Keeping it For Best and Other Reasons Why I Don't Write

A very dear friend of mine decided to challenge my list of reasons why, despite his frequent requests, I have never shown him anything that I have written. There are many reasons why I can’t show him anything, but it all boils down to one simple fact: I am afraid. Now, I’m not a Jessie – I’ve had three kids with only minimal pain relief (for the last two anyway, for the first way I was smacked out my skull on pethidine) and I even beat up the school bully in P6 when he had a go at my wee brother. But I do have an innate fear of writing something down and having either a person, or several people decry it as “utter shite”. So, I thought what better way to get out of his “You have to write the best thing that you’ve ever written in one week” challenge than to produce a list of reasons why I can’t.

1. Keeping it for Good:
I buy notepads. Since I first started getting pocket money I’ve been obsessed with buying stationery. Looking through the Whitemyres catalogue at work is akin to a spiritual experience for me. Seriously, I have the door closed and I commune with the masses of paperclips and staplers on offer. Paperchase is my Nirvana. But I have a problem with the notepads that I purchase. The more elaborate the notepad, and I have some seriously fabulous notepads hidden around my house, the less inclined I am to write in it. I prefer to keep the really nice ones “for good”. So much in the same way as when you were wee and your mum bought you a puffball skirt and diamonte top from Littlewoods in July for the school Christmas party, and you don’t try it on again until the morning of the party until to discover that you’ve outgrown the glory that was the nylon puffball extravaganza I buy notepads – hide them around the house so the kids won’t find them – then find them, realise I’ve since bought another couple of notepads and use my previous treasures for such wonderful bon mots as shopping lists, things to do lists and, horror of horrors, lists of calories consumed that day. That was until some lovely people I know bought me a notepad that I’ve always coveted and made me promise to them that I would actually write in it. Now these are people that I hope to inspire with the same love of reading and writing that I have always known, so I am in slowly being sucked into a vortex of enforced writing by people I don’t want to let down and then forced to share it…Sweet Jayfus.

2. I Don’t Have Time:
Now this is a genuine problem for anyone who is actually too scared to write and needs a good excuse to back that fear up. I have three young children, a part-time job, a full-time husband, a dog, a house, a garden, friends, books I haven’t read and need to , a new mixer I want to play with, weeds I need to pull out – you know, stuff I need to do. I concede that once the kids are down and the washing is done (which is an excuse I love to give – it is still acceptable amongst my friends to claim that we are busy “doing washing”. Now, last I checked we all have working washing machines so we are literally talking about a chore that takes about three minutes: sort out clothes, chuck in the machine with the detergent and switch it on. As far as I’m aware none of us in the Tri-State area are having to head to the local river with a mangle on our shoulders in order to “do their washing”. ) No, really, like most people I quite enjoy having the evenings to watch telly, surf the t’Internet and oooh, occasional Domestic Goddess alert – bake. Sometimes I even talk to my husband – but not too often as we’ve discovered that the secret to happy marriage is not to indulge in too much of that conversation nonsense. He just gets to thinking that he has opinions and stuff, and no good can come of that, let me tell you. Actually, as I write this we have a few hours of relative peace. Daughters one and two are off out and Number One Son is otherwise engaged. Even the dog is having a petit snoozette. Needless to say, rather than simply relax and enjoy the peace I’ve spent the last ten minutes trying to guilt “The Boss”* into helping me to sweep and clean the floors. And when I say “help”, I do mean that he does it. But, it appears that even he is in on the act and I’ve been forced to once again sit and write. Et tu ye Brute, as they say.

3. I Have Nothing to Write About:
I lead a very normal life. I wouldn’t make a good candidate for Wife Swap. I’m not mental cleaning up woman (despite my earlier attempts to appear like a good housewifely type) and I’m not mentally untidy (or a “mink” as the local vernacular would have it). We have nice friends and family. We’re not the bloody Waltons – we have our fair share of dischord and dysfunction, but it’s all fairly civilised and everyone tends to get along. Rainman does have his foibles – loading the dishwasher is a personal favourite, especially when someone else loads the dishwasher. Our friends don’t load the dishwasher in our house anymore and he takes occasional offence at this “oversight”. Grumblings of “they could at least help to tidy up after they’ve eaten all our bloody food” are not uncommon. In fact, I have them all warned that when they do load it up he gets so frustrated by their “inefficient use of maximum dishwashing space” that he will, and has, waited until the leave, empty the dishwasher, reload it, and then call me through to marvel at how few dishes there are left to wash. Completely oblivious to the fact that whilst doing this he could have washed and dried the extra five plates that he managed to load and be sitting down with a nice cup of tea. Mentalist.

4. I have a pretty good idea what good writing is:
And I’m just not sure that I can deliver. I studied English at University. I teach English. I read books at a staggeringly expensive rate. And I’m just a bit worried that my inner writer might not be as shit hot as I’d like her to be. Plus, this whole task of “writing the best thing that you’ve ever written in one week” is a bit of killer. I mean, is it – “you have one week to write the best thing that you’ve ever written”? or “write the best thing that you are capable of writing in one week”? Either way, I’m not sure what I’m meant to do after – do I go all Salinger-esque in the aftermath?

On second thoughts, it might get me out of next week’s challenge – which was to write two blogs…

* “The Boss” was the nickname that he wanted to be given. His nickname, for the time being will be “Rainman” on account of what follows.