Artistic infanticide

The other evening I saw a guy in a city-centre pub. He’d been to a football match earlier in the day and by the time I saw him he was incredibly well lubricated. It’s just what every busy pub needs, a big ugly drunk guy. And before you say it, no: I wasn’t looking in a mirror. He was much bigger, uglier and drunker than me, and he was swearing very profusely if not very creatively. After a while the barman wandered over and asked if he’d mind toning it down a little as he was upsetting the other customers. Here’s his response, word for word. Actually it’s a shortened version as I cut out most of the swearing.

‘They can [go away]. My kids swear like this to me so I can swear as much as I like.’

And then it all kicked off. Glasses, beer and punches flew and pretty soon he was dragged outside. But the barman didn’t really achieve his aim as the swearing got much louder (though it couldn’t get any more colourful) as he was being taken away. I wasn’t involved of course. Like all good writers (and most bad ones) I was quietly observing in a safe corner. And making sure my beer didn’t get spilled.

What impressed me most about the whole debacle was the reasoning that allowed him – so he thought – to be so belligerent. Now I realise that he was completely wrecked so his mental capabilities weren’t in top form but I can’t get the logic in that one at all. ‘My kids swear like this to me so I can swear as much as I like’.  It did however make me decide that I wouldn’t want to meet his children.

I’m sure that he, along with every other parent in the world, has at some point said, ‘I’m going to kill that child’. For him the sentence would have been much longer due to the addition of several expletives not usually found in a family blog like this one. Most other people would have been talking figuratively; they wouldn’t for a moment dream of hurting their little darlings.

Me? This week I took it literally. And maybe even a little poetically.

All artists (and I’m sorry if I sound pretentious but let’s for the sake of argument rank my writing alongside Tracey Emin’s tent, OK?) think of their work as a piece of themselves, little chunks of their soul to be broken off and pushed out into a generally apathetic world. They think of them, if you will, as their children.

With that in mind, I’ve had to kill one of my own babies.

For a few months now I’ve been working on ‘The Tipping Point’, a short story that I was hoping to include in my upcoming ‘Tiny Treats’ collection. It’s about a woman who takes her children to the park, and while riding the see-saw with them comes to certain realisations about her life. While on the see-saw she reaches an emotional tipping point – see what I did there?

Hmmm, exactly. ‘Tipping Point’ wasn’t working for me at all. No matter how I tried I couldn’t turn it into a story that I’d actually want to read and if I don’t want to read it, I can be damned sure that you won’t. And to make things worse, while I was hurling insults at it I also realised it was quite similar to another story that I’ve got earmarked for the same collection. So I took a difficult decision.

I killed ‘Tipping Point’.

OK, it’s not like I tore the tale  to shreds (although that’s precisely what I did with the printed copy I was working on at the time) and I know that it was only a story, but I’ve been astounded at the effect it’s had on me. ‘Tipping Point’ is short, not well formed and certainly not beautiful in any way yet I don’t want to let go of it. I’ve loved it and nurtured it yet it still won’t grow. I know that there’s a good story in there, but I just can’t dig it out yet.

I think I need a fellow artist to say that they do the same. Anyone?

© Shaun Finnie 2012