Ro Cambridge
It’s a truth not universally acknowledged that if you’re prone to anxiety, as I am, then you should not be a columnist. Not even a columnist for a provincial paper like the Nelson Mail, which kindly alternates its columnists so they need only produce one column per fortnight.
I’m issuing this warning because right now I’m in the grip of a bout of anxiety and I don’t want you to make the same mistake I did when a past editor of the Mail offered me a column back in 2012.
I said yes, even though I knew it wasn’t going to be a cakewalk. That much is clear from the very first line of the very first column I wrote, which read: ‘‘Dread began stalking me as soon as I agreed to write this column for the Nelson Mail and now, on the eve of deadline, it has me firmly between its jaws.’’
Nearly seven years later, I rarely sit down to write a column without feeling at least a nervous flutter. More often than not, I am jittery with anxiety, convinced that I won’t be able to meet the deadline with 850 well-written words which read well and will interest or amuse readers.
But, like a resignedly obedient circus lion, after a lot of fear-filled snarling and pawing of the air, I usually manage to leap through the flaming hoop.
Since 2012, I’ve written the equivalent of a decent book of non-fiction or a novel. Considering all the blood, sweat and hair-pulling that goes into them, it would be nice to believe that if glued together, the columns would add up to a great work of literature. After all, many of Charles Dickens’ novels were originally produced in weekly or monthly instalments in the newspapers of his time, and incorporated topical events.
Similarly, but much more recently, the Tales of the City columns which American gay writer Armistead Maupin began writing in 1974 grew into a much-loved series of novels about gay and bohemian life in San Francisco. Surely a just reward for producing a column every day, written in what Maupin called ‘‘a state of abject panic’’. Ironically, the novels of both Dickens and Maupin have since been adapted for TV and thus delivered in instalments once again.
Alas, I am neither a Dickens nor a Maupin, and my columns inevitably end up in the recycling bin, wrapped around fish and chips, or living a ghostly half-life on the internet. So why do I keep doing something I find so difficult, provokes such anxiety
and will bring me neither fame nor fortune?
Well, part of the answer is that writers need readers: as long as it’s not libellous, a columnist can write on any subject, gets published, and therefore has the potential to reach readers.
Then there’s the fact that, like the essay, the column is a marvellously flexible form which can incorporate journalism, memoir, satire, parody, critical reviews, political and social commentary, and the travelogue.
I enjoy playing with the endless potential of the form within the discipline of a strict word count. As Mark Twain observed, writing short is much more difficult and time-consuming than writing long. Twain, a columnist as well as a novelist, once apologised to a friend for writing a long letter because ‘‘I didn’t have time to write a short one’’.
Also, I dare to think that when stitched together, columns can be something more than the sum of their parts. Amongst dozens of other subjects, over the years I’ve written about dog walking, bird watching, travelling and (not) house cleaning. About the Founders Book Fair, movies and theatre, poetry, and mail-order catalogues. About bad public toilets, terrible motels and good neighbours. I’ve written about ANZAC Day, the Christchurch earthquakes and the Christchurch massacre.
I want to believe that by reporting week after week, on my baby-boomer responses to my own small life, lived in a small city, in a small country in the South Pacific, that I am in a way recording a kind of social history.
And finally, I’ve discovered that (apart from the fear and loathing which the writing of them inspires) the column is the perfect medium for me: I’m more interested in non-fiction than making things up; I have a short attention span; I am curious (AKA nosy) and interested in stories and gossip; I’m a people watcher; I have what I think is called an inquiring mind; I jot dozens of ‘‘Notes to Self’’ each week, and without a column to absorb them, they’d be of no earthly use; without a deadline, it’s doubtful that I would write anything at all.
You see? Perfect. Except for the anxiety problem.
I dare to think that when stitched together, columns can be something more than the sum of their parts.