Not Everything Has To Be Published.

The dark part of me is called Mabel. She is my shadow self, and she has to come out and have a little dance every so often and I take care not to allow her onto Twitter, where she might point at people and smash things.

Yesterday, she had a spasm of most unedifying resentment and fury. I wrote it all down, because I write everything down, and I almost, almost gave it to you. I looked at it and thought, ‘Ah, yes, this will help everyone with their own Mabels, so I am doing something pointful and useful.’

Actually, I was raging and venting, and it would not have illuminated your lives one jot, and I had done what I needed to do, which was process some trapped emotions. That’s what the writing down was for. I identified some old bruises which had been touched and I let Mabel have her shout and then I could drop the weight, which sat like a pack on my back, and go down to the field and murmur to the mares in the evening light.

I even spoke to a dear friend to make sure I had not been sharp with her earlier. (I hadn’t, but it’s important to check.) ‘It turns out,’ I said, ‘that I have a bit of a jangle on.’

So we spoke about the jangles, in the evening sun, and remarked on how much less jangly they were, these days - we have both done quite a lot of what I call The Work - but how they will still come, if we are not paying attention.

I think of all this because it’s important for writers to know what not to say. I love openness and a bit of bravery and colouring outside the lines. I must scoot beyond my comfort zone, if I’m going to be any good. (With writing; with horses; with life, actually.) Even though it is so very lovely and comfy inside the comfort zone.

But this must not, I believe, teeter over into self-regard and self-indulgence. I say to my writers, all the time, ‘What do you want your Dear Reader to know?’ And to feel, just as importantly. Do we want to give her delight or curiosity or shock? Do we want him to laugh, or cry?

There’s an interesting paradox in this. I think it is a paradox. It is: you write always the first draft entirely for yourself. You write the book you can’t find in the bookshop. You gallop over a wide prairie, with the wind in your hair, delighting only your own mind and heart. That’s how the great, messy, true first drafts are done. But then you absolutely have to begin to consider the Dear Reader. You start to edit. You must give the gift of clarity. You cannot be a dullard. (You should try, very hard, not to laugh heartily at your own jokes, like the pub bore. And when I say ‘you’ of course I mean me, because I roar with laughter at my own jokes and I think I may have to do something about that, quite soon.)

You have to be ruthless, in the service of the Dear Reader. Dead Darlings will litter the floor, like the last scene of Hamlet. (Flights of angels will not, I’m afraid, sing the darlings to their rest, but I am so tragic that I create a special Dead Darling file, so the little dears are not entirely banished into outer darkness. It’s too painful, otherwise.)

Even here, where I’m writing you often whimsical, often flimsy postcards, I must stick to the noble bargain: you give me your precious, irreplaceable time, and I give you the good stuff. As good as I can muster, at least.

So, sometimes, I don’t press publish. There is perhaps something about privacy too, but really it’s the core question of what do I want for you, my dear Dear Reader? Certainly I do not want you to stand under the firehose of my unprocessed emotions. That is the kind of thing which one might describe as straight bad manners. There must be a reason, and a point, and what the stern business people might call added value.

There must be something which is worth it. Mabel can be funny, and we do all have one, but sometimes she is just throwing a two-year-old tantrum, and nobody needs to see that. We - you and me and all the writers who care about the English language and our immortal souls - don’t have to publish everything. Sometimes we can smile, and know restraint.

How quaintly old-fashioned that sounds.