All Writing is Experimental, by Gillian

If writing is based on life, and I don't know what else we'd base it on, then surely it must be experimental because all life is experimental. And not just human life; what is evolution, after all, but a series of experiments? Trouble is, real life experiments can be painful; just think of all those critters who ended up on the wrong side of the evolutionary experiments.

Whammo! Extinct!

Betsy and I read, somewhere, in some pop-psych book, that we should all look at life as an experiment and therefor lighten up. Rather than castigating myself for moving back to Podunk, Iowa, and consequently being miserable and wanting nothing more than to return to Denver, what a stupid mistake, why did you do such a stupid thing, etc. etc., I should shrug and say, ”Oh well, just an experiment. Rather surprising results; not quite what I expected.”

and move happily back to Denver. We both rather liked the concept. Putting yourself down because you made a dumb mistake, a bad decision, resolves nothing. It was an experiment. You cannot fail an experiment. The result just is, and you go from there.

The problem is, even though you perhaps are free from beating up on yourself, that experiment was darned expensive: financially and emotionally. Often for others as well as yourself. Your girlfriend was devastated that you didn't care enough to stick around. On the other hand, neither did she care enough to go with you. Relationship over. You sold the condo that you so enjoyed. And now, by some quirk of fate, it seems to require twice as much money as you sold it for, to buy anything remotely equivalent. That move to Podunk has cost you a bundle, regardless of whether you call it an experiment or a stupid mistake.

On the other hand, in defense of experiments, there are indeed many situations which might well be improved by being seen as experimental. The one that leaps into my mind, is marriage. What else can it be? Two kids barely out of school promise to love and be faithful to each other for what may well be the next seventy years. How intimidating is that? How realistic is it? Clearly not very, given our less than 50% success rate. Wouldn't it make a whole lot more sense to promise to give this experiment your very best shot, and see what happens. How much lighter, less intimidating, that would feel. Perhaps under such circumstances, marriages would actually have a better chance of survival. That institution needs a shot in the arm. I say we try it. Life truly is a continuous series of experiments. We might as well face it.

Aaaah! But writing, now, that really is free, except for my time. And harmless. Spending three hours, or three months if it comes to that, writing something which eventually falls victim to the delete key, is probably just as beneficial to me as that which triumphantly ends up at the print command. The process is as valuable as the end result. It's all a series of experiments which result in a string of surprises.

Sometimes I sit down at the keyboard with a firm plan in place. I know how I'm going to start, where I meander to from there, and how it will end. All I have to do is put down the words and that, for me, is usually the easy part. Other times I place my fingers on the keys and my mind is a complete blank. I haven't managed to form one thought about the topic on which I plan to write. I flex my fingers as if preparing to play the piano, and wait for the music to start. From this point on, whether I have a clear plan in my head or no thoughts at all, everything comes a surprise. Who knows where this experiment will lead?

My fingers start to move; slowly at first, then faster. The cymbals clash. A crashing crescendo. Silence falls. I look back to see what I have actually written. It's fantastic! I love it! It's godawful. It's crap! Most often it's somewhere in between. What's that whole paragraph about? Delete. Need to explain this better. Insert. That word isn't just, quite, exactly, right. A gentle man. No. A quiet man? No. A calm man. Calm. That's the word I'm looking for. And, in finding the right word, I see him differently. A wonderful, totally unexpected, result of this experiment.

Writing, from the grand design to every single individual word or even punctuation, is all an experiment; trial and error. I rarely, even on occasions when I have a complete plan, end up where I intended. Well! I sit back and re-read what I wrote. Who'da thunk? I ask myself. Who knew I thought that? Apparently my fingers did. They are the ones who seem to know where we're going. Not me. I just evaluate and tweak it when they're done.

The topic we have chosen to write about is an experiment in itself. Some I look on with approval. I know exactly how to approach that. Others I stare at blankly and want to strangle whoever dreamed that one up. But in reality, some of the topics I can't seem to raise any interest in generate what I judge as good stories; some of the topics I love end up somewhere in the mediocre.

A while back I read a novel, can't of course recall either the title or the author, which was honestly kinda boring. It was long and moved slowly, but I persevered. You know how it is sometimes with a book like that? You have to finish it because it really can't be as bad as you think it is and eventually you'll get it. Sometimes you don't, and you wonder how the thing ever got published. But this one had such a twist in the tail, or tale, that I still remember it and in spite of a good deal of boredom to be suffered I would recommend it. If I could remember what it was, that is! The point is, I found myself wondering about the author's process in this particular experiment. Did she (yes, I do recall it was a woman) plan it that way all along. The reader must plod on through this rather uninviting story, being set up, really, for the dramatic shocker at the end, making the effort worthwhile after all? Or did she get towards the end of her writing and have to accept that in all honesty it was pretty boring. Who would read it? It would get bad reviews. It would end up being sold for 10% of it's original price, on Amazon, amongst all the other dismal failures. And she was clever enough to dream up a way to save it with the surprise ending?

Reams have been written about how famous writers planned their work, from the intricacies of James Joyce to the ball-point scrawls of Rowling, to Faulkner, who famously outlined his

fiction on the walls of his study, in-between bottles of bourbon. But I would be willing to bet, no matter how well established and researched the plan, every day of writing brought with it a myriad of surprises and adjustments. Writing, like any artistic creation, is an experiment whether you're at the very top of the game or a rank amateur, just struggling to put one word in front of another.

© 27 Jul 2015 

About the Author 

I was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have been with my wonderful partner Betsy for thirty years. We have been married since 2013.