I'm a Writer...

It's a weird thing to speak out aloud and it's really strange to tell people when they ask you what you want to be or what you plan on doing when you finish university, I often clumsily word it because of how nervous I am and I don't want to come off as pretentious or anything---"I'm a writer. I write things." I think I prefer them to hear that then the excitement bursting inside me when someone asks and I just want to blabber on and talk about inspiration and creativity and planning and writing and typing on my laptop and just being able to touch people with your words.



They'd probably think I was a crazy person....and that is probably the degree of person it takes to say, "yeah, I am a writer, it's what I love doing, and yes, it's a career choice, my career choice," I always make things like that for when people try and confront me and tell me all the negativities about being a writer.



I found this picture on Google and it best describes how both my 'desk' (I don't have a desk, just loads of folders with stray papers everywhere) and the inside of my head looks.







I started writing when I was 6...or somewhere that young and I was writing on folded pages of scrap paper and I can remember fondly the dragons and the witches and the little families they had, inspired by TV and films....but I haven't always loved reading, and I didn't when I was younger, but I did love writing and trying to express myself with words that I had yet to learn and know the meaning of.



Another huge part of my life was from when I was 9 to about 12 and I used to play these hugely weaved games with my cousin and we'd both be witches or wizards with twigs in our hands and pretending that they were wands....I would still do that now, but I'm an adult and I think it would be very weird to let ALL of those inhibitions go.



And then when I was in High School, in year 10...not sure about the grade for Americans....but I was 15 and I wrote my first ever (I want to say novel, but that sounds way more than it was) major project, I'd planned it and everything, and then over 60,000 words later....it was rubbish, but it still has a file on my laptop. That year was also the year when I found out about Creative Writing courses at university and I was dead set on doing it. I couldn't wait, I had 3 more years yet before I could go to university, and one night, I remember that I couldn't sleep because of how excited I was and the potential that was, and still is in me.



I was 15 then and I'm 18 now, I'm at university now, studying English and Creative Writing and it's great. I am really glad that I went with my heart and did something that I enjoyed instead of doing something that I would later regret and all to please my family. Yes, I went through a whole host of professions before coming out and telling them all that "I am a writer...and I want to write books for a living."



I asked the question on my Facebook page (Joseph's Writing) before 'If you're a writer....why do you write?' --- the question was met with positive feedback, people giving me answers about blank pages needing to be filled and not writing is unbearable. I said this....



"I love making worlds and characters and just being able to play around with their lives and their problems....living a thousand other lives before I live my own." - Me




-Joseph




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