High School Laziness

When I was in high school in the 80s, I was studious, hardworking and focused. Until I learnt about the rat race that we’re all expected to take part in, whether we want to or not. and then I lost interest in my studies. It was probably around year 10, though I stayed til the end of year 12, because you had even less of a chance of getting a job if you left.

The 80s was a time in my area where it was looked down upon if you thought about getting a degree. Certainly I had to keep these thoughts to myself. It was expected that if you go to a good government school, unless you were of the one percent of nerds at the top of the class, then you would end up doing a trade or office work.

I decided retail was going to be my thing, and so I left in year 12 and went to work in a Legal bookshop. A great experience and I highly value that time for helping to reformat my thinking. When we’re young we’re blinkered, unable to see outside our tiny universe. The job expanded me and made me realize that I’d probably shouldn’t have wasted a lot of my time in years 11 and 12.

Goals

One of my goals had been to be a writer, yet my English lessons in my high school had disappointed me, and I just stopped pursuing that dream for awhile. I believe the curriculum is drastically different now, and students today are exploring areas that my generation could only dream about. But one thing that could not be explained to me was why a lot of old writing was lauded, praised or used as the ideal example when there were obvious mistakes. (Not mistakes of incorrect verbage, spelling errors, or grammar, but simply not following expected set patterns.)

Why didn’t we explore the errors? Why did we just focus on the symbolism? Why pages on the meanings behind words and treating sentences as art, when there were obvious structural deficiencies?

It was a feeling of annoyance that I carried with me through years 9 and 10 in English class, as I fully believed that these old masters of English writing should have been perfect. Of course, I was being analytical and feeling that English should be guided by mathematical formula or have some underlying web or network where the jigsaw pieces of words could be slotted to create the final form.

I later realized I was completely wrong about that, that creativity can come in many forms, without needing to follow some set structure laid down 200 years ago.

Even literary masters aren’t perfect

As my interest in writing increased during subsequent decades I soon noticed that no author was perfect, and that many literary experts recognize the errors but have long since stopped talking about them. You could actually write a 200,000 word novel and it could become a runaway success making you millions of dollars and optioned for a movie, even if it was full of grammar mistakes, style breaks, and endless repetition.

My fear of rejection from not writing perfectly immediately prevented me from writing anything at all. Of course, these literary heroes were human. Of course they made mistakes. Of course their work wasn’t perfect. How stupid was I!

So, in 2006 I got back into writing, without worrying too much how many mistakes I mad. Though, looking back on some of the stuff I wrote 12 years ago makes my eyes bleed.

Just thought I’d throw this out there to any young writers who are struggling to put pen to paper. Have a closer look at some old works from over 100 years ago and make a list of the mistakes you find. You’ll be surprised, and it may encourage you to not worry too much about your own mistakes.

Happy writing!

The Joy of Docs

This may come as a surprise to you, but I have just discovered Google Docs. Well, discovered isn’t the right word. Of course, I’ve known about Google docs since 2006, but speed of internet connection and mistrust with the cloud computing universe’s reliability as a whole, has prevented me from really exploring all that docs has to offer.

I just have one main computer which I share with my partner. As we both teach, this workhorse is constantly in use, with probably just 4 hours of downtime a day. We’re both planning our schedules around when we can use it for preparation and other things. So, I can’t start and finish a novel on it. It can only be used for final edits of my stories. Too many expected interruptions means I would be unable to focus on a particularly poignant piece of prose for hours, and it would be better to just sit in a cafe for several hours somewhere instead.

But, with Google Docs, slow WiFi notwithstanding, I can alternate between the PC and my netbook. Previously I would upload a doc file to my PC, begin editing, realize it needed a lot more work, then download it again and transfer it back to my netbook and disappear. Now, I don’t really need to do that. Simply putting it on Docs I can switch almost seamlessly from the netbook at my kitchen table to the main PC near the bed at any time. (We live in a tiny studio apartment.) And if the netbook on my battery dies, Google Docs would have already saved the work seconds ago, unlike my Word settings generally which save every ten minutes.

Still, even 12 years later, I’m not happy with it. Not because the system itself is bad. Far from it. But because, even with the fastest internet Australia has to offer, I still have to wait for Google Docs to update the last few words I just entered. Wifi here still just can’t keep up with my typing speed. It really works its best on a direct LAN connection.

And with Australia’s internet speed on the Speedtest Global Index now at 55th, I guess it’ll still be awhile yet before I can really enjoy Docs via WiFi.