Friday 19 February 2010

Readings



A migraine has pounced at least it waited to totally incapacitate me until after I had done my reading. Today all the lecturers on the textual intervention module (which includes me) were asked to read their own work and talk about any TI involved. Seems like a fairly simple thing doesn't it? Until you try and decide which piece of work you are going to read. My PhD novel is in no fit state having just restarted it, a previous novel I have written called Disjointed, about cannabis psychosis, just wouldn't work when read out as I can't do a psychotic voice and it looked better on the page. This left me with a soft fantasy I am writing for 9-12 year olds, called The Book Protectors' Daughter. It is a novel I was loving writing as it was so far removed from my PhD. It was true escapism, but I hadn't shared it with anyone yet and I wasn't sure it was ready. Reading it this morning confirmed that, it was like giving birth to a premature baby and I am now not sure it is going to survive. I may actually have killed it off by showing it too early. It ws gut wrenching.
It made me start wondering if it is only writers that feel like this or do all creative artists in the broadest sense have the same problems. Does a painting stagnate if exposed before its time? Is a piece of music shocked into silence if not ready? Do we prepare our students for these feelings or do we all pretend that we and our work are infallabile? Perhpas they need to know the truth and the reality of being a writer. It is not always an easy ride though in the long run the good outweighs the bad if you truly love writing as I do. Maybe I will get TBPD out of intensive care eventually but until then it is on a life support machine - a usb stick in a drawer...

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