Writing is known as "the loneliest profession" and
that is probably true. In fact if lighthouse keepers were termites then writers
would be albatrosses. One way of relieving this sense of isolation is to join a
writers' circle. These are privately organized societies, usually small with
less than a dozen members. I live in Oxford Oxford Cowley Road
I went along to one of their social gatherings and was
pleased to find that it was a drop-in collective with no formal membership.
They seemed like nice people and I was delighted to have found them. I pledged
to return to their next meeting. I was involved with the Last Gasp group for
about a year; but although nobody was actively unpleasant to me and I was
always respectful to the other members, I never felt welcome there. In fact the
other members eventually tricked me into leaving the group by pretending they
were disbanding it following a break for Christmas. Giles said: "I might
set it up again in the New Year; if I do I will give you a call and let you
know." Well, he never called; but I later found out through the grapevine
that the group had quietly reconvened without me. I'm not sure exactly why my
face didn't fit with the Last Gasp group. There was a bit of confusion to begin
with. At the first serious meeting I had brought along a pad of paper and a
pen. As I put them on the table Giles turned to me and said: "No, Ben we're
not doing any writing here. We do writing at home and then bring it in, okay?"
I replied: "Okay." and put the paper and pen back in my bag; but
Giles kept staring at me expectantly, as if waiting for me to add more. I eventually
shrugged and repeated: "Okay." and finally he looked away. That
incident baffled me. What exactly was that all about? The form of the group was
to bring in your writing and read it out at the meetings; and then the other
members would tell you what they thought of it. That's absolutely fine in
principle; in fact it's a long established basis for literary review. The
problem was that if you disagreed with the other members' opinions, or even said
something like: "Well, it's not to everybody's taste of course."
There would be a lot of tutting and eye-rolling as if you had done something
wrong. I therefore got the impression that the purpose of being in the Last
Gasp group was to write something, bring it to the group and then change it to
conform to the other members' judgements. That didn't make much sense to me. At
one point one of the senior members who had been there when Giles first set up
the group, I think her name was Bridget, told me that one of the scenes in Evan's Land was too long and drawn out.
It was full of unnecessary detail. I replied: "But I enjoy writing that
way." She glared at me as if I had just committed some terrible faux pas. Then she took a deep shuddering
breath and turned to another member. "Right, let's move on to Anton's
poem!" she hissed in a tense voice; and she never looked or spoke to me
again all evening. The other members were a wide variety of characters. There
was an elderly man called Rip who wrote poems about his early life growing up
in the rural West Country. He was one of the most scathing of the critics, but
for some reason I liked him probably most of all. He was sincere and genuine,
as well as having a wicked sense of humour, unlike most of the others. Despite
his background he didn't speak with an "Ooh-argh" accent, but some of
his poems were written that way. One of the others was called Lindsey. She was
a teacher of some kind and had several children, even though she was quite
young. She was also a rancid feminist. At that time I knew there was something
badly wrong with her, but didn't have the wherewithal to recognize it in the
way I have learned to since; remember this was about twenty-five years ago,
see: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2021/08/political-correctness-portal.html. She regarded herself as the group's wokescold. The only comments she ever made
towards another members writing were about how close or far they were from the diversity
and inclusion ideal. One of her catchphrases was: "That's a bit Eurocentric,
don't you think?" She chastised me vehemently for a scene I originally
penned for Evan's Land which I
eventually cut out, but included in a sketch I wrote many years later: As he stepped into the forecourt of the
little grocers shop he saw that it was dark. He had no idea of the time, but
the shop was still open. He fell against the door and the bell rang loudly as
it fell open. The shopkeeper was a small, elderly Asian with a thick white
beard which covered his entire chin, but not his top lip. "Hello, can I
help?"
He turned to the shelf behind him. "We have Bells, Grants, Famous Grouse in hip bottles or..."
"Just giz a big bott... bottle."
The man took down a full-sized bottle and placed it on the counter. "That'll be thirteen seventy-five please."
Charlie leaned on the clear plastic box that dispensed scratchcards as he prospected in his pocket. He struck a deposit of damp, screwed-up banknotes and handed them to the shopkeeper.
The clunking, bleeping sound of the till opening made him start. He gawped as the drawer slid out; the compartments inside were stuffed with tight, copious wads of notes; fives, tens and twenties. He stared at them hungrily. "Here, mate." he said. "Can I have some o' yer money?"
The shopkeeper slammed the till shut and handed him his change. "No! Of course not." Source: https://hpanwo-bb.blogspot.com/2010/06/obscurati-chronicles-part-7.html. "You have included a horrific stereotype of an Asian Muslim!" Lindsay was red-cheeked and she gesticulated as she spoke. "It is incredibly racist and you really need to think twice next time before describing such a character..." She ranted on for a few more minutes. The world has changed enormously since those days and today she would have probably screeched something about my "white privilege!" and stormed out of the room. Indeed if we met in the present age she would despise me because, although I will probably never use it in a formal publication, I feel no shame for the above piece of writing. I would have probably have replied sarcastically to her: "Oh dear. I don't think I'm showing an awful lot of white heterosexual male guilt, am I?" In fact I wonder if at the time I wrote in that shopkeeper to be deliberately transgressive, even if only subconsciously. Lindsay was working on a novel called Firebug about a "Woman!" who grows up to be an obsessive arsonist because she suffered child abuse at the hands of her stepfather, who was presumably white. However, she also tended to write novellas and short stories filled with lurid erotica. There's nothing immoral about that, and indeed I have a friend who specializes in such literature, see: https://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2010/12/heroine-for-internet-age.html; but Lindsay would fly into a fanatical tailspin if any of the male members expressed sexuality in their works. Even the leader, Giles, was not exempt from the blade of her intersectional scalpel. He badly triggered her ire when he wrote a poem about women in bikinis. It was actually very mild and tasteful compared to Lindsay's pornography, but that meant nothing; he was still a "fucking white male!" and that was that! There were other members in the group, both men and woman, who were not like Lindsay. They were appreciative and friendly. There was one man I really liked called Keith who was good friends with a lady who had co-founded the group with Giles and Bridget, but then died in a plane crash. He wrote a lot of poems criticizing religion, even though he believed in God himself. The lady who had died was an atheist and he wrote a touching humanistic tribute to her. A lot of his work was intellectually comical including a poem with a title I will never forget: The Pissed Post-Modernist. It might have been about himself because he liked to down a few pints in the bar after the meeting. There was also a young American woman who was the wife of one of the other members. She was very sweet and down to earth. She wrote a really funny short story about a loveable eccentric. I detected a lot of envy in the group. Giles and some of the others were talking once about a man who had recently published a very successful debut novel. It had won an award and he had just sold film adaptation rights for a large sum. "He's only thirty-two years old!" moaned Giles. "Makes you sick, doesn't it?" I said nothing, but thought to myself: No. Why should I resent another author for his achievement? He worked for it and got it. He wrote a book people wanted to read and they have done so. I don't think it's healthy to feel that kind of bitter jealousy. If somebody else is more successful than you and it makes you feel uncomfortable then there's an obvious solution: Write a better book yourself.
He turned to the shelf behind him. "We have Bells, Grants, Famous Grouse in hip bottles or..."
"Just giz a big bott... bottle."
The man took down a full-sized bottle and placed it on the counter. "That'll be thirteen seventy-five please."
Charlie leaned on the clear plastic box that dispensed scratchcards as he prospected in his pocket. He struck a deposit of damp, screwed-up banknotes and handed them to the shopkeeper.
The clunking, bleeping sound of the till opening made him start. He gawped as the drawer slid out; the compartments inside were stuffed with tight, copious wads of notes; fives, tens and twenties. He stared at them hungrily. "Here, mate." he said. "Can I have some o' yer money?"
The shopkeeper slammed the till shut and handed him his change. "No! Of course not." Source: https://hpanwo-bb.blogspot.com/2010/06/obscurati-chronicles-part-7.html. "You have included a horrific stereotype of an Asian Muslim!" Lindsay was red-cheeked and she gesticulated as she spoke. "It is incredibly racist and you really need to think twice next time before describing such a character..." She ranted on for a few more minutes. The world has changed enormously since those days and today she would have probably screeched something about my "white privilege!" and stormed out of the room. Indeed if we met in the present age she would despise me because, although I will probably never use it in a formal publication, I feel no shame for the above piece of writing. I would have probably have replied sarcastically to her: "Oh dear. I don't think I'm showing an awful lot of white heterosexual male guilt, am I?" In fact I wonder if at the time I wrote in that shopkeeper to be deliberately transgressive, even if only subconsciously. Lindsay was working on a novel called Firebug about a "Woman!" who grows up to be an obsessive arsonist because she suffered child abuse at the hands of her stepfather, who was presumably white. However, she also tended to write novellas and short stories filled with lurid erotica. There's nothing immoral about that, and indeed I have a friend who specializes in such literature, see: https://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2010/12/heroine-for-internet-age.html; but Lindsay would fly into a fanatical tailspin if any of the male members expressed sexuality in their works. Even the leader, Giles, was not exempt from the blade of her intersectional scalpel. He badly triggered her ire when he wrote a poem about women in bikinis. It was actually very mild and tasteful compared to Lindsay's pornography, but that meant nothing; he was still a "fucking white male!" and that was that! There were other members in the group, both men and woman, who were not like Lindsay. They were appreciative and friendly. There was one man I really liked called Keith who was good friends with a lady who had co-founded the group with Giles and Bridget, but then died in a plane crash. He wrote a lot of poems criticizing religion, even though he believed in God himself. The lady who had died was an atheist and he wrote a touching humanistic tribute to her. A lot of his work was intellectually comical including a poem with a title I will never forget: The Pissed Post-Modernist. It might have been about himself because he liked to down a few pints in the bar after the meeting. There was also a young American woman who was the wife of one of the other members. She was very sweet and down to earth. She wrote a really funny short story about a loveable eccentric. I detected a lot of envy in the group. Giles and some of the others were talking once about a man who had recently published a very successful debut novel. It had won an award and he had just sold film adaptation rights for a large sum. "He's only thirty-two years old!" moaned Giles. "Makes you sick, doesn't it?" I said nothing, but thought to myself: No. Why should I resent another author for his achievement? He worked for it and got it. He wrote a book people wanted to read and they have done so. I don't think it's healthy to feel that kind of bitter jealousy. If somebody else is more successful than you and it makes you feel uncomfortable then there's an obvious solution: Write a better book yourself.
I think the problem I faced with being accepted by the Last Gasp writers' circle is one several other people I know have experienced. Writing is an activity carried out mostly by educated academic people. There are not many hospital porters involved. The other members of the group were mostly in education, either as students or tutors. I once read a brilliant novel by one of my favourite science fiction authors, Kim Stanley Robinson, called
