The Day I Tried To Write Seriously (And Failed Spectacularly)

Or: How I Accidentally Wrote a Haiku About Cheese

It started with good intentions.
Which is how most of my disasters begin.

I told myself: “Today, I shall write something serious. Literary. Proper.”

I made tea (a serious mug). I arranged my pens in size order. I even opened a fresh notebook, which gave a little whimper as I cracked the spine.
It knew.

The idea was simple: write a proper piece. Something you might find in a journal with French words on the cover. Possibly one of those that comes with a free tote bag and a lingering sense of inadequacy.

The first line I wrote was:
The day broke, brittle and pale, like a memory of bread.

“Hmm,” I thought. “Serious.”

I wrote another:
Shadows moved across the wall like regret at a discount store.

By line three I had accidentally written a murder mystery involving a haunted conservatory and a dog named Albert.

That’s when the trouble started.

The Disruption
My kettle, who is only supposed to boil, cleared its throat.

“Really?” it said. “Bread and regret?”

I ignored it.
Because it’s a kettle.
And I’m not that far gone.

But then my pen joined in. It leapt off the desk, did a sort of interpretive jig, and wrote:

There once was a fridge called Louise,
Who cried when confronted with cheese…

I tried to wrestle back control.

“No!” I shouted, to no one in particular. “This is meant to be proper writing! Gritty! Subtle! Full of metaphors that smell faintly of failure!”

My notebook, clearly possessed, responded:

The novelist stood in despair,
With jam in the folds of his hair.
His plot was a mess,
His sock drawer no less,
So he screamed at a passing armchair.

The Collapse
I gave in shortly after that. Closed the notebook. Opened a packet of custard creams. Wrote a limerick about a pigeon who ran a legal firm specialising in biscuit law.

And you know what?
It felt right.

The Conclusion (Such As It Is)
Here’s what I realised: when I try to write seriously, I end up writing with serious tension. Like I’m trying to pass a test I didn’t revise for. Worse: a test where the examiner is a critic in corduroy and the paper smells of smugness.

But when I let go — when I let the weird stuff in — something opens.
A little hatch behind the eyebrows.
And out pour the good bits.
The wobbly lines.
The gentle madness.
The metaphors that don’t ask permission.

So, no, I didn’t write anything serious that day. But I did write. And that’s the bit that matters.

Also, my kettle now demands royalties.