Margaret
Attwood says that before her love of writing began, she always had books:
“no-one ever [tells you that you can’t] read a book.”
When I was a young child I did
more reading than anything else; it was quiet so it appeased my parents and it
was something you did alone, so I was quite happy. This reading quickly evolved
into making up my own stories. I would tell my baby brother stories when we couldn't sleep, my imagination keeping us company when we were alone. I began
realising that in order to improve upon and remember these stories I needed to
write them down. I eventually filled many notebooks in scrawling childish
writing, yet often never returned to the story. I was just comforted that I had
it there in case I ran out of ideas.
According to Carl Jung, as
humans we each contain a collective subconscious, a ‘reservoir’ of experiences
that express themselves in our writing. I think I tapped into this reservoir
quite regularly when I was a child, in an attempt to create a clear difference
between reality and fantasy. Every single story I wrote had a happy ending - I
wanted to avoid bad things happening because that was too close to reality. I
made all of the characters as perfect as I could; they were brave, intelligent
and funny. As I have grown, and my writing has matured, I've realised that some
of those traits have stayed with me. I especially still love a happy ending.
It's intresting that what was used initially to comfort you when you were younger (Happy endings, etc.) has continued to influence your writing now. The power of that comforter, even when as adults we are now more aware than ever of the horrors of these worlds, clearly has a profound effect that we continue to want, use and crave it to this day.
ReplyDeleteI like how you use personal anecdotal experiences from childhood because it grants you a strong voice to use in future blogposts, and your love of a happy ending is quite endearing because it paints you as a true optimist.
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