Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER
Early in January, off the back of a new year’s resolution to put myself out of my comfort zone and find a creative outlet, I booked into Catherine Deveny’s Gunnas Writing Masterclass (with some trepidation, presuming most people in the course would be fully fledged writers and esteemed academics). Thankfully, I hadn’t resolved to get fit and eat better, as I went straight from the Masterclass to the bar, and then to a pizza joint.
I have always loved writing. I loved English in school and I loved writing essays in uni. I realised on reflection today that I even enjoyed writing exams (I know, I’m not right). I love stationery – pens, highlighters and nice paper make me excited, and sometimes I think I actually just like the site of my own handwriting. From about the age that I was 15 to the age of 20 I wrote pages and pages in a series of journals, reflecting on my feelings – and mostly if I’m honest about what boy I was in love with at any given time (often drunk and illegibly). The journals are now locked in a toolbox with a padlock on it, somewhere in the depths of my parents’ garage in Perth. One day, I intend to go back and publish them or burn them. Or both.
My writing at the moment is limited to opinionated Facebook status updates that probably many people don’t read, and which probably cause me to one by one lose any followers I have. But I LOVE writing them. I love the feeling of choosing the words, of making the sentences witty, of making people think and of making people laugh. I also thoroughly enjoy the feeling of saying things that are controversial – I feel like it’s a giant middle finger from the safety of my screen at the issues, people and opinions that I don’t tackle in the real world. In reality, it’s textbook slactivism. During the recent global women’s march I researched, I found activists to follow, I watched live webcasts from all over the world of women marching and felt inspired and reassured as the women of the world finally banded together to stand up for their rights. But did I march in my own city? No, I was far too busy for that (too busy reading about it, probably).
I never enjoyed writing fiction. In school when I had to write stories I bribed my best friend to write them for me. I hate writing poems and I have no imagination. But ask me to analyse a book, an issue, a film or a person and I could say what I think and write forever (controversially and anonymously, obviously).
Which brings me to what I think until now, has been my biggest barrier to writing, even though I want to and I sometimes feel like I need to. Since I can’t write fiction, and have no imagination, that leaves me really only with only two potential choices – my own life and experiences or analysis of some of the issues I enjoy reading about so much.
Until today, I believed that people who write about world issues and current affairs spend their days working full time in those areas and have thoroughly researched and evidence-backed opinions. As I obviously can’t compete with that depth of expertise when I have a day job, I ruled this out as an option for me.
Which leaves the one topic I have a unique perspective on – myself, and my experiences. And the thing that stops me writing about that?
It seems narcissistic. It seems self-indulgent.
Maybe because I started my writing life penning drunk pages of unrequited life… but it’s a feeling I haven’t been able to shake.
I am a single, childless women and I have all of my time, thoughts, income and choices to myself. I have opportunities, I am educated and I experience first world guilt every night before I fall asleep. My life is, by comparison to a lot of people, easy. Do I deserve a voice?
To me, writing as reflection seemed another form of self-indulgence. Akin to saying to my friends and family – ‘hey, look at me! Not only do I have time to get regular manicures and massage, have sydney’s finest restaurants deliver to my door each night and live in my west elm catalogue of a home – I now want you to read about my life too!’
In the same way people talk about crafting an online social media identity that represents the good parts of your life and what you want people to think about you – I felt that starting a blog was the written equivalent.
I also was a little afraid of being the childless adult self-improvement cliché – get a life coach, have NET, meditate, do yoga, become a qualified yoga instructor (but never use it), travel to india, go on retreat… and then decide to blog about my own self exploration.
I didn’t want to write about myself and believe that anyone would want to read it. I didn’t want to be ‘arrogant’ enough to think that anyone could learn things from me or my experiences. It just seemed narcissistic to think that I have anything to teach the world that anyone else doesn’t also have.
After outing myself as having these feelings in today’s Masterclass, I know that many other women felt this too- that we are a fraud, or that we are not worthy. We are so uncompassionate to other women that we fear that we will be scrutinised in the same way as we scrutinise others.
Today I was challenged to reflect on whether I feel other people who write are narcissistic. I answered no, of course. But to be honest I do think that some people who write amateur blogs are narcissistic – and that they are seeking validation, understanding, an audience for their feelings and an outlet for things they should probably go and speak to a counsellor about. But real writers? I read as much and as widely as I can. I read the pamphlets in my hotel room. I read the signs on trains. I read every newsletter I subscribe to. I read books, I read newspapers. I read horoscopes. I don’t for a second think that anyone that authors the writing I read is self-invovled.
So today, getting together with 20 others and discussing a shared love of writing and hearing what each wanted to write has blown my last barrier away for me. I am going to write, and I have taken away three things that have changed how I think about writing.
Firstly, that there is no such thing as a real writer. Everyone who wants to write, can write. They can write for everyone to read it, or for no one to read it. They can write anonymously or they can write as themselves. They can write an Instagram photo caption, a facebook status update, a description of a food, or a book.
Secondly, if writing – like most things we do as humans – has an element of narcissism about it, so what? People write to express their feelings, to feel better, to share opinions, to escape, to share and to be a better person. And that is harmless, and okay.
Lastly, I was told and believe – it could be viewed as selfish not to write. How much of other people’s writing do I consume, without ever giving anything back? How many ideas do I have and reflections on the things that I read, without every saying anything?
I don’t think it will be easy for me to write and I think it will take some time for this view to completely go away (I am probably the very person that needs to get counselling on self-worth). I know that I want to write, I and I know that I enjoy it. I love that other people write, and I love reading what they write.
So I’m going to choose a nice font, and choose a nice colour, and start writing.
Thanks Catherine, and thanks to my fellow Gunnas.
I’m gunna.