Writing with courage
Giles Turnbull
soul - requires some courage.
And I say that as one of life's cowards. I don't do confrontation
well. I don't like to upset or annoy people, it scares me. I was never
cut out for proper journalism, many journalists would say.
Last week, inspired by something emotional in the real world, I sat
down and wrote a feverish couple of thousand words about a turbulent
episode of my life. It was cathartic and long overdue; it helped me
clarify a few thoughts and feelings about particular individuals.
But I dare not publish it anywhere. I'd annoy too many people.
The same problem gets in the way of me ever completing my (thus far)
favourite idea for a book. It would be called "Everyone I've ever met"
and would contain short mini-essays about, well, everyone I've ever
met (that I can remember). Trouble is, soon after I started writing it
I realised it could never be published during my lifetime. It's too
*honest*. It will have to serve as posthumous autobiography, assuming
I ever finish it. (It works well as a hypertext, incidentally. I keep
it in VoodooPad.)
There's another aspect of courage in writing that I have no problem
with whatsoever, and that's the courage to admit that you don't know a
damn thing. Writing in ignorance of facts and details is a skill that
almost every journalist has, but few are happy to admit to. I've long
understood the importance of acknowledging that the readers know more
than I; Dan Gillmor was right.
What I noticed over the years of writing stuff on other lists (the
gorjusses and luvlies of times past) and blogs was how people's
corrections, rebukes and comments were less "flamey" (for want of a
better word) if I admitted my ignorance up front. In that respect, at
least, I am very nearly a brave man.