Is It All Right?

These past few weeks, I've frequently opened my e-mail box and found a note from one of my students saying, 'I've had a go at writing a radio drama/autobiographical piece/short story, but I don't know if it's all right. Would you take a look at it for me?'

Often I find the writer has been worrying about nothing - the piece they've sent me is really promising. Maybe it needs a few little tweaks or there are some odd spelling mistakes or a bit of wonky punctuation. Maybe it needs quite a bit more work done on it. But whatever my verdict on the piece, I'm always pleased to see that they've been trying something new.

That's the thing about writing. It's usually better to have something rather than nothing. Even if you're at the very, very start of your journey as a writer, or if you were having a really bad day when you put pen to paper, the very fact that you have put pen to paper is a good thing.

A piece of writing isn't like a silk blouse which you could ruin irrevocably with a faulty seam, an uneven hem. If you do need to redo it, it won't show needle marks where you've unpicked the fabric, done a nip here and a tuck there. If you've trimmed away too much, you can always add extra and nobody will ever see the join.

You can afford to take risks with your writing. It's all part of the learning process. No risks, play it safe all the time and you'll develop at the pace of a racing snail. Experiment, try out a few new forms, a few genres that you may have thought were beyond you, and you'll be amazed at what you can come up with. You may even find that your forte turns out to be something completely different from what you first thought of.

I have a card pinned above my desk, which contains a quotation by the German poet, Goethe. It says:
'Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and
magic in it.'

Dare you be bold in your writing. Dare to take risks. Dare to try something new. Try it, and discover the magic for yourself.