Story. Telling.
I have, of late, been questioning my motivations as a writer. This does not stem from an existential crisis – which, in itself, is unusual for me – or a particularly harsh rejection note, but rather the way I have been looking at writing and writers, and at what I have been reading. This, no doubt, like everything, will pass. But before it does I want to say something about it.
Last week, I began a blog post that never was about an event here in Sydney. I went to a reading by some of Australia’s pre-eminent writers at the University of Technology, Sydney, which I planned to write something about on here the next day. The only problem was the set up was poor – the room was tiny and sitting space was either on a couple of lounges or the floor. I ended up being in the next room unable to see or, more importantly, hear what was being read out. Perhaps the organisers were going for a certain around-the-campfire feel. Maybe they didn’t expect so many people to show up. Whatever the case, not keen on standing and straining to hear for the next 115 minutes, I left.
I won’t drop the names of the writers involved in the reading – they’re probably completely unphased by me ‘walking out’ on them but because they’re warm, passionate people who make a living out of passing on their knowledge to the students who are a part of the UTS Creative Writing Program, I feel more than a bit of guilt for not staying just because.
But I do want to talk about the event’s first speaker, Frank Moorhouse. I have had the pleasure of hearing Frank speak – not read – before. It was at a question and answer session about the craft of writing. Frank’s ‘introduction’ to himself lasted 50 mins. He was then reminded that we had to have time for a few questions. A question was asked and he spent the next, and final, 10 minutes answering it.
The night I saw him he was particularly casual – more laid back than I ever imagined an icon of Australian writing could be. Wearing braces and with his sleaves rolled, Frank looked as if he’d just stepped out of a printroom from newspaper’s glory days. He sat a desk with a bottle of water before him and spoke for much of the time with his eyes closed. Although it told me little about the craft of writing, nor did it make me want to rush out and buy his book, I remember the story well (in fact, this is pretty much it).
It was clear that night that Frank is a storyteller, through and through. He is concerned with story in and out of his writing. Perhaps it’s an obvious observation to make. It probably should be. But story is not my primary concern when I write. Getting the story to work is. Making it sound pretty is, too. But communicating a story, the act of telling a story, is not. When I am ‘creating’ – creation manifested as writing – something else is driving me. Something in my brain acknowledges story, tips its hat to it, but then we’re on our way.
When I had stories read to me as a child, the things that moved me were the possibilities, the ideas, the places – rarely the story itself. Today I can tell you what elements of the watered-down children’s edition of the 1001 Nights that I liked. I couldn’t tell you what the stories were about.
It is also these things that are clearer in my mind when I write today – never the story itself, and certainly not the idea that I am telling a story.
I’m sure if you were to ask Frank Moorhouse what his story was ABOUT, he would be able to say, “It is about [answer].” If you asked that question of me, I’d hesitate. I’d know, but I’d have to think of how to tell you.
Is thinking of writing a story as an act in story-telling old fashioned? Or should this be the only way? Is it to my detriment as a writer that story is NOT my focus?
LI
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