the start of writing

I wrote this years ago, intending to use it as my first blog post. Ironically, it was a while before I made the blog, and this document was lost among so many others. 

When I first learnt to love writing, I was good at it. Good at it, in the sense that my work stood out. I could look at the other children in my class and see that I was better than them.

When the pond grew and I realised that I would never be able to stand out effortlessly, I struggled with writing more. Perhaps this says more about me and my hideous jealous streak than it does about my writing ability. Perhaps this comes from having a supportive family and an ego that needed knocking down. But I was used to being the best in my class and I lost that at some point. And honestly, I let that hit me.

Maybe I read too many brilliant books and learnt too many long words. Now when I write I stumble over my words and struggle to articulate clearly what I have been feeling. I find it difficult to unlearn the complicated literary devices and forget to constantly search for clichés.

Recently when I have been trying to write, these Saint Motel lyrics have played inside my brain; ‘you need a spark/ a light in the dark/ to get you out of your head/ and get you into your heart’. I feel like I have caught myself in a cycle of over complicating words. I edit more than I write and in turn rip apart any shred of heart in my writing. Each time I try I am left with some carefully constructed words that make me miserable and feel completely un-like anything I would ever think or say.

I have started this as a way of trying to force myself to write and finish and leave it alone.

I can’t imagine that this will provide anything for anyone else, but I hope that I manage to write something with some heart and that one day I am able to write something that is not just for me.