Comments on: Marking Stories and Marking Time

By: Peter Wells

Peter Wells — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 06:01:27 +0000

Wrestling with words is a constant battle against insignificance. Now that the writing school is coming to an end I face going back to writing. The solitary battle of writing at times overwhelms, especially at the beginning - when you face ‘going back in’. Yet I know I will go ‘back in’….even as I realise that the entire world I knew and took for granted is changing. I mean here globally, financially and technologically. It is challenging. Most of all - the big - the huge question - why.
Why bother. Who cares. It’s hard to answer this. But like Beryl I suppose I know I am driven to write. It is the way I know I exist. If I was in a cell, I would trace some pattern on a wall. This sounds bleak. Maybe I am just tired from the school. Yet I’ve also had a break from ‘the page’….which in many ways has been fantastic. I have also been incredibly aided by Beryl. She is alert, sharp, wise - funny. We have shared some truly evil jokes. That’s how you survive in the end. Humour has to be the most human attribute.
So as I go back into the ‘cell’ I’ll remember that - humour is what saves us and keeps us sane.

By: Annie

Annie — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 11:11:02 +0000

then if it’s saying good bye it’s also saying it was real … I once existed, not that it matters a toot to anyone else … my self administered reality ….

By: Peter Wells

Peter Wells — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 08:24:07 +0000

I sometimes wonder with young people whether they have not had enough experience to write creatively. Most reach for television stories and are afraid to look into their own lives. I was incredibly neurotic in my twenties (meanwhile thinking I was escaping the past and creating my life anew.) I couldn’t write creatively in that period, though I kept a diary and in my heart I was determined to be a writer one day. In fact I had a huge reservoir of stories from my childhood. But I had to reach almost 40 before I had enough self possession to turn back to that toxic, powerful, magic, terrifying powerlessness which is childhood. So in the end it is not a question of ‘not enough experience’: it’s really about self possession and distance. Distance makes things take on a different perspective. And you are at long last free to take the look back. And of course what happens is a form of grief. You realise you have left that past behind. Writing about is a way of saying goodbye.