and Lee
Expect a rhyme
In limerick time:
And they seem to expect it of me!
Speaking of poetry, I have put together a small volume of it but so far have not decided to inflict it on the reading public. Time will tell. The same holds for the book of my woodworking misadventures, meant to be entertaining but rather too revealing of one of my poorer personality traits: the ability to keep making mistakes, albeit not (always) the same ones! Sometimes I even entertain the idea of a small book of my cartoons - you have no idea how much material there is to be had for a cartoon when you work in a gym, or even the Public Service when the subject matter relates to living organisms. But perhaps not. If I have a talent for drawing, it includes a relentless ability to draw the human figure with remarkably short legs. No matter how I try to do otherwise, they end up with short legs. I find other forms of life infinitely easier to draw.
Still, with the advent of a personal computer I found I could pursue my stories to their completion; perhaps it was a function of actually being able to read what I had written. My handwriting has been the despair of everyone who has met it, including me. I blame it – no doubt unfairly if not inaccurately! – on a childhood education scattered between Australian, English and American writing styles. But with a computer, the hobby of writing became much more accessible. Once I could decipher my scribbles, that is.
At one stage in my Public Service career, woodworking became a passion and served to absorb an inordinate amount of time that might otherwise have been spent writing (I don’t regret it, because producing something useful in wood gave me a real sense of achievement. Better still, it often gave a friend something they actually could use). Besides, woodworking gave me legitimate space in which to pursue a story or two, while listening to another passion: classical music. Many a tale was written in my workshop while I battled with the vagaries of some bespoke piece of furniture or other item. Most, of course, disappeared because they were little more than fancies; but some seeds took root and grew into written tales, while others that disappeared might have gone further if I had managed to capture them at the time. Who knows? – at any event, they are gone now.
The truth is, any time when doing something else I end up pursuing a story in my head.
Not every book I write makes it into print. Rather too often, it seems to me, I get a spark from something I have seen (TV, film) or read (book) and have written my own book around whatever it was. By my lights, that means I’m playing in someone else’s back yard without their permission and I certainly cannot in any conscience have those books printed. But they were fun to write!
My niece Barbara Truelove, being much braver than I, is a properly published author of at least two books (that I know of – Crying Wolf and Of Monsters and Mainframes) and has another on the way. Clearly writing is in the genes!
Sunrise on a foggy day at Yarramundi Reach, Canberra, ACT Australia (K Truelove)
