Writing Thoughts

I wrote a couple of poems the other day which I quite liked. This was despite them being the usual artless, sub-standard, naive scribblings you often find in a local papers when you're searching for a plumber or a second hand car. To get them to the 'quite liking' stage I had fussed and picked and played around with them for hours. But I knew that a revisit would induce feelings of horror. Often what looks half decent when first tucked happily away, later viewings bring on waves of dizzying embarrassment and heart jabs of quiet madness. Then it's the first serious re-edit - the one that matters. The one that makes them at least competent that the poems appear to meet some of the poetic requirements of free-verse.

But this is it. Knowing that the first draft is going to be so terrible. And that the second draft won't be much better. This might very well be one of the major causes of writers block. Not dried up inspiration, not a deficiency in motivation, not a lack of ideas, not feelings of low self-esteem or crises of confidence, but just a depressing fear that everything you're going to write is always going to be rubbish.

 And that's even if you understand that it has to be this way - much like the sculpture who has to turn a piece of ugly rock, a plain block of wood, or a lump of bronze into an artistic representation. The ugly starting point is amorphous before a framework can be deciphered, a semblance of what is being aimed at. Then it at least looks like something, even if it is a million miles from being what it needs to be. It's only during the the closer attention to detailing, the ever more specifying, the gradual finessing of the intricate, the unification of a multitude of parts gradually crafted together into one harmonious whole and allowing it to come alive and sing into the hearts of those who view it - only then does it matter.  The rest of the time it's a workshop, a sooty foundry, a splattered floor, an ugly lump squatting in a cloud of paint, powder or smoke. But none of that matters because no one is interested in the process,  It's only the finished article that matters.

Only the finished article matters. The bloody knuckles, the mess and wreckage of the tools, the sleeplessness of nights,the damage to the heath and well-being, the howlings across the creative lake and the praying to the muses, don't.

More Interviews

I'm girding myself for another job interview. It's going to be one of those where I will hold at least some of the cards.

Recently I found myself in one of those scenarios that you hear about, but always question its authenticity. You apply for a job and if you're lucky you get short-listed. Then, if your luck holds,you're called forward for an interview where you say some good things and some less good things and some things you later realize could not possibly have been manufactured by your brain and expelled by your mouth unless you were driven slightly mad by nerves.  Then, if you haven't messed up too much, you become the subject of a final paper sift in what used to be a smoke-filled room but is now a room of plastic cups of sparkling water and graze-boxes where a decision is made to go with the other guy. And then that's the end of that. Except on this occasion. it wasn't. So completely unexpectedly I've been contacted again and asked if I'm still interested. It really can happen. This means I'm a shoo-in right? Not necessarily.

I've been in the market now for over a year and I've learnt a few things: not necessarily just how to starve, freeze,walk everywhere and reacquaint myself with the shop damaged stall in Tesco. I have also learned that nothing should be taken for granted. The employers of this job might not have loved the other guy slightly more than me, placing a cigarette paper between two stellar possibilities and tossing a coin, knowing that whichever way it fell they would win, instead they might have loathed me. The final two might have been one no-hoper (me) which helped make the process of recruitment appear legal, and one star in the making, whose desk was already being sprinkled by the office angel, his inside leg measurements already sent off to the office chair makers and discreet inquiries already instigated about any lactose or sugar intolerances for the forthcoming edit to the brew-list. The appointment might have been a paen to the inevitable with me nothing more than ballast - a balance-weight, a nod to fairness: an alternative to an illegal anointment.  So, I expect an interview, yes. But that's the extent of my optimism. 

Another Interview

It should be written down somewhere that you should never down play your educational achievements. This is precisely what I did do at my last job interview. In a moment of false modesty,combined with an irresistible urge to introduce levity into what was an otherwise fairly austere interview, I garbled my educational qualifications into a sabotaged paragraph making them sound completely unimportant. In fact I practically dismissed them on the spot as being about as relevant as a degree in astrophysics held by an applicant asking to fill a vacancy as a temporary school dinner lady.

As I relive the interview - which is always a difficult process when one's becalmed self has to critique a time when one's performance is ravaged with induced debilitating nervous tension disorder - I am now frustrated by my misplaced act of modesty which doubtless contributed to my lack of success. The interview wasn't going great - it wasn't going badly, but, I was aware that it needed a bit of snap, a fillip if you like, at about the time that my seat of pants answers began to sound desperate as I began manipulating experiences in answer to questions in the hope that I could convince them sufficiently that the answers were good.  This prompted several rephrasing of the same questions which suggested my prevarications had been spotted. Then my academic qualifications came up. This was the time for the fillip. Often this is an area where academic subjects are hammered into ill fitting places to make them look and sound right.  But mine were absolutely right. In many other instances and at several previous job interviews they weren't  right or absolutely right; but for this one they were almost perfect, and you don't get to feel that very often. 

The question was phrased in a way that I should have been delighted to hear. 'Tell me about these qualifications - which are a/ professional, b/ specialist, and c/ highly germane to the post sought. My answer was along the lines of; 'oh that.' (nervous laughter) 'Well, it was all a long time ago really and I've probably forgotten most of it... (pause) (awkward silence) (stuttering) b. but I'm sure it'll come back to me!' Too late, the damage was done. The one thing I had in my favour, I'd gone out of my way to ruin. I was my own subverting wrecking ball, I was the poison in my own vial.  Mr Tongue had decided - with a little conspiring with his big silent cousin Mr Brain and with absolutely no consultation with the host - Mr Me -  that today it was going to re-enact the problem of the Trojan Horse, and see if I could survive that.