A horsey and ducky sort of writer…

I was a great fan of  Peanuts cartoons; I would laugh aloud at some of the comments and punchlines, and I loved the characters, so true to life, so believable!

When I was being interviewed for acceptance onto a PhD writers course I was asked about what sort of writer I was, and I couldn’t help but answer that I was a horsey and a ducky sort of a writer. There was a sharp intake of breath from the interviewer who was obviously hoping I would spout some literary fashionable garbage about post-modernism or what ever the current pretentious trend was at the time.

Instead I put forward a case for the story-teller, the writer who just wants to tell a story in her own way and present her characters, and follow their lives and adventures. I’m not clever enough to do philosophy or cultural materialism or experimental literary innovation… or whatever… I just want to write my stories and make them the best I can, craft them with the experience I have gained from writing since being a child and reading voraciously…

Needless to say, the interviewer wasn’t impressed, I probably didn’t come across as feminist enough, working class enough, oppressed or discriminated against enough, weird or different enough… I didn’t get on the course so I am not Dr Elsden – unlike my uncle and cousin, maybe two Dr Elsdens are enough!

The interviewer obviously wasn’t a fan of Charles M. Shulz:

Lucy Van Pelt: Aren’t the clouds beautiful? They look like big balls of cotton. I could just lie here all day and watch them drift by. If you use your imagination, you can see lots of things in the cloud’s formations. What do you think you see, Linus?

Linus Van Pelt: Well, those clouds up there look to me look like the map of the British Honduras in the Caribbean. [points up] That cloud up there looks a little like the profile of Thomas Eakins, the famous painter and sculptor. And that group of clouds over there… [points] …gives me the impression of the Stoning of Stephen. I can see the Apostle Paul standing there to one side.

Lucy Van Pelt: Uh huh. That’s very good. What do you see in the clouds, Charlie Brown?

Charlie Brown: Well… I was going to say I saw a duckie and a horsie, but I changed my mind.