The Family Tree – Part 2

This Bitter Pill

Oh yes it was painful. But mostly a vital and valuable lesson I learned last Wednesday.

I met my uncle in this very old café on the corner of a marketplace right in the heart of Amsterdam. During a lunch-date in January I had told him about my writing, my blog and my plans for a novel, and he had expressed his interest and had offered to help. My uncle, a translator and a poet himself, had suggested we meet in this café to discuss the story I had e-mailed him earlier this week. He took me to a small room in the back of the café, where people are still allowed to smoke. We were the only two visitors here and as soon as we sat down, my uncle took out his notepad with a long list of remarks, as well as his cigarettes. This was the beginning of a long hour of corrections, during which we talked about everything from grammar rules to discussing the right usage of the different words in Dutch for ‘sister’.

It is never easy to face criticism, but since he is the one with the lifetime of experience working with texts, I had to admit that he was almost always right. I cursed myself for having handled this story as if it was a school assignment. I had rushed it, I had not giving myself enough time to put it aside and come back to it later. The story never had a chance, because I never gave it one.

So, he was right to go about it like a schoolteacher. He apologized for this, and continued to keep on pointing out what could have been done differently. I mumbled something about realizing that I am just a beginner, happy to learn, but for the biggest part of that Wednesday afternoon I thought it best to just shut up and face facts. Yes, the rhythm of my sentences was horrid. Indeed, I should improve my usage of the commas and I really couldn’t explain how those awful phrases had crept into my story. When we had gone through the text, the pages in front of me were covered in red with corrections and remarks. And we hadn’t even talked about the story itself yet.

‘Let’s be honest,’ my uncle said, ‘the story itself is nothing but a tear-jerker.’ He left the smoking-room to order drinks at the bar. He came back with a jenever for himself and a glass of red wine for me. ‘We are not going to work on this story any more. Just put this one in a drawer somewhere. Don’t look at it again, don’t throw it away either, but just keep it somewhere tucked away.

‘To be honest, I’m a little disappointed, my dear. I had expected more from you.’ I took a big gulp of my wine. Even a budding writer can only take so much. I was beginning to feel my self-confidence crumble at the edges at this stage. ‘But let’s not forget, it’s easy to criticize. And I wouldn’t invest my time in it if I didn’t think you should continue. So, are you ready to write a new story? I’d like to suggest you do your next one about Luxembourg. I loved how you talked about the years you lived there.’