MUCKING ABOUT
I often give myself permission to write bad (sic.). O.K., badly. Permission t0 just plunge in and not worry about the beauty of the words, the rightness of grammar, the elegance of plot. This is harder than it sounds, for me, anyway. I have a particularly stern, old-fashioned School Mar’m critic sitting on my shoulder. So I sic myself on her, wrestle her to the ground, and pin her under the leg of my chair. Then I am free to make as many “stupid, ugly mistakes ” as I like, mucking about in the mud of imperfection. The stern old-fashioned School Mar’m cries out in alarm . After a while, I don’t hear her. After a while, mucking about becomes fun. And sometimes I discover a small, grimy pebble, which, (not to carry a metaphor too far, well, maybe I am, as I try to describe a messy process), reveals itself as the gold nugget of a story-starter…
