Listen

Mid way through last year I started working on a story. It had a definite style, a definite voice which was different, a kind of extension, of how I’d been writing before. And I liked it, it was good. But I stopped. I got stuck. Couldn’t figure out where to go and went on to other things.

One of the reasons I stopped was because I was worried that the style was not my own. Honestly I thought I’d been too heavily influenced by reading Kurt Vonnegut. And me being me, well – I want what I write to be me, to come from inside.

But yesterday: a revelation.

I was working on an old laptop and I opened a story I’d written AGES ago.

And it was written in exactly the same style as the thing I’d given up on. The first piece had been written a year or so before I’d read a Kurt Vonnegut book. The more recent piece had been written before I’d read a Kurt Vonnegut book too, I discovered. I hadn’t nicked his style. It was my own.

You have no idea how happy that makes me. And free.

Now, if I could write something at least half as good as the master…

Published by

nikperring

Nik Perring is a short story writer, author, teacher of writing, and editor from the UK. His stories have been published widely all over the world. His books include the widely celebrated Not So Perfect (Roastbooks 2010), A Book of Beautiful Words; and Beautiful Trees; and he co-wrote Freaks!(TFP/HarperCollins, 2012).

6 thoughts on “Listen”

  1. Oh it was a FAB discovery. I think I'd been worrying about it for far too long when there was nothing to worry about.It wasn't an obviously similar style and I guess only I'd have noticed it. But that doubt was there and now it's not – hooray! Plus, it had nothing to do with what's been going on of late – purely coincidental (or serendipitous) which makes it even better!

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