The Scribbly One

I write because I have to write. It is something I cannot explain, the need to put words down on paper. Often I do not even know what words will emerge until my pen travels over the blank sheet and its ink forms individual letters, leading up to words and phrases and sentences.

Yet at the same time, I do not feel that I have anything to say.

“Write a book,” friends have suggested.

“A book about what?” I ask. I have no idea. My mind is blank.

It is terrible to have the compulsion to write and yet not have anything to write about. That is why I write about my life - it is the only thing I know to speak of, the only topic on which I can converse with any authority. At least, in chronicling my life, the well of ideas can never run dry, for it is filled afresh each day and no two days are exactly alike.

I have never written anything in spurts and am afraid to do it now. Much of what I write has never seen draft form: I just plonk it on a page, and it is there.

On the rare occasions when I have left a piece unfinished, it has inevitably remained unfinished; frozen in time, in stasis, never achieving full splendour.

I have a fear of breaking off my writing. For me, it is not breaking up but breaking off, because I find that when I come back to it I have lost my original train of thought and do not want to board another. To do so would be disloyal to my initial muse. I still want to capture the picture that danced in my mind’s eye at the beginning; I am reluctant to loosen my hold on it, and am even more reluctant to allow it to morph into an image I do not recognise. If it slips through my fingers, I would rather leave my unfinished piece as a monument to its brief existence and mourn the loss of potential greatness.

I do not like to take something which I know ought to have pointed in one direction and turn it to another instead. This is why I am so afraid to write a novel. It is impossible to write a novel in one sitting - in fact, some authors have laboured over their works for years and years. I am afraid I will write something on one day from which I cannot continue on the next.

So it is not the infamous writer’s block that I fear, but my own stubborn sense of procedure and process. This should be followed by this and cannot be substituted by that. If I get stuck in such a manner I know I will never finish and it is safer not to begin than to endure the frustration and self-disgust at not finishing.

Insomnia: Standing on the brink of sleep but never quite falling in.

Characters are the most important aspect of a novel to me. They must be strong, vulnerable and flawed to be believable.
- Theresa Michaels

I think the temptation is to make one’s characters perfect, or at least free from suffering. Unfortunately, real people not only aren’t perfect, they also suffer. It is difficult to make one’s characters suffer, but needs must.

Text message from tactless male:
Ever wonder where the word ‘simpleton’ came about? Well, since you’re single, I propose we call you a ‘singleton’. What say you?

Irritated reply:
The word has already been coined. You obviously don’t read chick lit; Bridget Jones’s Diary popularised the term.

In fact, the word ‘singleton’ caught on quickly and has seen widespread usage ever since Bridget Jones became a surprise bestseller, selling six million copies in 33 countries. So much so that the term ‘singleton’ was included in the Oxford English Dictionary in June 2001.

One can’t, in all conscience, fault a man for steering clear of chick lit; one can, however, fault him for being oblivious to the world around him and making lame attempts at humour.

Remember when I asked, “Who can explain grammar anyway?”

It was a rhetorical question. However, apparently William Safire can. I am in love with his book, How Not To Write. Not only does Safire explain grammar, he does so with tongue firmly in cheek. I never believed a book on grammar could be so entertaining; if, prior to this, you’d told me I would chuckle over rules of grammar, I would have thought you soft in the head.

It’s not just Safire’s humour that draws me, however. It’s his - at times - almost poetic turn of phrase. His description of the semicolon as “a form of punctuation that makes a full stop but continues to dribble” caused me to tumble head over heels in love.

Unlike the period, which decisively separates complete thoughts, or the comma, which gently separates phrases, the semicolon is the Cleopatra of punctuation marks; she separates and connects at the same time, making hungry where most she satisfies.

How could I resist? It would have taken a harder heart than mine to remain impervious.

Grammar and I are strangers to each other. Verbs, adverbs, nouns, adjectives, pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, articles — they’re all names of distant acquaintances. When I bump into any of them, I say “Hi,” then add, “you look very familiar, but I’m afraid I don’t really remember who you are…”

Luckily for me, I might not remember their names, but most of the time I know where they belong. When I write, I put them in place by instinct. I trust my inner ear, who tells me whether the sentence sounds right.

It’s funny, really — I can tell you when something is wrong, and I can tell you what is wrong, but I can’t tell you why it’s wrong. Who can explain grammar anyway?

A friend sent me a link to this site: Home to all the freaks, weirdos and misfits of the literary world, the site proclaims.

I clicked on ‘General discussion’ and was greeted by threads titled “Euphamisms”, “Who do you write for?”, and “Fuckers its like a fucking holiday…”

Writers who can’t spell and haven’t the first clue when it comes to grammar. Not a good sign.