The start, the pain and the hope

I’ve wanted to become a writer forever. I can’t pinpoint exactly where it started, but I’ve always written all kinds of things; lists, stories, poems, travel journals. I used to love to read as a kid. My parents would always find me curled up in a corner with a book or a magazine. I just love stories. 

But even when I was as young as 15 I wondered if this desire to become a writer was just for show. I’ve always doubted my ambition and longing. What if I just wanted my name on a book and not do the hard work to finish one. This shame was so crippling that I didn’t pursue writing for years.

I remember going on a field trip with friends to an old house to have a sleepover. We would all gather in a big bus and drive somewhere. I can’t remember why we went, maybe it was a summer camp thing. During the whole trip I would write in my pink little notebook about my experiences, thoughts and feelings. I like being social and doing things with friends, but it would quickly be too much, and I had to retire to a corner to write about what happened. To recharge. 

It was so often that it caught the attention of one of the group leaders. On the way back she asked me if I wanted to write a piece about the trip for a local children’s magazine. I was immensely honoured and excited. Immediately my mind started thinking up all these ideas of what I could write about. 

When I came home I excitedly told my parents about it. I got a deadline and an email address to send it to and everything. They didn’t expect anything specific. Because I was about 10 or 12, I think, and the group leader hadn’t even read anything I had written. So as the days went by, I started thinking about what I wanted to write, and if it would be good enough. The excitement slowly turned into fear and doubt. This cool thing started to feel like an enormous amount of pressure. And I was sure that I couldn’t write anything that would be good enough. People would just laugh at me. The self-doubt was crippling me. 

I never ended up submitting anything. I just watched the deadline go by and felt guilty and sad. And then after a while, that sadness went away. And it was just another thing that I didn’t do. So I learned that I could just not do something that I wanted to do, and never have to live through rejection.

I’ve lived that truth until four years ago, when I was 21. And I started my first blog website. I made the about you section and wrote two stories, and that was it. But it was a huge step for me. And slowly I expanded my courage. Up until now, where I’m a bid writer by profession, a freelance writer on the side and I regularly write blogs or short stories that I publish on a website or social media. Look at me go.