Where are you from? What have you read? How does this impact upon your writing life?

If you walk into the house I grew up in, you will be faced with numerous bookshelves. Living in such an environment makes it surprising that I refused to read until I was eight, and even then I much preferred being read to. Reading was something I did before going to bed; the rest of the day was taken up with playing, and as I got older the dramas of teenage life. But occasionally a book would come along that stole my attention from the world. One such book was Peaches by Jodi Lynn Anderson; I lost count of the number of times I got it out of the library, or how many times I asked for my own copy.

I had been creating stories for years, wanting to escape reality, but one day I decided to start writing, wanting to follow in my great grandmothers footsteps. My dad told me that if I wanted to be a good writer I would need to read more that romantic teen-fiction. So my adventure with books truly begun; from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott to Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, the list is still growing. But with every new book I learn something; by knowing what is already out there I can create something new.

Then hopefully one day I will be able to join my great grandmother, Elizabeth Taylor with my own name on a cover; well that is the dream anyway. 

A Metaphorical New Start

That book's now finished.
A new one now open;
another chapter, more sentences,
the ending unwritten.

'If You Write, You're a Writer, Aren't You?

What is classed as a 'writer'? Is it being published or famous? Is it to commit your life to the craft even if nothing comes of it? Or is it the need to put the creativity that runs riot inside you down on to paper?

The saying ‘everyone has a book in them’ comes to mind, along with the retort, ‘but they are not all worth being read!’ So maybe to be a 'writer' you need a reader: to be writing for someone other than yourself.

Even though I write I have yet to refer to myself as a ‘writer’ but I dream of being an author (by this I mean to be published). I think that I am hesitant to do so out of the fear of being asked if I have written anything someone might have read, the answer of course being no. This implies that society has connected the label of ‘writer’ to being published.

I think to be a 'writer' you need to capture your reader. To create a story that has a depth but to also understand that you won’t get it right first time, that it’s an ongoing process in which you are left wanting to give up and where you change your mind. That you have the understanding that on some level the story it’s self has control.

Maybe to be a writer you simply need to believe that you are one, whether it’s as a hobby or a career.