Theme

 When I was starting out as a writer I went to a lot of classes - as you do - attempting to learn the proper way of doing this thing that I so desperately wanted to do.  (Lots of doing in that sentence!) I heard a lot about technique and essential skills and the correct approach, and I have to say that quite a lot of it was no use to me at all, however good and well respected the tutor was - and I was taught by some of the best. So much just didn't suit me. Eventually I understood that and I got on a lot better. And was much happier and more comfortable in my writer's skin. 

One of the things that was presented as an essential was the need to have a theme. I was reminded of this recently by an excellent article in a professional newsletter that was extolling the same idea. 

But - it simply isn't me. I don't like reading books that have an overt theme and I don't want to write one. Writing it feels like a straight jacket. Reading it, in the worst cases - and I have read a few of those - it seems like an iron bar that the author is beating you over the head with and possibly a little patronising - as if you were too dim to understand what the book is about without it being spelled out at every turn. But that's me, being a bit arrogant. Or not just a bit? 

One of the things I did learn from all those classes was that writing is a pick and mix. Not everything will suit YOU and you don't have to do it all. There is no set template - although when I started out a number of those classes did present things that way. It took me a long time to understand that I could still be a writer if I didn't follow the programme slavishly. 

So now, if you like to read and write books with themes, why not? We are all different. And I do find that my books to sometimes get themselves a theme, without me being aware of it when I was writing them. Never Coming Home had an underlying thread of discarded children. It's there, but I didn't engineer it. 

So I am ploughing on with the WIP. It doesn't have a chosen theme - whether it will have one when it is finished - well we will all find out. At the moment I'm just enjoying the journey.