Re-writing, re-discovering and working with the negative

I thought I'd like to talk to you about how we re-write stuff, re-draft it. I find I can be capable of extremely bad writing. I know when it's bad because when I come to look over it I realise it's too loose, it's superficial, it's therefore dishonest, it's too easy, full of clichés.

At the root of bad writing I think is fear. Fear of facing what I really think, what I really see, what I really want to say. I can take refuge in a comfortable, convenient, cosy way of saying things.

So the only thing to do is to re-write.

Easier said than done.

First of all, I think I need to see what's good or strong about what I've written. There's got to be something! I need to understand why the good bit is good. Is it because I've been honest? Found fresh ways to express things? Cut out lots of boring telling? Concentrated on showing? Followed my own vision and trusted it? Pursued and developed that vision even if it feels weird or dodgy or will upset people?

If I concentrate on those good parts of my first draft, and let myself value them, then I can also begin to see the parts that are weaker, that I don't like. I can think about why they are no good. I can start to see the sections that I need to re-write.

Re-writing seems to involve both going deeper emotionally, finding my true subject, which may not be at all the subject I thought I was writing about, and also cutting out all the flab in the writing. Trying out short sentences helps with this.

I think we have to be very brave to write. To combat so many voices in our heads that say oh you can't do it, why should anyone be interested in what you write, who will listen to what you have to say?

I'm here to say to you: just do it! Don't wait for anyone to give you permission. Just try to believe in yourself, in what you have to say. Just start writing, if necessary scribbling stuff about how you don't yet know what to say, then find out as you go along what it is you actually do want to say. It is brilliant that we don't necessarily know in advance: the act of writing brings forth what we want to say.

Perhaps we need to re-discover play. As adults, we can play: with words, with laptops, with dreams, with ideas. We can give ourselves permission to make a lovely mess in the sandpit of words, make mistakes, smash our sandcastles, start again. As adults making art, we must cherish our beautiful childish playfulness. This can feel a bit scary if we think we should be in charge of our writing, know what we want to do, where we are going.

I find it can be very helpful to work with negative stuff. For example. An exercise to get you going can be based on the statement: I don't know. You write for as long as you have time - twenty minutes or an hour or whatever - starting every new sentence with: I don't know. You make lists of what you don't know about, or how to do. It hugely expands your sense of your self. It is very powerful as a method of getting going. It is empowering. You could also try: I don't like; or I don't want.

Just imagine. If you kept going writing out of the negative in this way, you'd have an amazing short story.

For example: I didn't really know my father well, while he was alive, because he was too shy to reveal himself. To write about him I would have to repeat: I don't know Dad, I don't know Dad. And then I'd have to piece together all the tiny fragments, the tales he let drop, his sudden rages, his vulnerability about wartime experience, being at Dunquerque, being working-class, not having had the chance of further education. My story about a father would be like a patchwork with ragged edges and it would be entitled: I didn't know Dad. The first time I really let myself write about fathers was in a novel, Impossible Saints, imaginary fathers muddling along doing their best, trying to love daughters, not knowing how to cherish daughters' whole selves but getting there in the end.

To write well we have to let ourselves get shaken up a bit. This is not easy. But we are all in it together and we help each other get going and keep going.