Recently I decided to polish up a short story and share it with everyone on my mailing list.
It was a story I wrote in the early days of my writing journey and one I was so proud of that I sent it to numerous competitions. So, I figured I’d dig it out, polish it up, and share it with the world—or at least my mailing list.
Well, that didn’t happen.
Why? And what does it have to do with crayons?
Well, to understand that, first I need to give you some background…
See, back in the long-ago days when I was struggling through my research PhD (it took me 7 years all up, but let’s not dwell on that!) me and my fellow candidates had regular monthly meetings with our supervisor. We’d all bring our coffee and sit around sharing our progress and what we were doing to overcome any problems.
On one such occasion one of our group, who had finally got to the point of writing up his results (he was taking longer than even me to finish his thesis), said this about this progress:
“I look back at what I wrote two years ago and it’s like it’s writ large in crayon.”
Crayons
We all laughed.
But here I am, fifteen years later, knowing that’s exactly how it looks.
I’m not talking about my PhD. I did well with that, thank you very much (though I’ve never looked at it since nor do I use my hard-won title of Dr, but never mind) No, what I’m talking about is the short story I planned to polish up and share.
The short story was about a cadet journalist doing a follow up piece on the bushfires that occurred in rural Victoria and New South Wales in 1939. It had tension, mystery and a final twist. I was so proud of that piece of work and all the research behind it that I sent it to every competition I could find. It never got anywhere and eventually I put it away, but it remained one of my favourites.
So I couldn’t wait to polish it up and share it.
And then I dug it out of the archive…
Oh my God! ‘Crayon’ doesn’t begin to describe it.
Now I understand why it never made it to any shortlists.
Nothing happens. It’s full of telling. And, oh boy, the overwriting!
All those sentences I remembered as being so literary, so insightful, were nothing more than hyperbole. The prose isn’t just purple, it’s rotting.
To be fair it was one of the first stories I wrote, I was still learning the craft (not that you ever stop learning), but still…
Needless to say if that short story is ever to see the light of day again, it needs way more than a polish. It needs to be pulled apart, edited, and reworked. In fact, I’ll probably start all over again.
I guess it’s a good thing I enjoy the process of rewriting.
Progress
Digging out that old story was an eye-opener, and not a little embarrassing to recall my pride in that story. How did I ever think it was good enough to submit to competitions?
Ah, well, we all start somewhere, don’t we?
Everything happens for a reason, and the best part of digging out that story was realising just how far I’ve come.
And looking at that early writing effort made me realise something else, too.
I had forgotten one of the key tenets of writing: to give yourself permission to write a crappy first draft.
With all the uncertainty around the future in this time of pandemic it’s natural that we worry about what’s to come. It’s far too easy to focus on the negative–on what we haven’t achieved or how impossible our goals seem. Negativity like this has certainly been a big part of my internal dialogue recently, and it had been crippling to my creativity.
Yet as humbling as it has been to realise just how ‘bad’ that early short story is, it’s also been incredibly useful.
So even in this time of high anxiety and stress, a time when we are advised to stay in the moment and find our flow, it doesn’t’t hurt our wellbeing to look back and take stock. Like me, you might be surprised to realise just how much you have achieved.
About Me
I consider myself a reformed academic who discovered fiction writing was preferable to the real world. My love of suspense fiction is thoroughly indulged through writing novels and short stories about Fractured Families and Killer Secrets. My novels have been nominated for the Ned Kelly Award and semi-finaled in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, and my short stories have been included in several anthologies including the Anthology of Award Winning Australian Writing. I also review my favourite books, interview fellow writers, and blog about books and writing.
- the links to various sites in this article are purely for your convenience. I do am not affilliated with any businesses and do not generate income when you click a link.
