Why I wanted to become an Author

The first time I ever wrote a story, I was in Year 2 of Primary school. I can't remember if there was a particular theme, but the whole class had to do it. I decided that mine was going to be about aliens. 

Every weekend I slept at my Grandma's house. And because her house was quite high up on a hill, I could see most of the town from the window. I would stand there at night and stare at the stars, the sky and the aeroplanes, imagining all sorts of different people sat in them. And watching cars drive slowly down the motorways on top of the hills in the distance, their headlights twinkling from miles away. I was always astounded that I could see these cars driving but that they couldn't see me, even if they tried.

I had this dream one night that some aliens came down in a spaceship, right outside my bedroom window and took me away. There was nothing sinister about it, in fact I had a really nice time. They flew me around, letting me look at the town zooming beneath us. Of course, I knew this was a brilliant idea for a story, and so I used it for mine in class.
My teacher loved it so much that she stapled it onto the display board in the classroom, and I particularly remember my classmates being jealous of me, because mine had been picked to be shown. Unfortunately, I don't have a copy of it now. However, I do have such a vivid and photographic memory, that I can remember almost all of it, including the little aliens that I drew at the side of the page. 👽

                                      

I began to write stories constantly. If I was ever bored at home or at my grandma's, I would sit down and write and write and write, mostly making it up as I went along. Fortunately I was blessed with a very supportive mother and grandmother, so even if what I wrote was tosh, they would tell me it was brilliant. I suppose it's all stemmed from my love of the English language. As soon as I could write and read, that is all I would do. I would bring my books home from school to read to mum, and zoom through them with hardly any effort. I was top in my English classes, and I even volunteered to help kids who were in a few classes below me to read during break times.

And so this followed me into my teens and adult life. I was my happiest when in my English class, or at home with my nose stuck in a book. It wasn't until I turned 15 that I started another story. I named it, "The Events of Corbin Riley." It was a fictional account about a Californian teenager, who had just found out he had been adopted, and ran away from home. I wrote the first chapter, printed a few copies off, and handed them out to my girl friends. They all were so in love with it, that they begged me to write more and more. And so for a few weeks, I continued this series, though somewhere down the line, I stopped. I have a friend who still has her copies, and still to this day asks me to carry on with it 😂 (though I remember it being incredibly cheesy as I was going through my emo phase at this time, and Corbin was a typical cute emo guy with a floppy fringe and snakebite piercings, *cringe*)

The summer that followed my flopped Corbin Riley series, I wrote another short story named "A Modern Myth." It was about a teenage girl who had a bad home life, who'd climb out of her bedroom window every night to escape from her abusive mother. One night whilst wandering the town and smoking cigarettes, she meets a mysterious guy dressed in black. He turns out to be a vampire. The two fall in love, and she becomes caught up in his vampire drama, that almost gets them both killed. Years later when the Twilight series came out, I was shocked and embarrassed at how similar my story was compared to it. So I knew from then I could never show it to anyone, because I thought people would think that I copied everything from Twilight. Again, I don't have a copy of this story either.

                                       

A few years later, when I was 19 and in an incredibly awful living situation, I began to write again. This one was called "The Lighthouse Diaries." It was about a young woman who lived in a village on the coast. She worked as a waitress in the cafe on the sea front, and one night whilst dozing off on her sofa, is awoken by a bright light shining intermittently through her window. She leaves her house to find a lighthouse has appeared at the end of the beach - a lighthouse that wasn't there before. I won't give any more of this one away, as I would love to re-visit and re-write this one. I didn't get to finish it originally, but it is stored away safely in back of my mind, along with all the other dozens of stories that have been left unfinished but not forgotten.

It wasn't until recently that I have started working on my first novel. The story is one that I've come back to and abandoned countless times over the space of five years. Again, when I started it, I was in an awful living situation. I was all alone as a single mother, and very depressed. And so writing this story became an escape for me. Not only did it make me incredibly happy, but it also reminded me of how passionate I was about writing, and without tooting my own horn, reminded me how good I was at making up stories.

There isn't much else I love more than the English language, and English literature. If I didn't have books, or even had the ability to read I would surely go mad. I've also always read stories to my son, and even now at 5 years old still asks me every night for a story. He has more books than me! And it really shows, because like me, he is excelling in his English class, and can already read at a level that would usually be seen in kids older than him. Recently, all of the parents at his school got a free book and letter sent home to encourage them to read it to their child. It surprised me to think that other parents didn't read to their children, or have any interest in books what so ever. And a statistic that I found incredibly depressing was; four out of five parents do not read their kids bedtime stories. For me, this is insane. Books feed and nurture children's imaginations. And I would bet my life that if I wasn't brought up with a mother who read to me every night, I would definitely not be aspiring to become an author now.

                                     

My biggest goal in life has always been to hold my first ever book in my hands. To see it all printed out on fresh crisp pages, with my name on the front would be a dream come true. Whether or not the book is well-received, I truly am not too bothered about. And recently, it's something that has been niggling away at me. Why not get the novel finished and published, so you can finally have it in your hands? The niggling voice says. What the fuck is stopping me? Nothing. Nothing is stopping me, and nothing ever will. And eventually I will re-write, finish and publish all of the other beautiful stories that are lurking inside my head, but which have been pushed back as I work on this goddamn novel. I am already so proud of it, and cannot wait for my friends and family to read it.

I quickly want to say thank you for always reading my blog posts and supporting everything I do. I'm so happy I started this blog, it's so therapeutic for me, and I know for some close friends sometimes inspires them. So THANK YOU!
Until next time,
Violet x

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