Writers on Writing - Graeme Williamson

GRAEME WILLIAMSON
Pay Attention

I liked to read from a very young age and started to make up stories for friends when I was eight or nine, so the impulse to lie for amusement began at an early age. In one or two of the schools I went to I met English teachers who brought literature to life for me and showed how it related to the world outside the classroom.
After a time I began to wonder what sort of people wrote books. I admired the ability of these strangers to speak across space and time, to create the illusion of intimacy with the reader. I admired the solitary craft, the endurance of writers -- also the skill with which they played with the language and made a beautiful game of something as simple as human speech.
I read a good deal of Chinese poetry early on and started to write poetry. Some Oriental poets in particular seemed to have found a way of keeping the present moment alive indefinitely. This seemed to come about through an ability to vanish from the foreground and leave the clear view for the reader. Reading their work was like travelling through time. I began to feel that the 'real point' to writing -- if there is such a thing --- is just to pay attention. Last week I was reading an old interview with William Burroughs in which he said the same thing. When you walk down the street, how much do you notice?
I was of course also motivated by a desire for money. At a certain point I took up music, wrote songs and played in bands with the aim of acquiring wealth quickly. However, despite my determination to get rich, the main success I gained as a musician was enjoying playing music whether it made money or not. The process was beneficial in other ways. Through practice I became quite skilful at writing music and lyrics and learned about form and rhythm from songwriting. These skills helped me when I started writing prose fiction.
These days, I would say that I write because I can't imagine not writing. I would like to bring something to the conversation that writers have with the world and with each other. Human life is a prodigious phenomenon and the more versions, interpretations and eyewitness accounts of it there are, the better, I think -- So writing is a good enterprise. The chaff gets blown away and what's left can tell us who we are.