Hello there!
After the most stressful two weeks of my life, I was starting to lose my enthusiasm and love for writing. I wanted to take some time to reflect on the things I love about writing and why I have chosen it as my career path, in the hope that this will help me to rekindle some of the love I have always had for it.
I think part of the reason I haven't felt the same rush of pleasure lately that I used to feel when putting pen to paper is because I have had so much weighing me down and not enough time to release my stress through writing. When I have had the time to write - and I mean write for myself, not university work - it has been late at night when I'm exhausted after a stressful day, or when I have a free moment during a busy day. So I haven't been able to sit down and write when I felt inspired or actually had something to write about. It has been pressured, rushed, and half-hearted, and that's just not what writing is about.
When I write, I want it to be passionate and whole-hearted. It is the thing that I love doing more than anything else in the world, the one thing I want to do for the rest of my life, so what's the point in giving it anything less that my all?! I don't want to create anything that I'm not proud of, or anything that I wouldn't like to see out in the world with my name on it. I think I forgot that somewhere along the way, my mindset changed from 'give every piece of writing your very best attempt' to 'just have it finished by the deadline'. I don't want to think that way, it's not what I believe in. I would rather hand in a piece of writing that I had spent a lot of time and effort on and that I was proud of, but get a low mark, than get an excellent mark on something I was so stressed out and disappointed by that I could hardly bear to read it back.
During the summer, I would pack my pencil case and a notebook into my bag and head off to the woods near my house. I have a spot there where no one goes and I feel like the only person in the world. I would go there and write for hours and feel completely and utterly content. I love that place because it feels like nothing in the real world matters, any problems disappear for a while and all that matters is my little made up world and the characters who I always grow to love. Everyone talks about having a 'happy place', well that is and always will be mine.
It's such a strange and wonderful thing how a place can have so much of an impact on your state of mind.
One of my old teachers once told me to never say "I want to be a writer" but instead say "I am a writer". This is something that has stuck with me because he is so right, I am a writer! Whether or not I have a book published doesn't change that fact. Writing is a part of who I am, it's something that I have always felt the need to do, like an impulse I can't control. I decided a long time ago that writing is the path for me and I have never wanted to do anything else, I've been writing stories and poetry since the age of 5 and my response to the dreaded question "what do you want to do when you're older?" has never not been "I want to write!" So if that doesn't make me a writer, then I don't know what does.
Writing is about change, and development, and improvement, and disappointment, and re-writing, and editing, and more improvement...
It's a never-ending cycle, but you learn a lot along the way and you constantly improve and gain new skills. I have improved so much from the little girl with a million notebooks full of ideas, who dreamed of having a book published someday. Don't get me wrong, I am still that girl, but that dream is getting closer and closer to becoming a reality. I have always said I will have a book published by the time I'm 21, that's a little over 2 years away.
Right now, that seems absolutely ridiculous, but if I were to go back 10 years and tell the little 8 year old girl with a head full of stories, that one day she would be studying the only subject she has ever loved at a University in a beautiful city, I'm sure she would think I was crazy.
I am already living the life I have always wanted. When I see people who have known me for years and tell them that I'm at University studying creative writing, their response is always the same: "wow, you always did love to write!"
I don't know how, but I think amidst all of the ups and downs of life, I managed to lose sight of why I am doing this degree, and why I worked so hard for so many years to be able to do it. I want to have a degree in creative writing, I want to write for a living, I want to learn new skills to improve my writing, I want to write!
So it's a new year, new modules, new opportunities. I'm going to give it everything I have.
This is what I want to do.
Thank you for reading!
Megan
x
I think part of the reason I haven't felt the same rush of pleasure lately that I used to feel when putting pen to paper is because I have had so much weighing me down and not enough time to release my stress through writing. When I have had the time to write - and I mean write for myself, not university work - it has been late at night when I'm exhausted after a stressful day, or when I have a free moment during a busy day. So I haven't been able to sit down and write when I felt inspired or actually had something to write about. It has been pressured, rushed, and half-hearted, and that's just not what writing is about.
When I write, I want it to be passionate and whole-hearted. It is the thing that I love doing more than anything else in the world, the one thing I want to do for the rest of my life, so what's the point in giving it anything less that my all?! I don't want to create anything that I'm not proud of, or anything that I wouldn't like to see out in the world with my name on it. I think I forgot that somewhere along the way, my mindset changed from 'give every piece of writing your very best attempt' to 'just have it finished by the deadline'. I don't want to think that way, it's not what I believe in. I would rather hand in a piece of writing that I had spent a lot of time and effort on and that I was proud of, but get a low mark, than get an excellent mark on something I was so stressed out and disappointed by that I could hardly bear to read it back.
During the summer, I would pack my pencil case and a notebook into my bag and head off to the woods near my house. I have a spot there where no one goes and I feel like the only person in the world. I would go there and write for hours and feel completely and utterly content. I love that place because it feels like nothing in the real world matters, any problems disappear for a while and all that matters is my little made up world and the characters who I always grow to love. Everyone talks about having a 'happy place', well that is and always will be mine.
It's such a strange and wonderful thing how a place can have so much of an impact on your state of mind.
One of my old teachers once told me to never say "I want to be a writer" but instead say "I am a writer". This is something that has stuck with me because he is so right, I am a writer! Whether or not I have a book published doesn't change that fact. Writing is a part of who I am, it's something that I have always felt the need to do, like an impulse I can't control. I decided a long time ago that writing is the path for me and I have never wanted to do anything else, I've been writing stories and poetry since the age of 5 and my response to the dreaded question "what do you want to do when you're older?" has never not been "I want to write!" So if that doesn't make me a writer, then I don't know what does.
Writing is about change, and development, and improvement, and disappointment, and re-writing, and editing, and more improvement...
It's a never-ending cycle, but you learn a lot along the way and you constantly improve and gain new skills. I have improved so much from the little girl with a million notebooks full of ideas, who dreamed of having a book published someday. Don't get me wrong, I am still that girl, but that dream is getting closer and closer to becoming a reality. I have always said I will have a book published by the time I'm 21, that's a little over 2 years away.
Right now, that seems absolutely ridiculous, but if I were to go back 10 years and tell the little 8 year old girl with a head full of stories, that one day she would be studying the only subject she has ever loved at a University in a beautiful city, I'm sure she would think I was crazy.
I am already living the life I have always wanted. When I see people who have known me for years and tell them that I'm at University studying creative writing, their response is always the same: "wow, you always did love to write!"
I don't know how, but I think amidst all of the ups and downs of life, I managed to lose sight of why I am doing this degree, and why I worked so hard for so many years to be able to do it. I want to have a degree in creative writing, I want to write for a living, I want to learn new skills to improve my writing, I want to write!
So it's a new year, new modules, new opportunities. I'm going to give it everything I have.
This is what I want to do.
Thank you for reading!
Megan
x
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