When I Put Down My Pen

Many times through my childhood I tried writing a "proper book". I think this is difficult for young people, because we are supposed to write what we know, and there is so much we don't know.

A lot of us pinch from other places - ideas, characters, styles, voice. It takes a while to really find our own.

But this is a valuable time for a - and I use the word deliberately - budding writer. We don't know what we don't know. In fact, very often we "know" that we know quite enough thank you. Being patronised by an adult about how little life experience we have - something natural, to be expected, and usually outside of our control - is unhelpful to say the least. The older we get, the more aware of our ignorance we are, but as a child... being ignorant of that ignorance really is bliss. Best of all, it's a soil dreams can germinate in.

I tried keeping a diary, like Adrian Mole. That is harder than you might think, but I gave it a go. Inevitably, an adult stumbled on it and read it. I say "stumbled on" - it being a diary, and therefore quite personal, I'd gone to some effort to hide it. Ridicule followed.

I half-died of shame, and resolved never to put anything so personal in writing ever again. I also learned not to trust grown-ups. They have no concept of boundaries, and they have no respect for anyone they consider beneath them. It was a valuable lesson.

I still wrote, but never about myself. Animals were a safe topic. I tried the diary idea again, but this time from the perspective of a German Shepherd puppy. I had a lot of fun with that one, until I re-read Black Beauty. In a rare flash of self-awareness, I realised what I'd done. I'd copied the whole idea, hadn't I? Born into a nice home, moves to another nice home... but then things go wrong and he has a string of homes, some nice and some not so nice. I threw it in the bin.

I started writing about woodland creatures. I enjoyed reading those stories. Duncton Wood. Redwall. The Running Foxes. Run with the Wind. I liked the setting. I had a forest behind my house, as well, so I felt on firm footing there.

There was one story in particular I was quite invested in. It was close to being epic, there were so many off-shoots and subplots and mysterious characters who would crop up later. I'd got a new fountain pen which wrote very nicely. I used that to get the ideas and characters down on the page.

I'd only written the first few chapters. I kept all the pages in a folder which I lugged about with me in my spare time so I could keep writing and keep adding to it.

As we've already established, adults are a nasty, nosy species. I got distracted, left that folder lying around and the inevitable happened. Someone read it. They didn't say anything unkind or critical about it. But that was very far from the point.

They were quite complementary, and said something about a "large vocabulary" which I barely heard through the thundering in my ears. Not only had they overstepped by reading it, they'd also showed it to another nosy Nellie. They talked about it, picked over it, judged it. And worst of all, they were also completely oblivious to why any of those things might bother me. They expected me to be pleased that they'd read what I'd written and talked about it, over my head and behind my back. Just because they said nice things.

Rage and embarrassment warred. Embarrassment won.

That stands out in my memory for three reasons - first, it was my first real attempt at serious writing. The first time I'd done more than one draft of anything. Second, because I learned another lesson, although not one the adults were trying to teach me. Nice isn't the same as right. This has echoed back to me in the years since. And thirdly, because after that, I put down my pen and I didn't pick it up again.

I didn't write any more of that story. I couldn't. Every time I tried, their faces got in the way. As the kids say these days, I cringed so hard I tasted my own bumhole.

I wouldn't write again for years after that.

As a wise young woman once said,

Please be wary of picking up what kids write and reading it behind their backs - there is no faster way to degrade trust. Beware even more of the words you use when you speak to them about it. Choose them wisely. You are walking in a minefield, and it is very, very easy to put a foot wrong. Keep in mind you are already on the back foot, so to speak, by reading it without their express permission. Even if you felt this was appropriate or necessary, it is likely to be experienced as a violation of trust.

It's taken a long time to get brave and get naked. It's easier, safer, to stay a closed book. I keep reminding myself, Nobody cares. Words are cheap. They're one click away from forgetting about you either way. Aldous Huxley was right.

Maybe all creators and artists feel this way about their passion, but I think it is truer for writing creatively than for anything else. Whether it's stories or songs or poetry. There is nothing that unclothes us more thoroughly than raw, naked words.

I am never more naked than I am on a page.

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Thank you for reading!