Thought no.335 – I want my words back

I sometimes forget what it is like to write. Like properly write, when I write with my whole soul, heart and mind, the type of writing where it feels as if I have to write because otherwise I’ll die. The sort of writing that consumes my whole being as if if the words themselves were being etched all over my skin so that my writing and I become one. I sometimes forget, in fact I often forget that and I also miss it. I miss feeling like I must write or I will combust with the words I have left unwritten. Those words that need to be put down, because I need them to be down somewhere because it fills me with a sense of purpose, a sense on incandescent joy, that wondrous moment where everything makes sense but also when everything around me ceases to exist and it is just these words, just those words that exist.

I don’t remember the last time I truly felt like that whilst writing. It has been so long because the fact is, I have made writing a chore for myself, and I haven’t needed to write. Not like I feel I once did, right now my mind is so busy it is not in need of having to write, it does not need to find the solace it once found among words. But also its because I couldn’t find the solace, I still can’t really find what I need in writing right now. That leaves me conflicted it leaves me slightly lost I feel because often written words, well more than often actually, but written words come more easily to me than spoken. I often bury myself in the recesses of my mind and the only way to resurface is to write and right now I’m not writing and right now I miss it. I miss feeling the need to write.

I sometimes forget what it is like to write. Truly write. Because I have not done so in so long. But in order to be able to truly write…I need a story.

Thought no.140- The right place at the right time.

Some people manage to achieve a lot in their lives whilst others achieve very little. People say our lives are what we make them, which I believe is partly the case but I believe a lot of life depends on good timing, circumstance and coincident. Some people are blessed with being in the right place at the right time, knowing the right people, life is a series of events it just so happens some of us are more “lucky” than others. Some of us are lucky enough to just be in the right place at the right time, others have to work hard to get to these places, then there are some that no matter what they do always end up missing these points and places.

One of my goals in life is more me to be able to one of those people who has experienced a lot of wonderful things in life and just has some great stories to tell. Right now my past seventeen years of life, I don’t believe I have achieved this yet. I don’t have a whole bunch of stories, reeling of occurrences and adventures. My life has been pretty mediocre. I haven’t experienced a lot of life, this is partly due to my nature of being a bit of a hermit but also that I have yet to be in the right place at the right time. All the adventures are happening around me and I am just missing them. I hope though that one day I will be filled with wonderful stories from my life. Or even just one great story will do me fine.

Thought no.63 – ‘This’

I often wonder where I am going in life, who doesn’t? I am uncertain of most things in my life and often feel as if I have yet truly begun living. I have virtually no social life, and I can hardly distinguish one week from the next as I am in existential void of nothingness. I am achieving nothing in my life and nothing ever feels quite…solid. The only time when I feel as if I am living or something finally becomes solid is when I am writing. I live through my writing, through my stories. My life is dull and boring, just about making it through the day; never really going anywhere, never really trying. But when I am writing I am transported. I feel alive and I don’t feel quite so alone or lost.

I feel lost in a world that I have trapped myself in. I decided to leave secondary school and do my A-levels at college, it was a good decision, a wise decision for myself. But I have never felt so alone or lost. I feel like I am a dandelion seed, getting picked up by the wind and flying through the sky and trying to land and cling onto people, but I do not belong there. I cannot bury myself with them and so am not able to grow. That’s why I like writing, with writing I know I am firmly buried and I belong and all my words are my sunlight and water allowing me to grow.

I just want to find a place where I feel like I belong or find people that I belong with. But I am that third wheel. I am the person who’s mind doesn’t allow her to stay. I just wish life was as comforting as the stories that I weave, I wish living was as easy as stringing words together to make sentences. I just want all ‘this’ to end, but I cannot even begin to explain what ‘this’ is. Not even my written words can explain the ‘this’ that wraps itself around me and weighs me down and pulls at my mind and grates my soul. I cannot explain it, so how can I even begin to try and sort it out.

Stories and writing is my safety net. There to slow me down as I am falling through the chasm of ‘this’.

Thought no.60 – The story has ended

It’s done. The story has finished. The first draft of book 3 is done. It’s strange though, because I don’t feel like it is finished. I guess that is because it isn’t. I already know there are whole chapters I’d like to re-write and new chapters that I’d like to write in. So, I suppose the story isn’t actually finished and in a way I don’t think it ever will be.

The first draft of the first book was done on the 28th August 2012. The first draft of the second book was done on the 5th March 2013 and now the third book’s first draft was done on the 1st March 2014; almost a year later. The third book had honestly been the hardest to write out of the three books and I believe will need the most editing and alterations. But it is done. There won’t be another story for these characters, not that I write anyway. Now, I am going to go back to the very beginning and re-read the first, which in my opinion is done and needs no further alterations to the story. I’ll let myself become completely engrossed in the story before I begin the edits upon the third book. I just can’t believe I’m finished. It feels very surreal and I thought perhaps I would feel something more than this. I don’t know what I thought I would feel once I finished but I expected there to be something more. Maybe I don’t because I know that all my characters are safe and I am happy with how it has ended.

This series is the thing I am most proud of in the world and I don’t think i have actually accepted that I have finished. Probably because there is so much editing to do. But I just want to say to all of those out there who want to write a book, do it, it one of the best things in the whole entire world and I have never been more proud of an accomplishment. And to those that are writing a book, good luck.

Thought no.36 – Strangers

They’re everywhere. You can’t go anywhere without running into one. There are more of them then there are people you are familiar with. There will always be more of them. You can’t hide from them. Or run away from them. This is life and in life strangers follow you everywhere you go. Being an avid commuter on buses I am constantly bombarded with strangers. Now and again I’ll recognise a face as our routines clash and we become regular strangers within each others lives.

Strangers I see are background characters to me, but I am a background character to them. So on a bus with a collection of main characters all stuck within one proximity you can’t help but feel overwhelmed. Strangers are a creature that all of us are afraid of, we are afraid that a stranger might say something to us or ask us a question, or we might be afraid to embarrass ourselves in front of one of them. We are afraid to show ourselves up and give a terrible first impression.

The truth is, we all too engrossed in ourselves to care about each other. For a second I might wonder about these strangers and their own stories. But that moment passes and I am back to being the selfish human that I am and thinking about my own life.

They are beautiful creatures that we should cherish more. We need to face our fears, because a stranger can open us up into a new world. Just reaching out to a stranger immediately means we are no longer a background character without a cameo, or a line in their story, or a mention of our face. If we reach out to them, whether it be with a smile, a question, a compliment, we are immediately making our stories cross. Through just becoming a regular in someone else’s life means I have breached the cover of their book and have been allowed to become part of their story and them part of mine.

Strangers are amazing and I wish I wasn’t so afraid of them. I wish I wasn’t afraid because they can take me on a whole new adventure even just for a second; strangers are what get us out of our own story and into someone else’s. They let us breach a new world which our friends and family can’t give us as they are part of our stories. Strangers aren’t but they could be and that is the most exciting thing of all. A stranger’s world is completely foreign and unknown to us and that is the most exciting thing of all because there is this whole person with a past and a future that you may never know, but you could. That’s the thing with strangers there is that possibility that they could be something within your story. They could be a vital character, a vital plot point. The possibilities that lay within this person is what makes a stranger a stranger. If only we weren’t all so afraid to reach out.

Thought no.22 – Hero and Villain

Fantasy is one of the marvels of this world I live in. Without it I would be truly lost but also without it I would probably have lower expectations on life and what it is meant to be like. I read that there is always a hero, villain, sidekick, damsel in distress but I see none of these in my life. Presumably I am the main character of my own story, making me the hero, but I do not have a sidekick nor a villain. I have no one I am up against. But if I think I see that I am my own villain; I am constantly fighting myself. Though there is no imbalance of good and evil, there is only me and I am the hero trying to save the damsel is distress, yet I am both, I am trying to save myself from the villain. I am trying to save myself from myself.

I do not belong in a wonderful huge adventure full of excitement and danger, meeting new people and visiting magical new lands. I am not falling in love or saving lives. I am just trying to get through day by day, and sometimes I realise my life is not going to be like the stories I read in books. My life is a lot more difficult, because there is no evil entity I must face, as I must face myself as the villain and be a hero and save myself, as I am also the damsel in distress. My sidekick is nowhere to be seen, I am not even my own sidekick, because in the end I am alone in this battle. This dull, incessant, tiring battle, there is no magic in my life, no fantasy element. There is only me. Just trying to save myself and pull myself through each day. The only battle is the one going on in my head every single day.

Sometimes I wonder if I can cope and manage, if I can continue being the hero, villain and damsel in distress. I wonder that if I will be happy living in a world that is not like the stories that I read. Life is not beautiful and sometimes I forget that, sometimes I forget that my life will not become a wonderfully written fantasy novel. I have not lived yet, but I feel as if it is taking too long for my life to begin and I worry that it never will. I worry that it never will because a wizard is not going to turn up on my doorstep and take me on an adventure.

I wonder if everyone goes through this. I have no doubt that everyone does at one point in their life, but I wonder if it’ll ever stop. Everyone says in face of a bad situation that “it’ll get better” but I want to know when. Because isn’t the hero meant to bring about this better world? But if I am that hero then I know it shan’t be done any time soon because I am still trying to save myself and defeat myself. Real life is whole lot more complicated and difficult than a fantasy life, especially if you are both the hero and villain of your own story.