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 |   A tentative blog to test the temperature. |
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Ten years ago I was writing several blogs on various subjects - F1 motor racing, Music, Classic Cars, Great Romances and, most crushingly, a personal journal that included my thoughts on America, memories of England and Africa, opinion, humour, writing and anything else that occurred. It all became too much (I was attempting to update the journal every day) and I collapsed, exhausted and thoroughly disillusioned in the end. So this blog is indeed a Toe in the Water, a place to document my thoughts in and on WdC but with a determination not to get sucked into the blog whirlpool ever again. Here's hoping.     |
| Just Do It The trouble with all this writing advice and wise sayings about how to write is that they make it sound like a formula. Just learn all these bits and pieces, fit ‘em together and you’ve got a book or short story or poetry. Leave out any of the ingredients or put extra ones in and you’ve ruined the whole thing. The truth is that writing’s not like that. You have a story to tell and the best way to tell it is to get on with it. Let your own taste and preferences and tendencies decide how to make it interesting and entertaining and go with the flow. If you’re a writer, it’ll happen. All you have to do is sit down and write. Tell your story in your way and that’s what you’ll end up with - a story. Wasn’t that the object of the exercise? Word count: 146 |
| Keep Your Pants On The wise ones on the hill say that we should write by planning carefully, begin with a draft and then rewrite endlessly until perfection is achieved. Those who don’t bother with such processes, merely bashing something out instead, are called “pantsers,” a name I don’t mind accepting as descriptive of my process. But it’s untrue, even so. The plain fact is I don’t write anything until it’s been thoroughly edited in my head. Which means I don’t have to rewrite. It also goes beyond the implication of the name, pantser. Doing anything by the seat of your pants may be a good description of writing (or driving or flying) as instinct directs, but it misses the target if applied to how I write. I just do it the other way around. There are some advantages to my method, apart from the obvious saving in pen pushing (“key pressing” for the pedants). Doing it my way means every sentence gets intense scrutiny before being written. Editing afterwards invariably leads to fatigue and some misconstructions and errors slipping through as a result. And, if we’re being honest, who genuinely enjoys rewrites anyway? I will admit to one thing that is advised, however. Reading (aloud, if possible) after completion is absolutely necessary, in my opinion. That will really discover any lumps or bumps in the writing, if they’re there. But it’s not why I read on completion. The terrible truth is that, generally, I like what I’ve written. There are some things that I read again and again until I hate the sight of them. Well, not “hate,” but “grow tired of,” shall we say? Equally, there are some things that I dislike from the start. And yet I let them loose on the world, just as I do the favourites. They’ve had as much, and sometimes more, work put into them as the rest, so they can serve as bad examples at least. And later readings do often reveal them as better than I had supposed. I know this because I don’t stop reading my stuff. The most recent work gets frequent rereading but even old stuff gets hauled out for a read on occasion. And that’s when I discover things I don’t remember writing. In some of my longer excursions into the past, I occasionally find myself reading something and thinking, “This is really good. Who wrote it? Oh wait, it must have been me. Funny, I don’t remember it at all.” That can be quite weird. Reading something that you know was written by yourself but you have no recollection of. I suppose it’s bound to happen that some pieces slip from the memory after a while, but to come upon them as a complete stranger is like looking in a mirror and seeing someone entirely unexpected looking back at you. It has its uses, however. Reading without a personal connection to the writing gives one insight into the actual quality of the piece. For the first time, we are able to gain an unbiased view of whether the thing’s any good at all. And the fortunate thing, for me at least, is that, so far, I haven’t found one of these “lost” works that I didn’t think was well written. That may sound conceited but I don’t care. At the very least I can say that I am reasonably content with my former self that wrote all that stuff. It’s better than going around, eternally weighed down with guilt and regret. I like myself. How’s that for a clanger? Word count: 590 |
| The Faithfulness of Inanimate Objects Every morning, at about 10:00am, I stop what I’m doing, open the shoebox on my desk and take out the pills I’m supposed to swallow each day. I arrange them in a vaguely constellation pattern (each time slightly different - it’s a memory aid) and then swallow them in threes with a glop of water from the bottle hiding behind the monitor. When that’s done, I grab my WDC calendar that they send us every year, extract my trusty Bic ballpoint pen from its place between laptop and keyboard, and check the day’s date on the calendar. Then everything goes back in its place (apart from the pills that are now doing what they do in the dark and unknown interior of my aged body) and I go back to whatever I was doing. This little ceremony is designed to assist me in remembering to take my medicines on time and to provide reassurance that the deed has been done if I become uncertain later in the day. But it also provides an excellent example of the enduring and reliable service of certain humble and self-effacing inanimate assistants we employ. Today’s ritual has suggested to me that I sing the praises of one of these, the ever present and always eager to serve Bic ballpoint pen. Bic pens are ubiquitous yet disregarded. They serve faithfully and without honour in probably every country in the world. I have never known one to run out of ink. Most, of course, never get anywhere near doing such a thing, being the item most commonly “borrowed” and lost in the vicissitudes of the day. Their numbers are so widespread and teeming that they are regularly replaced by another of their ilk and so their service continues, never remarked upon or praised. They are, indeed, a fine example of “cheapest being best.” I have no doubt that their initial success was a result of their simplicity, cheapness and reliability, but these have also resulted in their being taken for granted. They deserve better. This matter of the longevity of their ink supply, for instance, is something I am researching at the moment. The Bic mentioned in the above description of my daily medicinal ritual has not needed replacing in years. I have guarded it jealously and provided it with the special protection of having a stash of brand new Bics hidden away for doling out to those who come asking if I have a pen. They get one of the new ones and are told to keep it. It will only be a matter of days before they arrive in search of a pen again, but my test subject is protected from such a cavalier attitude to the matter of inanimate assistants. So this is in praise of Bic pens and, by association, of all those humble assistants that we take for granted in our daily lives. Mice and keyboards are other examples of excellence in spite of cheapness, although there does not seem to be a single marque responsible for their manufacture (unless “Generic” is a brand). If you want a mouse or keyboard that will serve you uncomplaining for years, just buy the cheapest on offer. Those fancy and expensive ones are just going to let you down in a month or two. All this and I have yet to mention the strangest and most unexpected facet of the Bic pen’s existence. The really weird thing is that they’re French. Being British, I have to scorn the French at every opportunity but, at the same time, I must admit that there are certain things that they do really well. And the Bic pen stands at the head of that list. Word count: 618 |
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I've always remembered that episode and thought that was a fun idea.
Quite good is quite a good compliment 
As someone who just reviewed an item in your port, I can't help but wonder, Did I pick an item that you'd throw out? 