Conflicting Stories

Conflicting Stories:

In Communal Writing, I told a story of the OON - how it brought people together, and how it served the needs of a small community that was often under pressure from outside.

Of course, that's just one story about the OON, and others might remember other versions, or at least, other facets of the life of the newspaper and The Valley.  Was it always rosey and harmonious?

Of course not.  The Valley as a whole, and its various interest groups, had enough conflict and diversity - personal, age, gender, political, cultural, ethnic, and religious - to keep a posse of professional mediators in full time work.  In fact, most of the mediators were amateurs, and were often deeply enmeshed in the conflicts they were supposedly settling.  Everyone had their own story to tell and to weave into the larger story of life in the Valley, as well as a story of where that community sat in the world at large.

It seemed, from my vantage point behind the bars and counter-tops of the two wateringholes in The Valley, that there were more stories than there were people to tell them, and even such a small community would have furnished more than enough material to keep a Tolstoy or a Dostoyevsky happily employed for a lifetime or two.  Thurber would have recognised many of the characters there, too.

Often I would be privileged to witness the birth of a new story.  Some evenings, such a story would grow from an acorn to an oak tree within a dozen retellings, gaining weight and breadth with each new influx of willing listeners, and I could detect no crack in the sincerity of the author's voice, no matter how different the latest edition was from the first.

I have, too, heard stories about incidents that I was myself present at - versions so opposite in their tone and content that it would be hard to reconcile either with my own memories.  Each contained some truth about the original, but it was a truth that was filtered by, and made to fit, the story that the particular narrator lived within.  For we, and all the characters we write about, live within a story of our devising - one that charts and explains the journey so far, and dictates the course we choose into the future.  One man's hero can all too easily be another man's fool.

Was Prometheus, as Hesiod portrayed him, a liar and a thief who brought suffering down upon the heads of mankind?  Or, were Shelley and Aeschylus correct in painting him as a hero and saviour who was unjustly punished by a jealous Zeus?  Did Oliver Mellors save Constance, or she him?  Or did they both drag each other into darkness?  Was the felling of the Tower of Babel an act of righteousness, or fear?  Is there ever a simple answer?

Is not every story, no matter how complex, still merely a version of a larger truth, trimmed and simplified to fit within our limited understanding of the infinite?  How do we write stories to convey the truth that we think important?  How much fact is lurking within every act of fiction?  From my own experience, quite a bit.

Do I have to "stick to the facts"?  Or change them so as to "protect the innocent"?  I am struck by that meme that occasionaly surfaces on the internet - the one along the lines of "never upset a writer, lest he puts you in his next book, and kills you"

Why should I be nice to the people who have wronged me in the past?  What awful demise can I devise for them - and could it become a best seller?  That meme led to those thoughts, and onwards, page by page, along a road I had never thought to travel - crime writing.  And what an interesting journey it is turning into - a few strokes of the pen have despatched an old foe to an ending I cannot yet reveal (you'll have to buy the book, when it comes out). A few pen-strokes more have revealed some of the motivated, and their motives, and the road promises to have some interesting curves, bends and crests, before the body is found and the truth surfaces.

And yet, truth is stranger than fiction, and the journey through a fictional crime will be more believable, and safer, than revealing all the truths I learned in that Valley.

Communal Writing.

Communal Writing.

Long ago, and far away from my misty, soggy, mountain home, I lived and worked in a community that was sprawled sparsely across ridges and valleys that were generally dryer and hotter than here. 

The Valley was regarded by its local council as a large, costly, but insignificant appendage – both economically and socially.  Its inhabitants were a mixed bunch – from the scions of the families that began settling the valley in the 1830's through to a late wave of "tree-changers" who arrived in the 1970's and 80's.

At first, newcomers and old timers regarded each other's lifestyles with suspicion and contempt, but the social lubrication provided by bush dances, the local tavern, the wine-bar in the next village, and the happy interactions of the children of both groups at the local schools, eased the merger.  It wasn't long before the newcomers closed ranks with the old timers against "the outside".

One mother from an older family said one day that she was happy that we had moved to The Valley, as it offered her children a range of potential spouses who were not first or second cousins. 

Subsequent weddings showed that she was right.

50 kilometres away from the shire capital, we were also thoroughly ignored by the "local" newspaper.  Exasperated locals, with spare time, and creative impulse overflowing, formed a small committee, and, soon after, The OON was born.  A child of the 80's, it was hand drawn, mechanically typed, and physically "cut and pasted" to make masters, before being turned out on a photocopier that lived, for a long time, at the local Wine Bar (General Store, Service Station, Stock Feed Supplier, and purveyor of news, views, and rumours)

"Se Non e Vero, e Molto Ben Trovato" was the banner motto of Our Own News, and most of the stories within were both true and very good, even during the years when I took my turn as editor.  One of the great joys of this little newspaper was the range of talents it drew from the community.  There were several artists and cartoonists featured regularly, and a range of contributors producing regular and one-off articles, stories, and poems.  At one time, we could even claim to have international circulation, with a copy being mailed each fortnight to a subscriber in Hong Kong – he was an airlines pilot who lived over there but owned a "hobby farm" in The Valley.

The first editor and driving force behind its establishment, "June from the OON" provided all sorts of interesting stuff from her own pen, and was responsible for harassing and cajoling many unexpected authors into becoming regular contributors of quality work.  June, along with her friends, had also formed a local writing group called "The Pencil Orchids" and they sent work in, as well as publishing books of their own poetry.

That little, hand-made paper became an integral part of a community that had almost faded to nothing, and stood a real risk of becoming, at different times, either the floor of a water supply lake for the Upper Hunter Valley, or the severely battered target area of an extended Army firing range. 

That community grew and fought off its would-be destroyers, its schools began to refill with students, and it developed a thriving artistic and literary core that would draw acclaim from far and wide.  

The OON was there for all that.  The Valley community still thrives, its creative people still flourish, and The OON, after changing to online only during the first decade of the new century, has reverted to a print edition, and is going as well as ever.  If you are interested in reading it, the emailed version is free via oon_news@hotmail.com.

Three decades of continuous publishing is not a bad run for something that began with a few would-be, totally inexperienced journalists, sitting around a kitchen table – it was fun to write for, and fun to read and it was always worth the effort so many people put into it.  None of us could, or would, have done it on our own, and though the internet provides so many opportunities to individuals who wish to publish their work, there is still something to be said for getting together with other folk of similar bent, to tell your stories, and see what might happen.

My Writing Life

My Writing Life.

After decades of furtive scribbling, I have come out, joined a writer's group or two, and discovered the pleasure and success that working with other writers can bring.  Like minded, or utterly different, fellow writers provide support, criticism, confidence, practical advice, and perspective.  They help you understand what you can achieve, despite your qualms and procrastinatory impulses.

They show you other ways of looking at topics, and help you see the value in your own viewpoint, and they bring reality to the most salient advice that any writer (or, for that matter, creative in any field) can receive - just start.  Nothing is achieved if no first step is taken.

Stories are at the core of the way humans learn about and make sense of the world and all its startling and bewildering aspects.  Storytelling is something I have always enjoyed, and the gathering of stories is something we all do, as we continue to build our picture of life and the world it is lived in.

This Blog is to be an outlet for some of those stories, and, possibly, some of the other fields of creativity and leisure I occupy my time committing or performing.  Some of my recent meanderings have been tidied up and hurled into the ether via these creative outlets -

The Wild Goose Literary eJournal
http://nataliemuller.weebly.com/the-wild-goose-literary-e-journal.html

Blue Mountains Library Writers in the Mist
https://altitudewriters.wordpress.com/

Writers in the Mist has published a number of pieces by members of the writer's group that meets on the second Sunday of each month, at Katoomba Library.  Natalie, an editor, writer, and teacher, also has workshops at Katoomba and Springwood Libraries from time to time.

Others in that writing group have already published blogs, and I can recommend those to people interested in life, literature, and the world at large.......

http://offeringsfromthewellspring.blogspot.com.au/

https://jml297.com/

But now, the rain has stopped, and the birds have begun calling to each other. The newly risen creek is chortling and singing as it climbs its banks and tests the hold that each tree and bush has taken upon the earth.

Yesterday, a Pacific Heron waded here, shin deep, searching out tadpoles - today, he would be swept away.  And the tadpoles?