My writing journey

Before I could physically write, I was already, in a sense, a writer. I invented people, worlds and situations. I daydreamed. I “played games”, and assigned roles to my brother and friends. I talked to myself, as well. Past tense...? Well, not entirely – because I'm a writer, and writers are weird. That's my excuse, anyway.

When I was five or six, and able to go beyond the formation of individual sentences, I wrote my first stories. I was that child who loved writing stories at school so much that I wrote my own, out of choice. I found Maths boring and difficult. I have the co-ordination disorder dyspraxia – which, at the time, was undiagnosed – and was, therefore, useless at the so-called “fun” activities: pretty much every sport, basically. I was bullied relentlessly, right through school, and struggled with depression and anxiety, from a very young age. I never fitted in, and longed to, but if I had, then maybe I would have been happy but ordinary, and not a writer. It was the one thing that I was able to do better than average, and I focused on that.

I do have periods of writers' block, for want of a better term. I also have long reading slumps. I don't write every day. I would like to say that I do, but I don't. That's just the truth. I currently have many health issues, physical and mental health. I have been let down so many times, by people I thought I could rely upon – family members, who have been less than supportive, to put it mildly – and so-called “friends”, who have hurt me deeply. Poetry has often helped me through, and currently, I do have a novel that I am working on – an old project, which I revived a few years ago. I am making slow progress, but getting there. It's a project that means so much to me, more than I can express - and yet, I am terrified of failure. Sometimes, the fear leaves me paralysed, and I don't get anything done at all.

Still, I do believe in what I am doing, with all my heart, and I know that I have to finish my novel. I did finish another, and shelved the first draft, without revising, which I am okay with. In my heart, I felt, and still do, that finishing was enough, in that instance.

This is just a very brief summary of where I am at, with my writing, but it's a start. I want to start everywhere and say everything, but that is impossible. Writing is my life. I've been in some dark places, and I truly believe that I wouldn't be here without my fiction and poetry.