Shane Harrison's Blog - Posts Tagged "writing"
The First Story
I was thinking about my first introduction to writing and realised this might be difficult to define. Would it have been the first time I heard a story, or the first time I read a story? Or, if a story is just a story, whereas writing is to conceive of it as art, then was it in the analysis of story in the classroom? Or, again in the classroom, was it the good old school essay? Or perhaps some other construct or fiction, foisted on me by a contemporary, or where I conspired myself, telling tales and spinning yarns.
Stories surround us from birth, and if the appreciation of writing is not exactly hardwired it is sufficiently intrinsic in us as to be indistinguishable from our nature. I have used story and writing as interchangeable, which is a simplification. A storyteller does something that’s distinct from a poet or journalist or even a short story writer. I take it that writing is the constant, the common thread that binds all writers. Words on a page can become plays on the stage, film on the screen, poetry in performance, pages of a book and so on. Even in picture books and comics, or graphic novels, there’s a sense of order which can be referred to as writing. So, again, where did all of that begin, and take root?
I recall sitting on my father’s knee, as he conjured up yarns for my amusement. The Little Red Car and the Little Blue Car was an adventure series that kept me enthralled, even if the plot doesn’t come back to me now. I can recall the structure, beginning with the anticipation of adventure, the struggle against adversity throughout the middle and ending with triumph or resolution. This is still just the Little Red Car and the Little Blue Car, mind. Of course, the Little Blue Car was my favourite, and still is; still cheer for Chelsea, Dublin and Leinster.
Then there were the cartoons on the telly, Heckyl and Jeckyl, the mischievous crows. Thus, more complex narratives and character take root. Still only Heckyl and Jeckyl, mind. But I still love crows. Now stories were flying at me from all angles; from television and radio, from whispers and shouts, from tall tales and true, from teacher, tuismitheoir and an ever-widening peer group. And from books.
Once, snooping around the house in the days before a childhood Christmas, on the cusp of belief and doubt, I came upon a stash of used books. There was one that told of maritime tales, sailing ships in the South Seas, submarines at war, passenger ships carrying adventurers and spies. I recognised it as worn and wonderful, something I would most definitely want come Christmas morning. Come it did, from Santa at that.
When I was an early teen, my father would collect my mother who worked nights at a hotel in town. I would be moored in front of the telly and tuned to the BBC. Late night drifted to Samuel Beckett and Monty Python. I watched agape. What words were these, whispered into the wee small hours? They were well beyond my ken. I could feel them pulling at me, pecking at my conscious. I’d laugh involuntarily, recoil, stare in mute awe, dream of the shapes and words of the absurd. There were few I could share with, though in time aficionados become know to their kind, and anyway, there were all sorts of other clubs forming and fading. Books and comics shared, records swapped, a world of sound and vision and social weaving.
When I considered who to share my thoughts with and how, the natural answer was amongst friends and family. I was fortunate in a family that had a broad and open concept of art and literature, my friends were tuned in to those things friends are, the similarities and difference we desire. But when it comes to talking of those metaphysical things, the path to meaning is paved with words. Eventually, there was nothing for it but to put the words down on paper, to record the conversations in my soul.
Writing can be a refuge, so, or a search for meaning. But I think for me, and most others that use it, it is that other communication lying beyond our daily social transactions. Words are a cacophony, just circling like crows in a winter sky, until put in a meaningful sequence and sent out there, to be understood. Or maybe not quite so narrow a focus. The words have still hit the target when they astonish or mystify.
To what success this pursuit has been I can’t say. As a writer I spend a lot of time talking to myself. The trick is not to do it aloud. There are times that you can. With children of my own my past intruded, and as the light would fade I’d pluck stories out of the air. RoRo and DoDo were competing birds of dubious lineage, crows or hawks or whatever you preferred. They would embark on adventures and land in trouble, emerging triumphant if not unscathed at the end. Oh, I can’t remember how the stories went, but they went down well with my gaping audience. And that’s all that mattered in the end.
Stories surround us from birth, and if the appreciation of writing is not exactly hardwired it is sufficiently intrinsic in us as to be indistinguishable from our nature. I have used story and writing as interchangeable, which is a simplification. A storyteller does something that’s distinct from a poet or journalist or even a short story writer. I take it that writing is the constant, the common thread that binds all writers. Words on a page can become plays on the stage, film on the screen, poetry in performance, pages of a book and so on. Even in picture books and comics, or graphic novels, there’s a sense of order which can be referred to as writing. So, again, where did all of that begin, and take root?
I recall sitting on my father’s knee, as he conjured up yarns for my amusement. The Little Red Car and the Little Blue Car was an adventure series that kept me enthralled, even if the plot doesn’t come back to me now. I can recall the structure, beginning with the anticipation of adventure, the struggle against adversity throughout the middle and ending with triumph or resolution. This is still just the Little Red Car and the Little Blue Car, mind. Of course, the Little Blue Car was my favourite, and still is; still cheer for Chelsea, Dublin and Leinster.
Then there were the cartoons on the telly, Heckyl and Jeckyl, the mischievous crows. Thus, more complex narratives and character take root. Still only Heckyl and Jeckyl, mind. But I still love crows. Now stories were flying at me from all angles; from television and radio, from whispers and shouts, from tall tales and true, from teacher, tuismitheoir and an ever-widening peer group. And from books.
Once, snooping around the house in the days before a childhood Christmas, on the cusp of belief and doubt, I came upon a stash of used books. There was one that told of maritime tales, sailing ships in the South Seas, submarines at war, passenger ships carrying adventurers and spies. I recognised it as worn and wonderful, something I would most definitely want come Christmas morning. Come it did, from Santa at that.
When I was an early teen, my father would collect my mother who worked nights at a hotel in town. I would be moored in front of the telly and tuned to the BBC. Late night drifted to Samuel Beckett and Monty Python. I watched agape. What words were these, whispered into the wee small hours? They were well beyond my ken. I could feel them pulling at me, pecking at my conscious. I’d laugh involuntarily, recoil, stare in mute awe, dream of the shapes and words of the absurd. There were few I could share with, though in time aficionados become know to their kind, and anyway, there were all sorts of other clubs forming and fading. Books and comics shared, records swapped, a world of sound and vision and social weaving.
When I considered who to share my thoughts with and how, the natural answer was amongst friends and family. I was fortunate in a family that had a broad and open concept of art and literature, my friends were tuned in to those things friends are, the similarities and difference we desire. But when it comes to talking of those metaphysical things, the path to meaning is paved with words. Eventually, there was nothing for it but to put the words down on paper, to record the conversations in my soul.
Writing can be a refuge, so, or a search for meaning. But I think for me, and most others that use it, it is that other communication lying beyond our daily social transactions. Words are a cacophony, just circling like crows in a winter sky, until put in a meaningful sequence and sent out there, to be understood. Or maybe not quite so narrow a focus. The words have still hit the target when they astonish or mystify.
To what success this pursuit has been I can’t say. As a writer I spend a lot of time talking to myself. The trick is not to do it aloud. There are times that you can. With children of my own my past intruded, and as the light would fade I’d pluck stories out of the air. RoRo and DoDo were competing birds of dubious lineage, crows or hawks or whatever you preferred. They would embark on adventures and land in trouble, emerging triumphant if not unscathed at the end. Oh, I can’t remember how the stories went, but they went down well with my gaping audience. And that’s all that mattered in the end.
