A Long Time Coming by Melanie Joosten

Author:Melanie Joosten
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: LCO010000, FAM017000, FAM005000
Publisher: Scribe Publications
Published: 2016-05-30T00:00:00+00:00

Notes on Writing and Doing Good

from novels to social work

Like many who will be reading this, I write. I always have, even before I knew how. When I was four, my mother would find me filling notebooks with infinite cursive e’s, line after biro line of them, pages of stories that could never be read. ‘That’s very good practice,’ she would praise me, but my face would burn with the embarrassment of not yet knowing how to properly do this thing that seemed to me the key to all understanding.

Writing helps me make sense of the world. Though if I am really honest (and when I am writing, it is the only way to be), writing helps me to make sense of my world, rather than the broader world. My writing explores the emotions and relationships that make up my middle-class inner-urban life, but if I want to make sense of the bigger world, the one of wars and famine, of WikiLeaks and Google, of history and science, my own writing is of little use. It is then that I read.

During my twenties, I wrote a novel. It started off as a character study, a play with words and form. It expanded into a metaphorical political treatise, swooping into recent history and the alluring landscape of obsession. And then it politely retreated into one room, interested only in the two characters who had held their ground throughout.

Even when I had completed it, and I moved onto a second one, I felt ‘novel’ still sounded too grand a word for my projects. A word to be whispered apologetically to those who asked why I do not write short stories or opinion pieces. After all, I am a writer, aren’t I? ‘No time,’ I say. ‘I’m working on my, umm … my novel.’

When I sit down at my computer, I feel an anticipatory joy at the prospect of writing. While in the process, typing out the words, I almost writhe with pleasure — positioning my chosen words together, learning their rhythms and sway, chiding them when they sidle astray. I feel like me at my desk: no apologies, no caveats. But when I step away from my computer, I feel a fraud.

For me, writing is never anguished, nor transcendent. It leaves me wanting; it is an inadequate way of addressing the world. For all of this lack, I feel guilt. When I finished my first novel I despaired. Because in the time it had taken, I had changed. I was not sure if I wanted to write anymore.

Is writing (not all writing, but my writing) simply an indulgence? It is a way of stroking my own ego. When I do not write, I get edgy. I am short with people, combative. I fret in company. I pine for time to myself so I can turn inwards and examine my thoughts. My writing is all about me. I find myself interrogating my reasons for writing, rather than the writing itself. Do I write

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