MJ Walters

Who can tell me who I am? Anyone?

Last week I read "Who is it that can tell me who I am?", by Jane Haynes, a London-based psychotherapist. I bought it after reading an interview she gave in the Guardian. Part of me wanted to answer the question with "I can! Your name's on the cover! And sort out your grammar!" But then later I felt a bit silly when she said it was a quote from King Lear.

You don't often see the therapists point-of-view in books, fiction or non-fiction, and since there is a psychotherapist in my next piece of writing, it was both research and a visit to my past.

To me the psychodynamic psychotherapy process is remarkable in many ways. If you have a therapist who is a good match to you and your problems, you can embark on an inner journey that can unlock parts of yourself you didn't suspect were even there. If you can uncover your natural skill at interpreting symbols and metaphors (we all do it to some degree, through watching films, reading books, etc), you will have the tools to understand your deepest feelings. If you keep a journal and patiently work through your dreams and fantasies, you'll discover all sorts of things about yourself, both painful and joyful.

Reading the accounts of people in this book, on both sides of the consulting room, has reminded me of how far I have come in the last five years. I have found the process of changing my experience of the world exhilarating and frequently very difficult. I am a different person and the same person. Change has been slow (five years!) and quick (I've rewired my brain!).

The book? It's well written, but the author's exploration of her own therapy was much less interesting than the case studies she presents in the second half. There are many fascinating insights throughout though. It reveals the power of two people talking in a room, over many months and years, within a particular power dynamic, to bring out hidden patterns of thinking so they can be reflected on and understood. And from this self-understanding, behaviour can be changed and attitudes transformed.

Literary theory

Now that I'm coming to the end of my creative writing courses, I have choices to make. Do I write the novel I've always told myself I want to write? Or do I keep generating the poems and short stories that I've proven so good at? Or do I switch back to learning the piano and singing, with the eventual aim of being a singer-songwriter?

I could do some more OU courses in the Autumn/Winter: Arts Past and Present; Design thinking - creativity in the 21st Century; Understanding Music. I'm drawn to the structure of these, and the carrot of a degree in Literature and Music at the end. They are also stimulating (and expensive!).

But I also want to slow down and rest.

I picked up Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction from the library last week and I devoured it. I have been thinking about the meaning of literature and the other objects I see in culture (paintings, songs, theatre). Where do my stories and poems fit into the network of art that already exists? Do I want to keep on writing literature, or do I want to create in a different medium? Why do I want to create anything anyway?!

There were some wonderful new ways of looking at these questions in the book. I especially like the idea of 'theory' as being behind everything, linking cultural objects from across disciplines, so literature is explored in terms of psychoanalysis, paintings are thought of in terms of narrative, and so on. It made me see the futility of trying to get to the bottom of things, to try and master knowledge. There is no end to knowledge. To engage with questions of meaning is to set out on an infinite path.

Meaning is bound by context, but context is boundless :-) How liberating!

I have decided that as an artist (and in my definition a writer is an artist) I can express something from inside myself with skill and technique. If I do that, I am successful. I cannot control what other people will like. I won't choose my next project on anything other than personal fascination.

Artist, designer, craftsman

Creative writing is a tool to express myself, and through re-drafting, understand myself. Essay-writing can have a similar function if the subject fascinates me, but more often it is about understanding ideas and integrating them into my thought processes and deeper memory.

The act of writing for me is both expressive (the first draft) and reflective (the following x drafts). Sometimes I have an idea in mind before I begin, sometimes I discover the idea as I splurge my emotions and ideas into my journal, and sometimes I have to write the first draft before I see what the piece is really about.

I say these things because the act of writing something original requires three parts of me: the craftsman, the designer and the artist. These parts of me are intertwined in some tasks and separate in others. When I'm generating without thinking then I'm in artist mode, with a touch of craftsman. When I'm writing a second draft, I'm equal parts all three. When I'm looking at the over-arching structure, I'm designer only. And so on.

All of these parts of me are creative - they all have access to my unconscious mind. An artist needs to come up with a vision that stimulates me to grow. The designer needs to solve the problems of fulfilling that vision. The craftsman needs to make the second by second decisions that make up the choice of words in a paragraph. Intuitive decision-making is hard-wired into the whole process.

So: art and design. I looked up some definitions in the dictionary. To design is to imagine how something could be made and then to plan how to do it. Art isn't even a verb - I can only "make art". The closest I could get was an artist as someone who creates things with great skill and imagination. That sounds the same as a designer to me.

I think there is another step to this line of thought, but I can't quite see it yet... something about how all this relates to my writing and my software engineering skills...

Art and design

My work puts me on the border between art and design. When is design, art? I came across this strongly-felt discussion on the AIGA website. Designers wrestle with this problem no matter what their medium.

After ten years in software, I have a strong designer part of me. The more I write, the more I find myself wondering how writing stories and poems is different to writing software. Both seem to dip into the unconscious to solve problems. Both involve making things that perform a function, even if that function is to make us feel something or make us question fixed ideas.

Is an artist always a designer? I would say yes. Is a designer always and artist? No, I don't think so. I am not going to offer any evidence for any of this :-) I'm just playing.

A designer solves a problem. An artist solves a problem too, but they do more than that. I wonder if an artist somehow chooses the problem, and chooses it in relation to her own identity and unconscious.

I'm sure there are examples on both sides of the artist/designer divide that will challenge these definitions, but I want to put a stake in the ground for myself.

What am I trying to do here? I want to integrate the two parts of myself, the software engineer and the writer, so I can find a way of working that honours both. They are different jobs in different mediums, but it seems to me that technology is changing things fast and there is something important in the problem.

Novels are only possible because of the printing press. How will stories be delivered and experienced once today's technological advances are harnessed and fully explored?

Going back to my first journal

I have a piece of work due by the middle of May. I've written a proposal and modified it after some more thought, and I'm ready to begin making notes and capturing fragments. Great.

So what happens? I get bored with the project and develop a strong interest in my old journals. I've linked the character in my proposal to my personal development, so the interest makes sense, but part of me is worried I'm biting off more than I can chew for a fast approaching deadline.

I've learnt to trust my intuition on these things. I'm going to go as far as I want to - the journal is fascinating, and I know I'll find some way to include this work in the final story. It's just that flying blind can be stressful, especially when I care so much about the journey and the destination.

The biggest thing I've noticed from my first journal is a transformation I underwent in 1998. Before that I was pretty lost. Then, from the end of 1997 through to my decision to re-train as a software engineer in July 1998, I found a voice in my writing that I recognise today. It's weirdly self-aware. I have told myself that this self-awareness came from my more recent experience with psychotherapy, but in doing this research I have found it there, on the page, several years before.

It amazes me, the power of the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. But memory is elastic, and truth is elusive. If I hadn't kept a journal, I wouldn't have discovered that I have the same desires today that I had a decade ago.

That is both vaguely troubling and deeply comforting!

Multiple identities

I've been thinking about identity for a couple of years now, and this thinking has played an important role in my coming to think of myself as a writer.

The OU has some wonderful courses, and this week I finished the 'Identity' book of DD100: Introduction to Social Sciences. It basically says identity is a dynamic thing, it requires active engagement. It is the interaction between the individual and society. Some things are only partially in our control (our economic situation), some things are out of our control (disability), and some things are there for the changing (how we dress).

Now the same things that make up our identities, make up the identities of characters I write in stories. And if I want characters to flow from inside me, then I need to understand myself as much as possible. What makes up this collection of selves I present to the world, both consciously and unconsciously? My gender, my social class, my employment, the clothes I wear, the vocabulary I use, and on and on.

And even more interestingly, we have multiple identities - I am a writer, a software engineer, a father, a life partner, a student, a guitar-player... Some of these identities can be in conflict. How do I reconcile my writer with my musician for example? When I get a spare hour, do I write or practice guitar? When I am not in paid employment, am I still a software engineer? Am I unemployed? Am I middle class, working class, classless? It's all fascinating, and it's all grist to the character development mill.

What am I writing about?

About five years ago I was unhappy with the way my life was going. I started digging through self-help books for ways to change things - a classic mid-life crisis, but without the money to buy a flash car. Which helped, because I probably would have bought a flash car if we hadn't been dirt poor with a new-born baby. Think of the environment!

Now, I am a writer. I haven't been published, so some people take issue with my labelling myself a writer. but I think of myself as a writer because I write. I write short stories, poems and life writing. I have completed the Open University Creative Writing course, and I am about to finish the Advanced Creative Writing course.

It's taken an awfully long time to believe I was a writer. I don't think quality is a barrier, personally. There are good writers, bad writers and mediocre writers. But if you believe you are one, you are one. Other people don't come into it. They may try, but if they do, ask yourself - why do they want you to feel differently?

What do I write about? Whatever is fascinating me at the time. At the moment I'm thinking about the change process I've experienced over the last five years. I have reinvented myself, to myself.

The two OU courses have given me the skills I need to write something longer on that topic. Which is where I am today. Beginning. Perhaps some people who read this are on a similar journey of personal discovery. If you are, let me know :-)