THE ‘WAS’ CONSPIRACY by Andy Mclean

There are very few straight lines in nature.

And in my nature, there are none.

When I started my own landscape-feature design business last year, I soon tired of working within the accepted wisdom of absolute straightness, squareness, plumbness (is that even a word?).

Why should everything be structured to a millimetre tolerance, when all around us are beautiful flowing curves, interesting nooks and hidden surprises that grow from imperfection?

So, I stopped trying to conform and decided to create my designs from the heart, featuring all the elements of convoluted beauty I could mine from my twisted soul.

Will my philosophy be embraced by my well-to-do clients?

Only time will tell. But it got me thinking about my journey with writing and how, somehow, my passion for it had been inexorably degraded over the past seven years. I asked myself why, when I used to spend hours lost in the beauty of connecting words, was I now uninterested in laying my fingertips on the keyboard, or even playing with sentences in my mind while I mowed the lawn or washed dishes.

The answer?

The ‘was’ conspiracy.

I wrote my first novel about ten years ago. I wrote it in the space of around three weeks. It was shit. I loved it. The cathartic experience of spending those few weeks lost in my imagination, the physical focus of tap-tap-tapping away at the keys, and I guess, the joy of getting to know myself was a truly transformative experience.

Around that time, I decided that I might be good enough to have a book published.

For some reason, I thought it would be easy.

After my third novel had been ignored by competition judges, literary agents and even most of my friends, I realised my thinking was not thinking at all, but fantasy.

I analysed my faults, sought to understand the tricks that might help a new author get noticed.

And I changed my style.

And along the way, I lost myself.

As an example, let me introduce you to ‘WAS’.

WAS was my friend, many years ago. We had an easy relationship that allowed me to fluidly create my characters, themes and plots spontaneously, sometimes without even knowing I had done it. Not great for story structure, but soooooo pleasing for me personally.

But then I read, over and over, that the lazy use of WAS was going to go badly for me when the time came to submit. A manuscript was returned to me with bright red circles scratched around three uses of WAS on the first page alone. No other comments. Just the WAS circles.

There were many other ‘rules’ that I learned over time, and they made me a better writer for the most part. Technically, my style has improved tremendously over the past decade. But emotionally? No.

So, I reread one of my favourite comfort reads. A novel by Lee Child that I must have read at least ten times, usually curled up in bed on a rainy night feeling a little worn down by life. It occurred to me that Lee, one of my faves and a favourite of millions, uses WAS with gay abandon throughout his stories.

He is a bestseller.

WTF?

Why did I almost destroy my passion for writing just to conform to these straight lines, when all along I have had curves, nooks and dark spaces freely available for my use?

I’ve decided now to be true to myself. To write only what makes me happy. To put those innocent fantasies of world-renown and Pulitzers behind me and just write.

Because I am a writer.

If you are a writer …

You should write.