Did I Write That?

[Paul Whybrow]

I recently re-read my previous Cornish Detective novel, Sin Killers, which I haven't done since completing the editing a year ago. I did so, partly because I'm in the last 20,000 pages of writing the next story, and I wanted to check on the story arcs of my regular characters.

I was pleasantly surprised at what I'd written, as I'd forgotten some of the incidental description of scenery, details of characterisation and plot twists. Looking at even older writing, such as the poetry I penned in 2009, is like reading the work of a stranger...half-remembered, but mysterious all the same—I wonder at my state of mind back then!

Thriller writer John D. McDonald reckoned that you have to write a million words before you know what you’re doing, to gain control of your voice, creating prose that sounds right. If he's correct, it would be hard to recall stuff your wrote years before, as your style would have altered so much.

Several famous writers have stated that they avoid old work. Zadie Smith shuns her highly-praised early novels, as she always sees ways that she'd have written a scene differently. Crime novelist Ian Rankin has admitted that the rapid expansion and development of technology has made his early stories from the 1990s look quaint and dated.

The transience of memory is an area of psychology that interests me, for literary reasons and for how I was personally affected. Writing crime novels, I try to make the facts accurate, including advances in discovering how the brain works. Eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable, with the most confident-sounding witnesses often giving inaccurate information:

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/10/how-reliable-eyewitness-testimony-scientists-weigh

I recently read Dr Julia Shaw's The Memory Illusion which demonstrates how the brain can be led astray in what it remembers.

My own experience of having my grey cells rebel on me, came from having a minor stroke in 1995. It served as a useful warning to me to give up booze, as I'd been alcoholic for 27 years, which I duly did within a few months, suffering terrifying withdrawal symptoms from the DTs, while trying to get my brain to function properly again.

I found it tricky to read a book, which was one of my favourite activities, and writing anything taxed my concentration with words appearing in the wrong order on the page....or, I'd write something, and reading it back all of the Bs would be missing from sentences. I helped this weakness by copying out several cookbooks and car workshop manuals in longhand. Getting my first computer in 1999 completely eradicated the vagueness, as typing somehow short circuited the damaged neurons. These days, I easily write perfectly typed rubbish!

My memory was affected in strange ways, both long-term and short-term. I could recall everything about my personal life, that I thought I should be capable of doing at the age of 41, but weirdly, I could also picture in photographic detail totally useless memories—such as the order that books had been shelved in a London flat twenty years before. I'd lost my ability to play acoustic guitar and how to speak French, but teenage tuition in Ancient Greek and Latin flooded back in. Sometimes I couldn't find my car or motorcycle, after parking them in town, so I took to writing where on a scrap of paper; that problem cured itself. The brain has amazing powers of recuperation.

Mature members of the Colony will know what I'm on about, when I admit to being watchful about memory loss. I worked as a live-in carer for several elderly clients with dementia, a fate I'd not wish on anyone. Investigating my own powers of recall, I recently looked through my borrowing history at the local library. I devour about 350 books a year, but of the 1,750 I've read in the last five years—about 1,000 being novels—I could only recall the basic plots of perhaps 50.

This seemed a low strike rate, but I wasn't too concerned, for I rationalised several things, including that there's a great amount of similar book plots around. It takes something really unusual to stay in the mind. Memory has a use-it-or-lose-it quality, and there's really no reason for me to recall exactly what happened from start to finish in the fifth book in a series of detective stories. More importantly, from the point of view of being an author, is to create vivid scenes that burn their way into readers' imaginations.

The transitoriness of reading is much like other pleasurable activities, such as eating, making love, attending a concert by your favourite musician. They swiftly fade from our memory, making us want to do them again!

Do you ever look at your old writing and wonder about who your were back then?

Are your stories written with the intention of them being memorable?

Do they contain standout scenes?

Does your memory trick you, or help you out?

Out of the blue, just last night, the word 'duckweed' suggested itself to me, as being a better choice than 'pondweed', which I'd used in the Cornish Detective novel I re-read a week ago. I wasn't consciously thinking about it, but, seemingly, part of my brain was, editing the memory of reading it.

Thanks brain...you weirdo!

Oliver Sacks

 

[Amber]

Do you ever look at your old writing and wonder about who your were back then?

Yes and no. My writing always sounds like me. But something I wrote about a long time ago sometimes isn't something I'd want to write today.

Are your stories written with the intention of them being memorable?

Hard to say. My memory isn't the best. I often forget what I write. I do try to write in a focused way.

Do they contain standout scenes?

I hope so.

Does your memory trick you, or help you out?

Sometimes I think my bad memory is a blessing and sometimes I think its a curse. Remembering can be fun.

 

[ChrisLewando]

Well done for fighting your way out of the alco-pit. I empathise with the memory thing. I was born in the fiftes with Rh syndrome, which is an autoimmune condition, the body fighting its own blood, basically. Not that people knew what it was back then. It also resulted in physical problems with heart and lung. It took years for me to understand why I was useless at games, and had almost no memory recall. Without the internet, I might never have found out. But Rh babies could end up as paraplegics or dead, so a glitch in the memory department is a small price for a life that hasn't been all bad. I can't recall names, and every time I visit a place, it's a new experience. But if I'm writing, I can recall to the last detail who said what and where, so plots don't run away from me. I find that strange, alright! I was half tempted to use that condition in a novel, but actually I get a bit fed up with nearly every child in a mainstream novel these days being somewhere on the autism/special needs spectrum. It's been done. Get past it. Do some plotting. When I was at school, in the good old days, you were either bright, normal, or ESN (extra sub-normal!), now there seems to be competition among parents to get the best psychological tag for their child... See, mine's worse than yours...

 

[Paul Whybrow]

Well done for fighting your way out of the alco-pit. I empathise with the memory thing. I was born in the fiftes with Rh syndrome, which is an autoimmune condition, the body fighting its own blood, basically. Not that people knew what it was back then. It also resulted in physical problems with heart and lung. It took years for me to understand why I was useless at games, and had almost no memory recall. Without the internet, I might never have found out. But Rh babies could end up as paraplegics or dead, so a glitch in the memory department is a small price for a life that hasn't been all bad. I can't recall names, and every time I visit a place, it's a new experience. But if I'm writing, I can recall to the last detail who said what and where, so plots don't run away from me. I find that strange, alright! I was half tempted to use that condition in a novel, but actually I get a bit fed up with nearly every child in a mainstream novel these days being somewhere on the autism/special needs spectrum. It's been done. Get past it. Do some plotting. When I was at school, in the good old days, you were either bright, normal, or ESN (extra sub-normal!), now there seems to be competition among parents to get the best psychological tag for their child... See, mine's worse than yours...

The competitive element of being diagnosed with a 'condition' is particularly prevalent in America, where I lived for three years. The root cause of the problem, is to my mind, the sinister Diagnostic Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V), which is taken far too seriously. Its influence over doctors and psychiatrists demonstrates how these so-called healers are in the pockets of Big Pharma—who have a pill for everything—including using the internet too much!

The power of writing has plainly helped your condition; Rh syndrome would make a useful lynchpin for the plot of a thriller with a psychological element. I've worked closely with those with dementia, depression and autism, and from having suffered with depression several times, I've been fascinated how the brain's viewpoint of life is altered. I came to realise that the shifted perspective still offers useful insights. I'm a firm believer in the healing power of music—all of my writing over the last five years has been done to whatever's playing through my earbuds—currently AC/DC!
Whether I'll need heavy rock to gather up my marbles, when I'm doolally, is open to debate.