What part does gender play in your writing?

“Every child is born, not only to specific parents, within a specific language and climate and political situation, but into a pre-existing matrix of opinions about children.” (M. Atwood Negotiating With the Dead).  Everyone is brought up either in a matriarchal environment or a patriarchal environment (unless you are very lucky and it is balanced). Whether we like it or not, our upbringing affects us personally and therefore it affects us as a writer. Writing is always personal, no matter the style or the content so how can your gender-affected environment not affect your writing?

Similar to John Cheever, I have grown up in a matriarchal environment, where the only person fully involved in my upbringing was my mother; men barely played a part in my growing up. Of course, this has affected my writing in a big way. My understanding of relationships, men and family has always been different from those around me, and shows in my character portrayal in my writing. It doesn’t matter how hard I try, my writing will always give me away. There will always be that one character that relates to one of the grown men in my life; the character that reveals the prejudice that I learned at an early age. I am aware of this as a writer, and I do try to test myself and try a piece from a male point of view, give them a voice not only in my stories, but in my mind. Yes, gender does play a part in my writing, but I try to make sure it is a positive one!   

No writer emerges from childhood into a pristine environment free from other people’s biases about writers.

I wholeheartedly agree with this statement. I didn’t ever set out to become a writer, it was something I’d enjoyed at school and found I was actually good at. (Supposedly - I’m a little judgemental/sceptical about what constitutes being ‘good’ but that’s another story!) I always wanted to be a performer/actor/actress (whichever) and so writing always took a back seat once I’d taken to the stage. I’d always thought that I’d never be able to combine the two as even though I’m female, multitasking is SO not one of my strengths! I did find however, when I was devising a piece of performance in drama, writing was always involved. The creation of an idea had to be written down, and mastered - just like when writing a piece of prose. It was then that I decided, ‘hey, I can be a writer and a performer’. In case you’re interested, so far, I seem to be doing pretty well; it’s a bit difficult to do two major pieces from both, but I’m coping... just!  A lot of the skills involved in the devising process of drama correspond to the process of creativity we all loved so much in year one! 

Anyway, that was just a bit of background into how I decided to be a writer. The reason that I completely agree with this statement is because at the moment I decided I wanted to take writing further, adults lost interest in my future. I’d impressed people saying I’d wanted to go to university, but as soon as I mentioned creative writing, I’d get an ‘oh, how lovely’ or ‘that’s different’ and people would try to move on from the subject as quickly as possible.  This made me try and explain my actions; why I took creative writing, how it’s going to help me. It still didn’t work. In general, adults just couldn’t see why I was doing a three-year course, learning how to write stories. Well, what do they know? Have they ever tried to write a story? A piece of poetry? Okay, they might have, fair point, but are any of them published? No. Well there you go. Have any of them tried to get themselves published? No. They’re not good enough (their words not mine). So if they feel that ‘anyone can be a writer’, or ‘writing’s easy’ why try and put down my course? The problem is, because anyone reads and writes, the art of writing is always going to be put down in the back of the mind. Whether someone reads a piece of writing in awe or not, there’s always going to be a part of the human brain that says - ‘hey! I can write too - no biggie’.  However, you talk to children about learning to write poems and stories and other forms, they look up to you in awe and exclaim: ‘I want to do that!’ There you go Ian, a few more students for you in the years to come. J

How is it that I became a writer?

It is my opinion that anybody can be a writer, I am not exactly sure that I just ‘became’ a writer just like that, but I have always enjoyed writing from a young age. There is a quote from Alice Munro in Margaret Atwood’s book; Negotiating With The Dead, where she believes that in order to be a reader, one must be a writer as well. For me, this is an apt summarisation of how I became a writer; as soon as I learned to read, I learned to write and put ideas down onto a blank page. Does this mean I became a writer the first time I wrote a coherent sentence? Or did I become a writer when I actually completed a full piece of writing that a reader could understand?  Having been asked to consider ‘how’ I actually became a writer, it has occurred to me that perhaps writing is not as exceptional a skill as I’d hoped. Being at university has fully challenged my ideas about the rules of writing and commencing this blog has made me doubt my capabilities of standing out as a writer. Anybody can have a blog about anything. What makes us think that we can make a difference with our writing? That is the key to becoming a writer; setting out to make a difference. And that is why I believe I became a writer: because I finally decided to write for others as well as for myself.