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Part Two:
Inspiration – Encouragement
How important is encouragement from others?
When talking about inspiration, it’s important not to overlook the impact made by those friends, family, teachers, who saw something within us that they felt we should focus on nurturing and allowing to grow.
In my own personal experience, many people I met whilst growing up when told I wanted to be an author took it as an opportunity to tell me I needed to get serious and focus on a “real” career path. My favourite memory of this type of attitude occurred when I was sat in a one-to-one careers advice meeting at high school. The advisor threw my dream into the bin behind her and proceeded to tell me to stop being immature and focus on reality, on the real world. “So, thinking as an adult,” she said. “What career, based on your skills, would you like to pursue?”
A smile crossed my lips as I replied, “Based on my skills set? Rent boy.” To her horrified face I added, “Guaranteed money, optional hours, varied work life.” Thanking for the advice, I never turned up for any following meetings.
This dismissive attitude has unfortunately been the majority response, and given the expectations of our society I’ve never been surprised; disappointed but never surprised.
What was your experience of encouragement growing up?
Before starting the studies for my GCSEs, my mum happily supported my desire to write, even going so far as talking to my then English teacher about it. This conversation resulted in my teacher, Mr Kelly, asking to read some of what I’d written so far. This would turn out to be one of the first experiences of active encouragement I received. Sat in his classroom after the day’s final bell, he read the entirety of what I’d brought to show out loud. It was weird listening to my writing in this manner, and realising it didn’t sound too bad was a definite confidence boost. Once finished he told me his thoughts. Positive and praising that he believed I had already developed a style and voice that was different to others. His belief in me, and his faith that I could achieve my dream really cemented in me the determination to follow this path. My only barrier, he told me, was my own belief in myself, or rather lack of it. This hour and a half, and Mr Kelly’s continued encouragement is why I’m still writing. But as I mentioned this was before my GCSEs.
The minute I had to start studying for these exams was the minute the encouragement ceased from my mum. The words of support that had informed my teacher became a repeated mantra of “You need to focus on your exams; you need to study; stop wasting valuable studying time.” And no matter what I said, this never changed.
I’d written and plotted a script for the, then, new Doctor Who audio plays produced by Big Finish; having been in conversation with them, they had invited me to send it and I handed the printed script, stamped and sealed in an envelope to my mum, asking her to post it. I never heard a response back and put it down to bad luck. Then years later whilst helping my mum tidy her house, I came across the envelope. Unsent. I felt so betrayed. I’m not saying that my script would have been a massive success, but that possibility was taken away without consideration of my future.
What effect did people’s dismissive attitude have on you?
Even though I continued to write, my sentences were rarely read by anyone else, and usually only read aloud to my brother. This wouldn’t change for a long period, as it took me years to learn how to start accepting that people could actually mean the words of encouragement they shared.
A bad spell and experience at college further damaged my confidence, and during this period the belief and encouragement of one teacher, Dr Tony Cruikshank, really helped me to fight and remain focused on what mattered most, and his enthusiasm for me as a person was so genuine, and remains so to this day through our correspondence over the years; this continued to inspire me to push myself forward.
Have any other forms of encouragement not related to writing made a positive affect on it?
As with any walk of life, we receive encouragement for different things, not just our writing. We all have different skills and we can draw from these throughout our careers. Whilst studying at the Academy of Contemporary Music in Guildford, the biggest barrier I had to face was overcoming my fear of performing in front of larger audiences. I was used to playing live with my band in front of audiences of around eighty people, but this was often done on autopilot. I knew the songs and band members inside out, so I could disappear into a cloud then reemerge at the end to the sound of applause. Performing a song after only a few days practice with people I’d never performed the song with was a completely different matter. However, one tutor was determined to pull me out of my shell, calling me down to play every week regardless of my feelings. This guy, Jon Duff’s encouragement aided me in conquering the fear of performing in front of audiences of over two hundred people, and even though my stomach filled with butterflies, I was able to get up and do what I had to. The knock on effect of this was a general increase of confidence that benefitted other aspects of my life, including my writing.
Learning from this the same techniques could be used for when I’d need to perform a reading of both old and new material. As with this example, it’s what we do with the encouragement of others that gives it its worth. All the positive words in the world mean nothing if we just smile at them instead of using them as fuel to continue pushing ourselves forward.
The people I’ve mentioned are not the only ones who have encouraged and supported me, they were just examples of key moments in my writing career where I received what I needed to overlook my struggles and stay focused on what it was I truly wanted to achieve.
Video
On Writing first appeared as a video-series on Dominic Lyne’s official YouTube channel. The content of the interviews reproduced on this website may be different to that included in the videos. The copyright of the content of both belongs to Degraded Discord/Dominic Lyne.