I’ve recently moved back in with my parents for the short term while I find a flat (like most people this pandemic screwed me over on the job and housing front) which has understandably made me a little nostalgic. This is the house I did most of my growing up in and there’s a fair few photographs dotted around that inevitably send my mind back in time and the whole thing got me thinking about how writing has been interwoven throughout my life.
In primary school Fridays were predominantly ‘Story Writing Day’ and, without a doubt, I thought it was the best day of the week because it gave me a chance to let loose. Sometimes we were given a title we had to use, an object to incorporate or even a sentence we had to begin the story with and I always loved the challenge. One of my fondest memories was aged nine when the teacher had selected three of us to read our stories aloud to the rest of the class and I had been selected as a Chosen One. Admittedly, the teacher said that I had used way too much dialogue but she thought it was a really funny story and my classmates would love it. I remember desperately waiting for my turn and when it came I gave it all the gusto I could manage and not one of the fuckers laughed. Every line I read I thought ‘This is it. This is BOUND to get a giggle,’ but apparently my teacher was incorrect and I was met with silence and the death stare of twenty odd nine year olds waiting for playtime. Despite that near traumatising experience I still loved writing and found myself writing stories and poems at home. The poems in particular were a big hit with my grandparents (they thought I was funny) and I’d churn out a few stanzas as often as I could. Each one of these poems was put in a 90’s style ring binder and my grandparents never threw it out. I vividly remember them showing the poems to my great aunt and uncle, which obviously made me feel very proud, but I was also slightly concerned about the mugs of tea in their hands and their proximity to my masterpieces. Thankfully, they remain undamaged to this day. Once I reached secondary school creative writing wasn’t as big a feature in our learning but I do remember one standout moment when I was in Year 8 and we had to pretend to be soldiers in WWI writing letters home from the trenches (an old favourite in UK secondary schools.) I felt totally unprepared for this task in all honesty due to the fact that this was an English class so we hadn’t done a lot of research into the history of the period. I had no idea what actually went on in a trench; what did they eat? How did they speak to each other? Why had they signed up to fight in the first place? Therefore, when it came to writing the letter I kept it quite simple because I thought if I was a soldier on the front line I wouldn’t be using similes and metaphors, I would be straight to the point and telling my mum that hopefully I’d be home soon. However, it looked like the whole class took this approach because the teacher was furious and made us all rewrite it. I went all in on the similes and metaphors the second time round, so much so that I was pretty sure no one would ever write like that in real life. Anyway, the teacher read it once I finished and loved it so I felt reassured that I had somewhat of a talent for writing and I suppose the whole incident just meant that I understood the importance of character and voice. However, my most treasured writing memory of my younger years has to be when I came second in a writing competition for Newport University (as it was then) aged eighteen. My English Literature teachers had told my class about it and it was about this time that I thought maybe writing was a bigger passion of mine than I had previously realised so I decided to submit a short story I had been working on. You could choose from three titles and the story I had was already leaning towards to one of the titles so it didn’t take too much to adapt. I thought no more of it and submitted it assuming I wouldn’t hear anything, the submission guidelines even stated that you shouldn’t enter if you couldn’t attend the awards ceremony which also happened to be the date of my A Level Drama exam but I did it anyway. Then one day I came home from school to read an email stating that I’d come second and won a little money too, I can’t remember the amount but any money at that age is treasure isn’t it? It’s been almost eleven years since the competition and it still makes me smile when I think about it because it was the first time people I didn’t know had read my work and enjoyed it. It’s a feeling I will never forget or take for granted for as long as I am lucky enough to experience it.
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We’re all back into the swing of things now, aren’t we? The first working week of 2020 is done, the determination we had when we started our New Year diets is being tested and, in fact, all the goals that we attached to #NewYearNewMe are on a very tentative see-saw.
Last year I thought I would get my book published, however, a lot of life ‘stuff’ got in the way, most notably me signing up to the Cardiff Half Marathon and so due to needing A LOT of training, my Year of the Book became Year of the Run. I don’t regret this at all; I had always wanted to run it and I’m proud that I did but my biggest passion has always been writing and so this inevitably had to go on the back burner for a little bit. Now I’ve finally had my novel proofread by some fantastic people, it’s been edited and now it’s ready to be published! Have I been making inroads to do that? Well, umm, sort of… The problem is that all that life stuff keeps popping up again and it’s making me feel endlessly guilty. I’ve signed up to another 10k running event, which is imminent and requires more training, there’s the obvious everyday going to work thing and trying to make sure I make time for the special people in my life. Of course, this is ‘stuff’ that has to be done and I enjoy it but this does usually mean that I’m too low on time or too knackered to sit down and fry my brain with how to format a book for publishing. AND I FEEL SO BLOODY GUILTY! For example, I was pretty much bed bound yesterday due to illness and I even felt guilty that I wasn’t using this time to work on the book. Instead I chose to sleep and rest which is obviously the logical and sensible thing to do, yet it felt wrong. I’m fully aware that the only reason for this guilt is myself. I know I have people who are excited for my book to be released but is anyone really wetting themselves with anticipation as I dilly dally with getting it done? Or as stressed about my lack of blogging as I am? Probably not. I’m the one who is desperate to get my book out there and the more ‘Dreams Only Work if You Do’ memes I see or ‘Girl Wins Awesome Prize at Awesome Thing Aged 5 Months Old’ news stories I read the more guilt I feel. So, dearest reader, here is my confession. I feel guilty as fuck all the time. I feel guilty for feeling guilty and also feel guilty for not thinking ‘fuck this feeling guilty thing.’ It’s a lot to handle and I doubt it’s going to go away but all I can do is fit in what I can and hope that one day you’ll see my name stamped on a book that you’d perhaps quite like to buy. |
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