Less is Much More – A September 2023 Boy Behind The Glasses Update.

When I read back on my writing it is obvious that the nature of my writing has changed over the years, and on reflection so has in fact the need and by that I mean the need to write.  Perhaps over the years the need is the part I have neglected but recently I have started to think about purpose and the need much more. 

When I was younger, writing was my safe space, long before I knew about that phrase or what it meant, I knew I could literally scribble everything down in my writing pads and that was great. No one would see it, let alone understand it! The very act itself was empowering and provided me with a sense of control. I could be who I want and say what I want, no one would challenge me.

The creative process of that early writing may have been limited in one sense, there wasn’t a great deal of editing or changing of my poems. it got written and then left. But I was being creative, at least in the sense that I was creating these pieces of writing, and it was providing me with a creative as well as emotional outlet. However from the beginning I had no intention of being a writer or poet and no intention of even sharing what I had written. I mean, I did share things and people knew I was writing but it wasn’t on a large scale.

The purpose of writing for me was one of pure expression, yes, when I was younger, I was very aware that those so called formative years are special and importantly, do not last long, I wanted to capture those experiences in a way which was not just a straightforward diary. But there was never any real desire to push my writing, although, I did compile three books of online poetry, e books, this was in the late 90’s when such a thing was very new and still referred to as, ‘vanity publishing’, I think nowadays we have moved towards the term, ‘self-publishing’.

However I know in recent years the need to write and express myself, well my need if you like has changed. These days my writing pads are no longer secret little spaces that nobody sees, my current writing pad is always there somewhere in the house, on the settee, by my bed, on the table. My wife can and does read it, and I don’t mind that. I also regularly upload my writing to this my blog. The secrecy and the need to be secret doesn’t exist anymore. My initial purpose around writing has faded or disappeared with time. I am not quite the emotional wreck I was, and the need to record everything at speed with haste has disappeared. I have more confidence about who I am and what I am. I still enjoy writing, I enjoy it in a way that I cannot explain and I like to think I am writing better than ever, but that need, as I have already mentioned has changed.

Nonetheless that realisation has been quite disconcerting, I have known for some time that the ‘madness’ of my writing long ago calmed down and I have known that there is a quality if you like that no longer does or can exist in what I write now. That doesn’t mean I think my poetry now is rubbish or worth less, I just know it’s different. I know that energy of youth, that thing, is not there anymore and in many ways, if not all ways, that is a blessing. To me the so called energy of youth is often little more than poor mental health and poor wellbeing. However there is no doubt there is something about being. ‘young’, that permeates creativity.

This has led me to question why I am still writing and perhaps should I now, with the confidence I have gained and with the skill I hopefully have, is now the time where I write less, but I start to focus in on the technical side and editing.  Many years ago I would worry if I hadn’t written something for a few days, it led me to write some truly awful bits, but these days I am far more relaxed and happy for it to come to me.

In one way I have always feared doing too much to my poems because I have never wanted to lose the spontaneity of the moment.  My poems and writing were often an over intensified view of a situation or a feeling.  I would write quickly but then it’s gone, and it was onto the next one.  But recently I feel like I could take more time and that in fact nothing is lost by the editing process or revising work.  In fact it feels quite silly when I think about it to think something would be.

I will always write quite quickly, poems, phrases form in my head and they sit there until I do something with them.  I like the process of writing quickly, being locked into an idea and then writing it, following the rhythm of the words and lines as you write them.  But I am not 20 or 30 anymore, there’s no need for me to frantically scribble everything down in my writing pad and if truth be told, I have always wanted my writing and poetry to evolve.  I think it’s fair to say that it has and maybe, this more measured approach, this focus on technicality and polish is the natural evolution that should be happening.

And my writing will always be something of a safe space, there will always be secrets and references in my poems that only I know.   But you could say that after thirty-one years of ‘scribbling’, I am finally taking my writing and poetry seriously. Well, maybe that’s not quite true, I have taken my poetry seriously in one sense, but maybe in another I have always seem it as throwaway.

That’s not to say everything I write now, I will pour over, change, chop, add, amend, but I will think more about presentation and how it reads.  In fact, reading, is the gift I have, I was always a good reader, I often read out my poems, record them, listen back, make notes, and adjust.  If you look at a recent poem, ‘Soft Play Hands’, you will see on the original handwritten versions, it has a lot of amendments.  These were made as I was listening to a recording of me reading out the poem.   Reading out loud and listening back is a great way to get the feel and meter of a piece.  I have only started doing this is the last couple of years and I don’t do it on every piece I write but increasingly I find a great way of revising a poem.

I am partly inspired by some of the authors I enjoy reading here, it’s clear they’re putting in effort and time to their work, and it shows in the quality of it. My half-arsed approach has mixed results and I know longer feel it’s enough to say, well, I capture the moment… that feels a bit like an excuse. I am confident in the strength of my best poems, and I know my best writing has authenticity something I sometimes feel that other writers can lack, because fundamentally it takes something quite hard to be unflinching and completely bare and vulnerable in what you write. Not that you must have those qualities to write a poem that is considered good or effective, but, personally when reading something, I want to feel or know something of the person writing it and crucially I want to feel like that only they as the author and the person they are could have written that piece.

I never expected to be still writing at 48, I thought I would grow out of the habit, you know like toy cars or Saturday morning television, I thought I would get to an age where life would be fine and dandy and that would be it.  That there would be a point where I would run out of things to say.  When I was younger writing was there to develop my emotional intelligence, of course 17-year-old me would have never thought of such phrases as, ‘emotional intelligence’, but I knew I had to develop, and I wanted to make sense of me and the world around me and how I interacted with it.

I think this means after many years I will not attempt to write some, ‘proper poetry’, the kind that I will look at myself and think, yes, that’s a good piece of writing.  I am always wary of writing for people, my writing must be fundamentally selfish, it’s for me first and foremost, I don’t want to pander to crowds and people reading.   I am always almost over conscious about that.  I mentioned in my last update about the weird pull of getting likes for what you post and how that’s a false god. But I am comfortable with the idea that appeal to others, is not an inherently bad thing. 

It’s funny really, because I see myself as a creative thinker, something I think that’s a skill you develop.  I do enjoy the creative process; I can get excited about creating an excel spreadsheet for example.  So it’s odd that I have so much internal debate about editing and revising my work, when that is the ultimate creative process, you’re literally making sure your poem contains everything you want it to and its voice, because I believe good poems have a voice, is loud and clear and it says what you want it to and importantly what you need it to.

So what does this mean for me as a writer of poems, I just realise that the need to write, what it means has changed and I shouldn’t be afraid of that change. I did jokingly write a poem a couple of years ago called, ‘I Have Nothing More to Say’, it was written because I was really unsure about what I was writing and why I was writing it. It wasn’t exactly a crisis of confidence, but it’s about coming to terms with change. I am starting to realise that I should embrace he change and if I write less, then ultimately it will probably prove to be more.