Being free, unshackled from the rigours of expectation, is important when you want to develop your writing voice and express things in your own way. When I was an undergraduate at Essex, a lecturer said to me that I had some good ideas and nice turns of phrases now and then, but my writing style was sometimes wooden. Ouch. It was a low blow, and I have never forgotten that remark. How would I improve and write in a way that was less awkward?
Reading is essential in unlocking that stuck gear. Hitherto, it’s important to enjoy what you read rather than viewing reading as a purely educational task; in the past I fell into the self-identity trap that I wanted people to think I was clever by the books I read. After I graduated and got a job in a London FE college I used to egotistically show off what I was reading to fellow commuters like the Thought Police were going to raid the Tube at any moment and check whether the cover was commendable enough to evade arrest. Certain authors spring to mind warranting immediate arrest. An Orwellian or Kafkaesque dystopian society which nobody wants to live in. It was largely a false projection; an image of self that personified vanity but did little in the way of reading for pleasure. Yet anyone recall that beautifully dreamy scene in Raging Bull by the swimming pool when Jake LaMotta first meets his wife? Perhaps I had that in mind. Showing off book covers is hardly a sensible endeavour, yet as a mature student at that time I was making up for lost time and had to prove myself.
Choosing what you read is key to influencing your style of writing. What writing do I now enjoy? It can be much dependent on my frame of mind, but when arriving at a sweet spot I want to indulge as much as I can. Over the pandemic I devoured the works of Thomas Hardy. Gorgeous stuff. Nowadays it might be travel or sports writing, autobiographies or social history. Whatever it is, it must be suitable for a long train commute and the reading mood has to feel right – like wearing appropriate clothing for the weather.
What writer would I like to emulate nowadays? I’ve always had a soft spot for travel writing. As a child I moved around a lot, different towns, counties, even countries; travel was the shifting sands of my childhood. Perhaps that’s why I like travel writing, and a particular sort mixed with cultural history, intelligent humour, keen social observation and a side order of insightful reflection. I especially like reading about societies. What is it like to be there? Standing in a strange town square people watching, taking it all in as a casual observer yet Día morphically embedded in that society. A book can take you there. Learning about Le Flanuer in my undergraduate days has inspired many book purchases and many a read.
I recently read The Beast, the Emperor and the Milkman: a bone-shaking tour through cycling’s Flemish heartlands, which I adored. It had all the right components. I sat enthralled on the train journey home anxious that I was not going to miss my stop – easily done when glued to a book, absorbed in its world; a kind of joyous escapism in 300 pages. Offbeat and humorous, intelligence bordering on the academic, it showed me the way I wanted to go as a writer, and reading for pleasure showed me the way. It seemed like the perfect idea to go down the road I wanted to, and not to meet the opinions of others.
Perhaps we are what we read? Rather, it is discovering ourselves in the process that matters, not the vaunted benediction of others; an internal study – not a social mirror. Yet it is a two-sided activity. Consider what Alexei Sayle (2010, 26) observed about his father’s varied book collection:
‘…the hundred or so volumes housed in two wooden bookcases in the front room all dated from before the war and provided a vivid picture of the life of a working-class radical in the 1930s. Though Joe never got to speak much about what he felt even in the brief silences when Molly wasn’t shouting at the neighbours, these books were like geological rock strata that revealed the evolutionary layers of his personality’.
References
Sayle, A. (2010). Stalin ate my homework. London: Hodder & Stoughton.