One Take

I like to do things in one take. All or nothing. I’m a perfectionist and I don’t like wasting time repeating things to make them fractionally better. No. Get it right first time.

I’ve been described as impatient, the horse to David’s ox. But there are those who also notice my patience. Six kids don’t come through rushing.

During my A levels, I had to write many “lit crits” (literary criticisms) in the space of one hour. I loved writing them, in part because there was no margin for error. It was “go right, or go home” (except I was in boarding school, so couldn’t just go home… but I digress). I wanted to write something as close to perfect as I could get it in those sixty minutes. I guess I’d had training in all the years of hiding to avoid abuse; learning how to maximise output in a confined space – living as incognito as I could in plain sight. If you get what I mean, you probably endured similar. If you don’t get it, ask me another time.

So I wrote dozens of lit crits – on poetry, prose, play excerpts… I still have some of them – by some miracle, they escaped being stolen or destroyed with our container stuff (another story for a different day). I think I’ll start posting them here, in all their uncorrected glory.

One take. That’s me.