The Hague Online's 'Writer in Residence' Jo Parfitt is musing about . . .

Excuses, excuses, excuses

June column 2010

This week I was invited to be the guest speaker for the International Women’s Connect group in Utrecht. My talk was to focus on writing life story, which, as many of you know, is my specialism at the moment. I believe that everyone can benefit from learning how to write life story, whether they just want to write a better journal or letters home, a family memoir, a compelling blog or write and publish a book about their experiences.

However, in my experience, while many people have the best intentions and great ideas – so many in fact that they buzz round their head and keep them awake at night – many people just never get round to putting pen to paper or fingers to keyboard.

And this is why I began my workshop by asking the audience what was stopping them from writing?

‘Lack of time,’ said Nicola.

‘I have too many ideas,’ said Nazeema.

‘I am just never sure that what I do is good enough,’ said Tiffany. ‘Maybe it’s fear of failure, or fear or success?’

Then, one by one, I knocked down all those blocks. Because, after all they are not valid reasons for not writing. They are just tricks for procrastination. They are excuses.

I began by telling them about Dorothea Brande in her book ‘Becoming a Writer’ and how she believed that if you tried to make a date in your diary to sit and write every day for just ten minutes, and then you broke that date, then your desire to fail was greater than your desire to succeed.

‘I know a woman, who had three kids at home and she wrote an entire book in just 15 minutes a day,’ called out Carolyn. See? Even if you only have a few minutes, that can be enough.

Too many ideas is a good thing. Writers need a constant flow of good ideas if they are to keep writing, but I agree that it can be crippling. That is until that moment when you give yourself permission to pick one of those ideas and write about that. Start with one idea and park the others – temporarily.

Many of us worry about not being good enough, but my solution to that one is always to get feedback. Join a writers’ circle – there are several in the Hague. One meets at the ABC Book Center on a Sunday, another at Gember on a Tuesday evening. Find one, or start one, and get advice and ideas in a safe environment.

Fear of failure and fear of success are often related. We fear we may not be good enough and that we will look stupid. We fear we may be so good that success takes away our hunger, or simply makes us busier than we would like when we become celebrities. But the bottom line is this - regardless of their fear, writers write. They write about the things they are compelled to write. Writers learn that you can’t please everybody. Writers learn to take the rough with the smooth.

With those excuses smashed, I continued the discussion on Facebook later and it soon became apparent that there were many more excuses out there.

Yvonne in Singapore claimed she could not write while her desk was messy. Melinda reckoned life just got in the way. I remembered how I believed I’d write again once I had a new laptop – then I got the laptop and still did not write.

All this led me to remember what Stephen King wrote about in his writing memoir, ‘On Writing’. There he told of how he converted his loft into a beautiful studio with the best and biggest desk he could afford. And yet, he could not write. Instead, he discovered that he was better off on a rickety chair, at his old desk, ‘staring at the wall’. Yes, even Stephen King has his excuses.

But you see, that’s all they are – excuses.

As I write this, my messy desk is groaning under piles of paper. My computer screen is necklaced with Post-It notes. It is raining outside. I am hungry. I spent a whole day out with a friend and now have to cram an entire working day, a blog post and this article into one remaining hour before supper. I have no idea if this piece will be any good or not. I have tried to focus, but then I did have so much I could have said. But, the thing is, I wrote it. And then I pressed SEND.

Jo Parfitt

www.joparfitt.com

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