At half four in the morning I was awake. I wish I could say it was to get up and be productive, seize the day and all that. Truth is my baby was wide awake and wanted to sit up, be cute and play with her mummy and daddy. My girlfriend managed to get her back to sleep and to our slumber we also returned, until around 8 o’clock. Now it is 10 – the baby is napping, our oldest is doing his workout on Ring Fit on the switch and my girlfriend is on her first run for almost two years (and I’m very proud of her, the first one back is most definitely always the toughest). Looks like we’re all being fairly productive. I have that Denzel Washington graduation speech on in the background and the whole “don’t mistake movement for progress” advice is sticking in my mind. I’d like to think what I’m doing right now is progress; writing consistently (admittedly it’s early days) and actually working on one of my stories. The next step will be to actually bring people to the blog and have them read my work, while continuing to do what I’m doing (and also trying to balance that with returning to work and college).
These blog posts are getting shorter and shorter and while some of that is down to the fact I’m not doing much between posts (a mix of writing a new post every day and being at home all day most days) but also I’m more eager than ever to get back to writing my stories, outlines, plots, ideas, characters and the like. I’d like to end this post with some thoughts currently circulating on the duality of self-belief (no doubt influenced by these motivational videos on autoplay in the background on Youtube); “You can be anything you choose to be and achieve anything you set your mind to” is such a common message to hear and one we tell ourselves but for some people that just isn’t true so who decides who falls under that umbrella and who doesn’t? Also how does anybody hold on to that message and keep going? It some point in a loop of trying and not achieving surely your goals will change, or be deserted all together. I guess that’s where that talk of mental strength and determination comes into it. It’s difficult to believe these successful celebrities that preach this message. No doubt some of them have had to really fight but I can’t help but to have this scepticism that they had it easier than I do, they had a way in to the industry, they had a friend or a family member that got them in, they had an infinite amount of money or support or both behind them. For some that may be true but for a good percentage it is not. That’s just my fear talking, telling me that if they started in the same place as me they would not succeed so by that logic I shouldn’t try. I flitter between thinking if I write consistently and put it out in the world I have succeeded, and the more pessimistic view of the same outcome – thinking that if I’m working any old job with numerous stories out that haven’t done well then I’ll have failed. If I do fail and these stories I truly, wholeheartedly believe in – more than I believe in anything in this whole world and beyond, then yes I will be heartbroken but there’s no doubt that I’d rather nurse a broken heart than one unfulfilled never knowing what may have been.
I don’t think in my entire life that I’ve felt as strongly about this than I do now, not even when I was in school full of confidence and with teachers, family, friends and even strangers telling me I’m brilliant, advanced for my age, able to do anything I want with my life. That thing that I feel strongly about? That I finally believe and feel? I am a writer. A storyteller. A creative mind with the ability to incite a myriad of emotions within my readers. Just like Paul McCartney was a musician, Michael Jordan a basketball player, Eric Thomas a motivational speaker, Gillian Lynne was a dancer and Eminem is the greatest rapper of all time, I am a writer. I was making up characters and telling stories as soon as I could speak, I was doing impressions and making up jokes all through primary school, I was writing stories and poems that would make adults smile, laugh and cry before I hit 11 years old, I was finding original thoughts in stories we read in secondary school that eight English degree holders hadn’t thought of previously, influenced by whatever I was reading, seeing, hearing at that time I was able to adapt and create in all kinds of different styles that would get a variety from reactions from those I chose to share with. I felt like the conductor in a grand orchestra, moving people how I wanted them moved, and that glow inside of me has never shone brighter. I am a writer. It’s not something I do or even want to do. It’s who I am. I am a writer. I write.