Category: Wordsmithing

Sacrificing the ego

PeterLeave a comment

It’s my experience of life that ego is the enemy of much that otherwise might be good, but rarely does knowing it make a difference.

It’s one of the things I write about, though surreptitiously, as are all the things I write about. (To digress for a moment, I don’t set out to write moral fables or with such a clearly defined themes. I write stories that are true in themselves and which – as it happens in life – touch upon these elements and illuminate them).

Ego can also lead you astray in your writing, though I’ll speak only for myself.

I’m thinking about it now as I’m writing this, asking myself, what is good writing? There are probably many different answers to that, but at this moment, I think it’s connecting honestly with a deeper truth and putting it on the page without shame.

To become a writer of this ilk in the first place suggests sensitivity and quite possibly some introversion. Certainly, it suggests curiosity and thoughtfulness, and perhaps even some humility. And, to be good, honesty as well.

Writing is a solitary, anti-social business, and together with that set of attributes, there’s nothing to suggest the writer has any greater ego than most, and very likely less – and in my reading, it seems that there are many who have so subverted themselves in service of their work that ego doesn’t exist.

But, of course, writers are people too. They – we? – come in all types, all shapes, all politics, all beliefs and attitudes, all personalities. Sometimes, we’ll see that in the writing; sometimes, we laud the writer for their unique vision and individuality. This is what we’ve come to see.

Ego in writing is a balancing act. If it’s ego that leads the writer to boldly walk the plank where no one else dares go, then let’s go there. But equally, the writer who removes the ego from their work creates something that draws us in because it’s on a scale we can identify with – and so becomes our story as well as theirs.

In my case, I don’t have much choice in the matter. I have an abundant ego and a healthy dose of narcissism as well. The combination has favoured me often, made me bold when I needed to be and strong when I had to hold the line. It’s also made me stupid sometimes and led me to crash and burn more than I can say – but at least it has provided excellent fuel for the creative fire.

The voice you hear now is the voice of the ego. It’s the projection of me in my writer’s get-up. I won’t tell you any more than I want you to know and in a voice calculated to charm and intrigue. It’s not false or insincere; it comes unadulterated from my mind (you get the first draft), but the tone is curated to create an image of me as an individual. Never mind the other shit I keep secret from you.

But later, when I sit down to do my actual writing, I’ll look to set that ego aside. That’s a work in progress, but then I’m doing this for a reason. Fiction writing isn’t a vanity project. I set out writing all those years ago for a range of reasons. Ego was one of them – I wanted to leave a record, a mark, of my existence. But what drove it forward was curiosity, wonder, and a search for a kind of truth that made sense to me, and ego had no part in that – just the opposite.

This is not to say that ego is absent from my fiction writing. It informs how the stories come together, and it’s there in a voice I want to be heard. I’m not so humble that I want to take myself out of the story altogether, but the trick is to manage it, which means being ruthless sometimes, like Faulkner said, killing your darlings when they need to be killed.

In this way, at least, I am without ego – as I’m not in life, I seek to prostrate myself on the page. There’s a kind of glory in such humility, even if at one remove. Everything is subject to the raw truth. I’m searching for it for myself, and you readers get the chance to come along for the journey.

Be yourself

PeterLeave a comment


I was doing some housework the other day while listening to a Spotify playlist, which is pretty well the only way I can do household chores. I’m in a numb groove, the music plays and I sing along when it takes me, skipping songs every now or then, or pumping up the volume for the good ones, while like an automaton I clean and polish.

An Audioslave song comes on. It’s the late and great Chris Cornell with his smoky, resonant voice urging us to Be Yourself and I pause for a moment to increase the volume. Then back to work, I am, moving to the music, belting it out as I’m wiping down the kitchen bench, and it triggers something me, bang, like that.

I’d been struggling with my writing. I felt uninspired and everything I wrote seemed dull and lifeless. Words on a page. There are musical equivalents to that, but this song wasn’t one of them. It’s vibrant and Cornell’s voice gives it a sinuous grace, even as the bassline drives it along. It’s not the greatest song ever, but it’s vibrant and real – and that’s what you want in your writing, something vibrant and real. And I’m feeling it when the sentiment hits me: be yourself.

God knows that’s something I’ve tried to live by in my life and mostly succeeded, though not always to best effect. In theory, it’s what you want in your writing too – it’s your unique voice and perspective that’s going to sell it. But then writing is a more conscious business. To be yourself truly when you write is to go out on a limb, fearful that it may snap behind you. It’s much safer, much easier, to retreat into writerly habits.

On your bookshelves are your idols, great writers with a diverse range of voices and perspectives, every one of them different, but when pressed you go back to them. How would so-and-so write this, or what’s his name? It becomes an exercise in consciously grinding the prose out, bereft of inspiration. You write how you think you should write, rather write how it feels natural.

And that’s what I realised suddenly as I was wiping down the kitchen bench. I had become a technician churning out words that almost by definition must be dull and lifeless. I may as well have been writing a textbook. I wasn’t writing from what I felt. I was sitting there disengaged from the urge that had led me to write in the first place. The creativity that animated me had been submerged by a conscious mind too busy thinking. My instinct, my voice, had deserted me.

I went back to my work and just about dumped the last weeks’ worth of writing. I returned to the well, letting myself feel the story again and not simply think it. Why was this story important? Where did it come from? What did it mean? Where was I in it? I let it return to me slowly, let it fill me again until I knew it again like fate yet to be written.

There’s a spirit of irreverence in this. This is your story, why concern yourself with the rules imposed by others? Let it go. Let it be. Let it flow through you, let the words come, fresh and with a zip. Tidy it later if you need to (and you certainly will), but give it life by letting it go.

So, I got back inside of the story and let it drive me forward and all I did was use the words given me.

I think it’s very easy to lose your way when writing, particularly when something comes of it. I think that’s one reason some authors struggle so badly writing their second novel. They have become self-conscious with what they have achieved. They try to emulate it. They force it. With a bit of success, they feel as if they have now to measure up to a higher standard, but it was the standard they achieved without a conscious thought that matters.

Everyone has a different opinion and there’s probably no right way or wrong way, except what is right or wrong for you. My two cents worth is that stories come from inside, and it’s from inside you must write. You can’t search for stories outside you and hope for them to be real. You have to own them, have to live them in a way – as real as your own life – just in a different dimension.

I’ll have to remind myself of this, again and again, I’m sure: be yourself. That’s the good stuff.

Finding it

PeterLeave a comment

What happens mostly when I’m working on something is that my mind goes ahead of me. While I’m working in the present, there’s a part of me looking towards what comes next. As I go about my daily business, riding the train, lying in a bath or preparing the night’s meal, that part is sorting through options and assessing the best way forward. It’s hardly conscious, though occasionally something will bob up in the middle of all this. And, generally, by the time I sit down again to work, whatever it is my mind has come up with will be there for me to draw upon.

It’s a comforting process. The blank page is never completely blank when there’s something ripe in your mind. It seems more valid than sitting down and telling myself to ‘be creative’. I think when you force it upon yourself, it comes out feeling forced on the page. I have faith in this subterranean process because – though I don’t understand it completely – it feels organic to what I’m doing. It is born, if that’s the word, from where I’m at, what’s come before, and where I want to get to. It knows better than I do.

There are times it doesn’t work like that. I had that situation yesterday. I’ve had a busy week and a lot to think about outside my writing. That part of my mind that might otherwise have been quietly working away at the story was occupied with more mundane demands. And so when I sat down to work, there was nothing to work with. I knew which way I wanted the story to go, but I didn’t have the words or the hooks to take me there.

I wrote something nonetheless. I knew the inspiration was missing, so I concentrated on pure narrative. A lot of writing is the things in between, so it wasn’t a wasted effort, and I knew it would come to me. And, always, it is better to write something than nothing.

I left it, and this time, part of my mind was on the job. I watched an interesting movie. I read from a book full of vivid prose and another that conjectured a clever storyline. I drank coffee, did housework, and walked the dog and throughout, I’m half aware that something is going on in the background, but I don’t push it. Let it bubble and seethe.

I came to the job today, and there it was. I didn’t have all the words, but I had the tenor of them. And there were fragments, images and snippets of prose that had come to the forefront. They meant little by themselves and little even in themselves – just small things, seemingly – but as I wrote, these were the fragments the story formed around. Somehow, they represented meaning. I knew them even if I couldn’t explain them.

I’m writing this now after having laid down about a thousand words this morning. I feel on a roll and will probably go with it again later this afternoon while it’s still full in me.

This, of course, is a very satisfying feeling, and I wanted to share it. This is what it feels like sometimes. Sometimes, it feels like a terrible chore. Sometimes, you doubt everything. But sometimes, it is like this, and all is forgiven.

And what were the fragments? I’ll share with you, though they’ll likely make no more sense to you than they will to me on any other day.

There was a phrase about the day remade.

And an image of the protagonist carefully laying his suit jacket on the back seat of his car.

And a snippet of dialogue that set me off on this pathway: “The colours were different, then.”

Magical writing

PeterLeave a comment

There are many things in writing that appear pretty random but almost certainly aren’t. I’ve taken a stab at trying to figure out where stories come from, but I don’t really know. One day, they’re just there, though you can bet they’ve probably been a long time coming.

That’s how it was with the story I’m working on now. One day, I woke up, and it was in my head. It came pretty complete. I didn’t have all the details, but the frame was all there.

I remember I wandered into work pretty much like any other day. I got my coffee and mentioned it to my offsider. He looked at me, his head tilted, figuring out the story in his head as I told him of it. Then he nodded his head. “That’s a good story,” he said.

I was still working on my first book then, so I shoved the idea into the stories to write part of my brain.

Generally, when I have a novel like this in my head, I’ll have the beginning and the end and bits and pieces in between. I’ll know what the story is about and what I want to say, but there will be a lot of gaps in the storyline. It’s like planning a trip from Melbourne to Sydney and knowing you’ve got to go via Upper Kumbucta West or somesuch, but otherwise, you don’t know what route you’ll be taking until you’re in the car driving; what stops you’ll be making, and what’ll happen along the way.

I started writing this one about seven months ago. The first few chapters were clear, and I was happy to let them guide me the rest of the way. There’ve been times occasionally when I’ve felt uninspired and struggling. On one occasion, I had to return to a previous fork in the road and try the other way. Once or twice, I’ve felt so outside the story I felt like shoving it in the bottom drawer as well, come a better day. Naturally, there’ve been moments I’ve doubted the whole enterprise, including my skill as a writer. Who’re you kidding, Peter? You’re just a plodder, mate, get over it…

The thing is, with the sort of writing I do, while it’s important to have a good plot, it’s really about the ideas. I’m not motivated by seeing my name in lights or my book in every store. I’d love to make a fortune, but, yeah, nah, it’s the ideas I really want to explore. The story is the vehicle for that.

So it was with this story. I started with ideas – themes if you like – but they’re pretty general initially. While the plot was clear to me, many deeper, underlying themes only became evident as I began to write.

That’s the difference between being inside the story and outside it. Outside, you see the outline of what you figure is a cool idea, but once you get inside the story, it begins to take on its own life. You advance carefully, feeling your way. Many times, you retreat, knowing it’s not quite right. That’s when you sit in front of your screen looking blank while your mind goes a million miles an hour. You feel it, then. It’s heavy and complex, just like people are. While you search your mind – there’s a lot of sheer figuring things out – you can feel it in your gut, too, and your gut doesn’t lie.

You’re searching for truth, but the truth comes from the story, the text, and not anything you impose upon it. By now, the story has its own life. It’s your job to understand and to chart it. I know that sounds a bit of a toss, but that’s how it is. Quite often, I start off writing, thinking it’s about one thing before discovering there’s more to it than that, and my job is to listen well and get it right. There’s a different, more intimate truth you’re after – and there are multitudes in it.

Halfway through writing this, I had a small epiphany. In my spare time, I was reading of Homer, and specifically, of Achilles, the mighty Greek warrior. As I read, I began to discern reflections of my character’s journey in Achilles. It was a surprise, but it excited me too.

In the Iliad, Achilles is nearly invincible. By myth, he was held by the heel as an infant and dipped in a magical pool that made him immune to injury. As an adult, he becomes a proud, somewhat arrogant character, though capable of great complexity. Ultimately – beyond the pages of the Iliad, he will perish victim of his only flaw – an arrow to the heel left unprotected.

But what Achilles doesn’t perish? What if he lives on well after the sacking of Troy and the death of so many mighty? What if he passes into middle age, a warrior of legend but creaking and aching and grey now? His days of might have passed. He has defeated thousands in battle, but in middle age, he has settled into an existence where he wonders what it all means. Looking back, he knows it was real, but it feels distant now as if then he was a different man. It is this he must reconcile.

That’s what my story is, in a way, though inadvertent. It’s modernised, and instead of being a warrior, the protagonist is a once great sportsman.

I’m not far off finishing this novel, though there will likely be a couple of rewrites before I’m happy. The point is I started with an idea, which still holds true, but as I’ve gone along, I’ve found unexpected complexity in it. It’s like the act of writing reveals truths that were always there but hidden from the eye.

In itself, that’s not surprising. Like I say, to write is to go on a journey. What surprises me every time is that I learn from my own words. I sit back and read what I have written and wonder where it came from. There’s depth and knowledge and even a kind of wisdom, or so it appears – and I wonder if I am that man. It feels almost like a form of automatic writing, but I know the effort that has gone into producing it – there’s nothing automatic about it. But it is magical.

I don’t know what it’s like for other writers – I can only ever speak for myself. I know the satisfaction of having written something pretty good and look forward to the day when it is more generally acclaimed. That’s pretty conventional, I think. No one would be surprised at that. But there’s a deeply personal aspect that is just as satisfying, if not more so.

Writing is a form of self-discovery. You go into the depths of yourself and, from the darkness inside, drag up nuggets of truth you didn’t know existed. And while it looks good on the page, you can’t help but reflect on what it says about you. The meaning of us, I suspect, is more profound and complex than we understand. We get few opportunities to see more deeply within, but in writing, I catch a glimpse of that self inside me, both mysterious and somehow holy.

That’s as good as any reason to write that I can think of.

How I came to write a novel

PeterLeave a comment

I started out writing stories. Later, I wrote a few travel pieces and some essays. I dabbled in some poetry, too, just for the hell of it, but I’m no poet. If it counts for anything, I also wrote a bunch of white papers when I became corporate, and for years, I’ve had a side hustle as a freelance copywriter. And I’ve written plenty of content for the web.

I never took any of it too seriously. I was constantly urged to write more often. People told me I was good at it. Sometimes, I thought I was good at it too. It was easy to do, but it was abstracted in me. Sure, I wrote, I enjoyed it, hell, it was something I needed to do, and I might one day commit to it properly – but I had other things to do as well.

Like so often, it took an unexpected life event to change that. I received a shock to the system, and afterwards, I knew – as I never had before – that existence is precarious and opportunities are finite. I realised that there is an end date to everything and that no matter how gifted you are it matters not one whit if you don’t use what you have. I could let it slide by – that would be easy, after all. Or I could choose to make a stand and do something.

The realisation was scary, but it was also stimulating and fascinating. There was no question what I would do. But even as my resolve stiffened, I found myself drawn into the human mystery of it. Having endured what I had, having journeyed from there to here, I found a great well of material to draw from. I had only to look inside myself to observe the intricacies of human nature, and looking outside, I found reflections of that. I’d always been a good observer, but now I had the insight misfortune rewards you with.

Getting serious about writing meant that I set myself on writing a novel. Till then, that was something I would get around to ‘one day’. In the time before, writing a novel was not something I could conceive of. Writing a story was hard enough. Stories were bloody hard, but at least they were short. I didn’t have the mental stamina to write something as sprawling as a novel – but that was before.

I read a lot of stories. In many ways, they’re harder to write than a novel because you have to be pure in the telling. It has to be a distillation of purpose, which becomes expansive in a novel. A story captures a moment in time, a snapshot of character. The long form of a novel allows for more diverse perspectives. It gives you space to develop both character and story. There’s an arc that encompasses both beginning and end and everything in between.

I was drawn to writing novels because I wanted a broader canvas. As I write this, I’ve finished one book and nearly a second. I can report that it’s not as complicated as I feared. Like most things, once you commit to it, it becomes easier – not easy, it’s still bloody hard – but not impossible, as I feared.

The advantage I have is that I’m disciplined. The ideas come easy. The words are more challenging but manageable. The right words – well, that’s another story. But then, if you sit yourself down and apply yourself day after day, you discover there’s always a way. That’s something else true of life in general.

It’s been nearly four years since I stared at the blank screen and began to type. I’ve learned a lot in that time, and still have much more I can learn, and hope to. It’s been imperfect, but it’s been satisfactory. I’d rather not say it, but it feels like something I was meant to do.

In my next post, I’ll try to explain what I’m writing.

So you call yourself a writer

PeterLeave a comment

I once had a friend who called me a wordsmith. I was working in corporate at the time, had an official title, and besides, was used to being called all sorts of things – but never a wordsmith. Never mind what you’re doing here, he told me, that’s what you are really. I was more chuffed than I was willing to let on, and, as you can see, I’ve never forgotten.

Calling yourself a wordsmith is a bit of conceit until you’re in the biz properly. It’s a bit like watching from the stands and thinking, ‘If only’ this or that, I might have been one of those sporting stars, too. Or reckoning you might have been a great entrepreneur/politician/musician/whatever if only you’d had the chance. He called me a wordsmith on the strength of a few things of mine he’d come across and been impressed by, but while I had the craft, you’re not anything until you commit to it – and it took me many years to make that commitment.

Years after that episode, I’m no longer just a wordsmith; here I am, proclaiming myself as a writer. How do I justify that?

I can answer that in several different ways; take your pick. I write in just about every free moment I have, and when I’m not writing, I often think about it. That would probably come as a surprise to many people who know me because I don’t go around advertising the fact. That’s my secret life, though it’s not secret by design – it just doesn’t fit into the conversation these days. That’s one reason I’ve created this site as a forum for discussion.

I reckon I think as a writer does as well – creatively, without boundaries, constantly enquiring – which fits nicely in my day job as well. That’s my strength: to see connections and imagine possibilities, to see the bigger picture and bring creative solutions to it.

In the end, it all comes down to the work: you can’t be a writer without having written anything. Over the years, I’ve had a variety of pieces published and much more available in the public forum. I’ve written a novel, and I’m working on the second one now.

I was a wordsmith before when I dabbled in writing, as if it was no more than a cool hobby, Back then, I would write the odd story or essay just for fun. I call myself a writer now because I’ve moved onto the serious stuff and am writing with ambition. This is what it’s all about – and it’s what I’m about, too. And that’s why I’m seeking your support – to head full pelt down that path and find out where it leads.

As I progress, I’ll write a lot more about the novels in the weeks and months ahead. In the meantime, the first novel has been parked and stuck in the bottom drawer of my desk as I write the second. When I finish this draft of the second novel (I’m about 15,000 words off that), I’ll put that in the bottom drawer and pull out the novel to give it a final revision and polish – and then off the publisher, it goes. At this stage, I reckon that’ll be about November this year. Then, I’ll take out the second novel and do the same to that before starting on my third novel, which I’ve already mapped out in my mind.

Remind me to explain more about this process to you. And, as always, I welcome your questions.

Why this site?

PeterLeave a comment

I’m a writer. Not full-time, and it’s not what it says on my passport – I have to make a living, after all – but in spirit and every spare moment, that’s what I am. You see, I always wanted to write and don’t think I could stop even if I wanted to.

The act of writing consumes me. Even when I’m not sitting there tapping away, it’s in my head, on the train to work, in bed with the light out, preparing dinner, and so on. And when I’m ‘writing’, I’ll often sit there with an intense look on my face, figuring something out or just pondering the work in general. Then I look up and hours have passed. Such is life.

This is why I’ve created this site. Writing is a solitary activity. It’s something I wish I could talk about more because – to me – it’s a fascinating process. There’s mystery and wonder and magic in it, as well as a lot of hard work and discipline. A lot of it I don’t understand myself. I’d love to share the experience of that with people who are interested in such things and plan to post updates to this site regularly. As part of that, I’m interested in what you think. I welcome your questions and divergent perspectives.

And – just quietly – if you’d like to support me in this lonely and puzzling quest, you’ll find a link to my Patreon account at the right of the page.

In the meantime, read, enjoy, and feel free to ask me your questions.