When getting things wrong is right

'Why is this child holding her pencil like that?’ The school inspector’s words are etched in my memory. I was five years old and it was the 1960s so, of course, the comment was made in front of the whole class. I can’t remember what the teacher said. I imagine it was something along the lines of ‘she’s left handed’, said in a hushed tone as though I were to be pitied which, on reflection, was fair enough given that everything back then was designed for right-handers. But I can recall the shame caused by this small act of public humiliation. A sensation that was repeated, years later, when a retired nurse asked me whether an injury had led to the odd way I held my pen.

I haven’t been scarred by these experiences. It’s not as if I was forced to write with my right hand, as was the case for previous generations of school children, but it is a good example of how early experiences of getting something ‘wrong’ can lead to a lifetime of having to get things ‘right’ (however wrong-headed that ‘wrongness’ is).

It also encourages duplicity and dissembling. I now have two ways of holding my pen. If I’m being observed there is the ‘correct’ way – thumb and fingers neatly grouped around the pen; alone or with friends, I revert to the ‘wrong’ way – two fingers above, two below the pen, the thumb at right angles. This, in turn, has led to two styles of handwriting: the first knows its place - is neat and tidy, always staying within the margins and ruled lines; the second goes wherever it wants, sprawling freely across the page, all flourishes and loops. A clear case of nurture versus nature.

The quest for perfection is, of course, a familiar one and most of us continue to fly in the face of the evident futility of such a mission. We might be failing, but we can always fail better, as Beckett suggests.

But at least there is a creative and comic potential to be found in getting things ‘wrong’ - something I’ve been discovering through my own practices and from teaching improv and mindful play workshops. In a recent workshop, someone misunderstood the ‘rules’ of a particular game. My instinct was to correct her - as if it mattered – and then I recognised her ‘mistake’ for the joyful, creative offer it was, and everyone joined in with the fun of it.

So, if I could go back to that 5-year-old me, I’d say, ‘Wow – you’re writing! Who cares how you hold your damn pencil.’ And I’d promise her, 'One day you’ll see the funny side of getting things wrong.'

The sense of endings

Endings. All stories need them - the unequivocal full stop, the enigmatic dash, a playful row of dots - before the next story begins. 

In life, endings are hard. I suppose I’ve been a full stop kind of person in the past. I haven’t hung around. No looking back. No taking forward. Failed romantic links have been cut swiftly and clinically with a very sharp knife. None of that ‘trying to be friends’ nonsense. When it’s over, it’s over. I ain’t waiting for a fat lady to sing.

Former work colleagues – unless they’ve become friends – drop off my radar, and I’m not one to pop back to an old workplace. Once I’ve left, I’ve shed that particular version of myself, like a snake sloughing off its skin. Why would I go back?

Being good at full stops is great for an improvisation story. Nail the scene with a killer line and move on. Nobody’s worrying about ‘what happened next’; they’re too busy thinking ‘what’s happening now?’

Fiction, especially short fiction, is different. That final punctuation mark should give only the sense of an ending. The story doesn’t finish after the last word; not if it’s doing its job. So, writing short stories has been bringing out the dashes and the dots in me. Where in life I’ve gone for the quick kill, in fiction I’m learning to leave something still alive for the reader. I'm getting to try out a new type of ending -