.
My Grandfather was 99 last month. He is a lovely man, sharp
and spritely enough to be interested in my fledgling writing career and
communicates regularly with me by email. His social life is better than mine
and he has a bevy of ladies who take him to lunch groups and church services.
He retired as a manager in a factory and was delighted to escape
from the tribulations of seventies industrial relations. He has had a full
retirement that has lasted nearly forty years and with his youth his well past there
is a twinkle in his eye that tells of a life well lived. In his youth he was a
saxophonist in a local Jazz band and there is a vinyl record of his playing. He
still listens and has passed on his love of Jazz to his two sons my father and
my Uncle Brian.
Uncle Brian lives in Canada now but was over for the
birthday meal and was complimenting me on my book “Splinter”. He had enjoyed
the story although he did have a bit of a reservation that the boss of my
gangster family was also called Brian.
I was telling Uncle Brian that if I was serious about being
a novelist then I should probably invest my time in a Creative Writing course,
which I keep considering and putting to one side as the muse takes me. I told
him that life gets in the way and besides by the time I do the degree I could
have written and self published three or four novels. Brian, who is a Doctor
and eminent specialist in his field, compared the idea of being taught creative
writing to being the same as his disappointment at some of the new generation
of musicians who are coming out of Universities with a degree in Jazz music he
sees in Toronto .
His point was that technically they were very good but they lacked the spontaneity
needed to make them excel.
You can’t teach Jazz improvisation it has to come from the
heart in the same way you can teach grammar and form but you can’t teach how to
put heart into your story telling. Following my put down from the poisoned pen
of the Creative Writing graduate lady this struck a chord.
Technically my writing needs extra precision but putting the
words on the page and developing the story my brain comes alive. I employ an
editor to help me with the finished story but the story and characters are mine
alone and they definitely come from my heart.
As a writer I imagine my pre-war granddad played in smoke
filled drinking dens surrounded by be-suited gangsters and their molls, a la
Bugsy Malone. Probably not, but he has a recording of his music and I have
written a book so it is grounding to know that my creative urge is inherited
from somewhere close to home.
Grandad is going to Toronto again
this Summer and Toronto
is a great place for Jazz. Last time I was there Brian took me to a buzzing basement
Jazz club. I enjoyed the atmosphere and setting if not fully appreciating the
Modern Jazz. It was all a bit "plinky plink, clash, plink" for me, but then I was
kicked out of the trials for the cadet band for having no sense of rhythm. I remember watching the audience and making up
stories it was a great place for inspiration.
As a Jazz musician plinky plinks around with the rhythm and
makes up the tune as he goes along, so a writer develops a story. The
difference is that a live performance is over in minutes the music haunts the
memory and taps the toe, a novel takes months to write and further months to
fine tune and hone to a publishable standard. The words in the story are there
to be critiqued, shot-at and derided, the notes of the Jazz musician are
created free form and released into the world as soon as they are played for
the audience to remember and relish. A Jazz musician closes his eyes lost in the flow of his music. Can that be taught? They say you should write for your own enjoyment and the readers will pick up on the positive vibes. Can that be taught?
There is much animated debate on how to write, how to market
and the dreary argument of whether you are a proper writer if you do not have
the “gatekeeper validation” of an agent or publisher or creative writing
lecturer. Who cares?
In the same way a Jazz musician blows their trumpet is it not better to just sit down, write and enjoy the creative process.
Looking at the long life of my granddad who lived through
two world wars and seen so much and he still enjoys his Jazz. I hope I am still
enjoying life at 99 and when I look back I don’t think I will regret not doing
a Creative Writing course. Do you?
