'NEWS FLASH: TALES OF THE DECONGESTED' - Thursday 20th April 2006

Big news!

I will be reading one of my short stories - entitled Notes For A Play About Some Family - at an event called Tales Of The DeCongested, taking place at 7 pm on Friday 28th April in The Gallery Space, 2nd Floor, Foyles Bookshop, 113-119 Charing Cross Road, London, WC2H 0EB.

Please do try to come along. It would be great to see you there.

'SCHOLAR' - Thursday 30th March 2006

I recently discovered the etymologies of 'pupil' and 'student'. The former comes from words meaning 'child' and 'disciple' whereas the latter simply means 'one who is studying'. As someone else put it: "a pupil is taught, whereas a student learns independently."

Tradtionally, in the UK, schoolchildren are referred to as pupils. It is only when they decide to undertake post-compulsory education (at the age of 16) that they earn the term 'student'. Not surprisingly, some people would like this to change. They want to get rid of the word 'pupil' altogether, partly because they see no difference between 'pupil' and 'student', partly because in the USA all schoolchildren are students (and if the Americans are doing it, then everyone else should too) and partly because they believe change is a virtue in itself.

I see this as yet another example of the pernicious effects of hyper-individualism. The word pupil implies inferiority, a need for external guidance, an insufficient level of development. These needn't necessarily be bad things, but they've become highly unfashionable in Western culture. We currently seem to be very suspicious of labelling people in any way which might make them seem less than autonomous. But of course the reality is that children are 'inferior' in some senses of the word, they do require external guidance and they are relatively under-developed.

The meanings of words resonate in our minds in ways which are often more powerful than we realise. Getting rid of the word 'pupil' may well end up altering our 'cultural understanding' of even more potent concepts like 'child'. Today the word doesn't carry nearly as many connotations of helplessness and insuffiency as it used to, say, 30 years ago. Through all manner of social adaptations, we have granted more rights and privileges to children than some people consider appropriate. But perhaps we are in danger of forgetting that they are children? Most attempts - be they linguistic or otherwise - to diminish a child's 'childishness' earlier than necessary are actually a grave disservice to the individual concerned, because they negate the important lessons one learns through a clearly defined, progressive childhood.

I realise this entry sounds as though it was composed on a soap-box, but I do feel very strongly about this and in my view society in general may have forgotten that children need explicit and consistent boundaries. To put it another way, children need to understand that until we allow them to become students, they are all, each and every one of them, our pupils. Or are we trying to make them less childlike because we're actually afraid of the responsibility that comes with being a 'social adult'?

'LEARN' - Wednesday 8th March 2006

I've got so many firm ideas about how I write. Examples:

1- 'I can't write unless I'm sitting in a familiar and, above all, quiet environment.' OR
2- 'I can't produce a single word until I've got the whole story worked out in my head.' OR
3- 'I mustn't discuss my work with anyone until it's complete.'

I don't know when and why such ideas took shape in my mind. But I do know that the experience of doing my two courses (both of which will be over in about 3 weeks) has shown me that all of the above are at least partly false.

1- For the last two weeks, I've spent almost the entire return train journey from London writing. Yes, the chattering of the other passengers is noisy. Yes, the train jolts and jumps and makes a racket. Yes, the seats are uncomfortable and the writing space is about the size of a postage stamp. But somehow some writing does get done. It's not of any high quality, but it's THERE, on the page, staring back at me with a life of its own.

2- I think, ultimately, I'll still be a 'plan-before-I-write' kind of author. But certainly the last few weeks have shown me that if I just allow myself to ramble on the page for a few minutes - and if I tell myself that what I'm about to write isn't necessarily going to have to be a polished piece of work - then somehow, some story-telling gene suddenly kicks in. And the rambling begins to take on a coherent, perhaps even an interesting shape.

3- This is a tricky one, because one of the main reasons why I don't like discussing 'works in progress' with other people is that I feel that my genuine inability to articulate shadowy characters and barely discernible plots will be taken as rude evasiveness. However, on the (much too) rare ocassions when I have found someone willing to listen to half-formed sentences and incoherent mumbles, then I've noticed things starting to become slightly clearer in my own head... although of course, the poor listener is still thoroughly bemused.

So yes, the courses have been a pretty demanding slog but I feel they've given me so much in such a short space of time. There's no doubt that I'll miss them when they're over.