I remember as teen, when I was at school and university, feeling really embarrassed to tell people I liked to write. Mainly because they would then go on to ask 'oh cool, can I read something?' and the answer to that was always a big, giant 'NOPE'. As a result of keeping that card close to my chest, a lot of friends now have no idea that I tend to enjoy sitting in front of my laptop with a cup of coffee and writing down whatever my stream of consciousness tells me to to. I also tend to enjoy stalking the cast of Supernatural on social media, but another post entirely...
As a child, I constantly had my nose stuck in a book or a notebook, reading and writing. I remember regularly eating my dinner with one hand, with a book clutched in the other then afterwards spending hours in front of my dad's computer writing kids stories and short novellas. Most of them were nonsense, granted, but the odd one had a ring to it. And as I got older, more and more things I scribbled down felt OK, until I decided that one day I would put my nose to the grindstone and get something published. That day hasn't come, because life got in the way, but another 2017 goal might be to finally hit that milestone...
In November, I decided that alongside studying for and taking one of the biggest exams of my professional career I would try my hand at NaNoWriMo and see how I got on. NaNoWriMo, for those of you who haven't heard of it before, is National Novel Writing Month and it spans the whole of November. It's the one month of the year where professional, amateur and aspiring writers get together over the expanse of the internet and try to write a 50,000 word novel while supporting and encouraging each other. So I guess taking that on alongside work and studying was a bit of a moment of madness but something kind of awesome happened: I managed to hit that 50k word count and then some, and this time it was actually quality. (Oh, and I passed my exam too, so November was a roaring success all round. That 'can do' attitude works, who'da thunk?)
I'm not sure what points you have to hit to call yourself 'a writer'. Scribbling sporadically in notebooks when the mood takes you? Writing every day with a purpose but keeping it all under lock and key? Sharing random snatches of work with other people? Publishing the odd piece, or publishing a book or two? JK Rowling-style stardom? Do you have to be an Orwell-standard genuis? No, not in the slightest. I don't know what the official definition is, but to me if you're putting pen to paper - or fingers to keys - with inspiration, creativity, desire and purpose then to me you're a writer. Most writers that I speak to know the familiar need to write down what's circulating in their minds, and to me that makes someone a writer.
I'm not sure what points you have to hit to call yourself 'a writer'. Scribbling sporadically in notebooks when the mood takes you? Writing every day with a purpose but keeping it all under lock and key? Sharing random snatches of work with other people? Publishing the odd piece, or publishing a book or two? JK Rowling-style stardom? Do you have to be an Orwell-standard genuis? No, not in the slightest. I don't know what the official definition is, but to me if you're putting pen to paper - or fingers to keys - with inspiration, creativity, desire and purpose then to me you're a writer. Most writers that I speak to know the familiar need to write down what's circulating in their minds, and to me that makes someone a writer.
So I guess the purpose of writing all this down is to affirm to myself that writing is one of the things I really enjoy in life, and that checking in with that hobby has proved to be pretty soul-enriching over the last few months so it stands to reason that it will be in the future as well. And I suppose there might be a writer or two out there who reads this and thinks 'I get ya'.
I used to post frequently on a few websites years ago, adding various chapters to novellas and publishing poems (no, I'm not linking them up, but if you do find them then you get a cookie for your detective work) and as per my 'Do one thing every day that you find difficult' resolution I mentioned in this post, joining Wattpad and posting my NaNoWriMo novel and linking it to my Twitter account (and now my blog) is my difficult thing for today. I'm shy, be nice.
Fancy a read? Go right ahead, but if you do then please be a gem and leave me a comment or send me a tweet. I'll love you forever. It will be updated as and when I finish editing each chapter.
(Yes, that's me, I write under a pen name.)
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