Dear Village Print

- I am only in this for the glory. Yours, Teresa

Click above for a spoken version of this newsletter, read by me.

It’s May 1992. I’m eleven years old, and my Dad, knowing I want to be a writer, suggests I send a letter to our local paper, The Village Print. He reckons that getting published in a magazine or newspaper’s letter page is a good first move for a wannabe writer. And I believe him; he went to a Grammar School and seems to know about these things. I’ve actually only known him myself for a year at this point in time, but that’s a story for later.

I go back home to my mum’s full of enthusiasm, but low on ideas. Dad’s advice had been simple: just be complimentary and tell them what you like about the paper.

Okay, I think, I can do that.

Also, the paper had recently had something of a makeover, going down from A3 to A4 in size. I’d be a fool to not comment on that.

I take out my diary, turn to the blank pages at the back, and begin to write my letter.

I don’t get very far.

It makes you wonder if a list has ever dried up as quickly, doesn’t it?

Also:

• I like how I state my name, age and school right at the start. It’s good to get the facts down ASAP. But there’s also something about the formality of it — I sound like a kid who’s been separated from their family on a busy day trip to the seaside, maybe even kidnapped for a bit, and I’ve broken free and am breathlessly telling the first adult I see exactly who I am and where I’m from.

• Let’s have a moment of appreciation for ‘I have wrote to you’. Beautiful.

• Likewise ‘iMformative’ (also appears in Draft 2 so it’s not a one-off)

• It’s nice that my eleven-year old self has an opinion on the smaller sized paper, and that she chooses the word ‘efficient’ to express that. But I actually think this is a word I absorbed from my Dad. He had a penchant for saying ‘More speed, less haste, Teresa!’ so it makes sense.

• Why didn’t I turn the only point on the list into two separate points? One, it’s informative and two it gives you a good idea of what’s going on in Armthorpe. Huge oversight.

Clearly I knew this draft of the letter was on the road to nowhere, because I abandoned it and turned the page to try a whole new approach. Here it is.

Now we’re talking!

From the fancy calligraphy style CONGRATULATIONS to the bold claim that it’s the most imformative Armthorpe magazine I’ve ever seen! (the only one I’ve ever seen, because it’s the only one that exists) — it’s clear I’m bringing a totally new energy to the letter now.

And then ….

… I dry up once more. This time, my inner critic gets involved, crossing words out, trying to find a better way to say what I want to say.

I like to picture my younger self all frustrated, rubbing her forehead, reaching for the thesaurus to find better words. And though it’s amusing to think that I struggled because no words could express just how wonderful I thought our local paper was, I think it’s more likely that I knew I was being insincere.

I was clearly just in it for the glory, wanting to see my name in print. And maybe to please or impress my Dad. Maybe. Maybe not. At this age I was a mix of feeling indifferent to him, while also wanting his approval, while also rejecting it.

It was time for take three. The final take. This time I pull out a word that, like ‘efficient’, has no place in any self-respecting eleven year old girl’s vocabulary. Look out for it.

And also I decide to try something totally different: I will express my feelings for the paper in a poem!

But, as you can see, the poem doesn’t happen. It never gets past its stark and very to-the-point title.

And, as if you need me to tell you, that other word that I had no business using at that age was ‘superb’.

Also, notice how the earlier care and attention to the word CONGRAT(L)ULATIONS is not present in the above version. Rush job or wot.

And that was it, there were no more attempts. I guess I could just never find the right angle. I didn’t try to rewrite it, and no letter was ever sent from me to The Village Print.

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But, in a nice twist, my dad’s advice came in handy. Four years later, when I was 15, my first published piece of writing was indeed on a letters’ page, but in Just Seventeen — a magazine I genuinely thought was the best (and also glorious and superb and imformative).

I’d followed their tips on how to invite more luck into your life by Feng Shui-ing your bedroom (hello 1996!) — and it worked! Later that very day I had amazing luck when I went to see my favourite band, Ash, play live —and reader, I met them. (It must have been the Feng Shui, it must have.) So I wrote to Just Seventeen to let them know, they published my letter, and I saw my name in print for the first time, and screamed with joy. I still have the cutting somewhere. That story will form a future post, for sure.

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What’s been interesting for me to notice in these letters to The Village Print is that they’re not just my first recorded case of writer’s block, but the writing process in general.

They show my thinking, the experiments, the doubt, the ambition, the drying up, the trying again.

They’re the epitome of the ongoing battle we all have when writing anything — which is to choose the right words that will get the right meaning and feeling across.

And of course, I’ve been doing all the way through the process of writing this to you. It’s taken me several hours, over the course of several days, to write what you’re reading now.

You can’t see my workings out in this format, but I’ve done a lot of deleting and rewording and trying out different ways to share this story with you. Wondering which tone to take; I don’t want to be too glib. But I don’t want to over-explain. How much should I say about my life back then, and about my dad? Is this way of writing sincere, or am I putting a wall up?

Lately, as a reader, I’ve really come to notice and appreciate sincerity. And as a writer, something I realised a while ago was that I don’t feel good when I put work out into the world that doesn’t feel like it’s true.

When I say true, I don’t mean true as in real life or factual, I mean true like aligning with who I am, or what I love, or fear, or just find funny, inspiring, or interesting. Whether writing fiction or memoir, I just know I don’t want to feel detached from the words I share.

It’s one of the reasons I wanted to start this newsletter… and I just have the sense that if I can keep writing to you with sincerity, you’ll get it. And we’ll go from there.

I’m half-way through my next letter to you, and it’s a nice companion to this one. If you haven’t already subscribed, pop your email in the box below, so you’ll be among the first to read it.

Until next time,

Teresa x

PS: I’d love it if this project could grow as naturally as possible, so if you enjoyed this, and feel moved to forward it to a friend who might like it too, that would be superb.

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