New beginnings
Storytelling is at the heart of everything.
I’ve been writing stories since I can remember, but somewhere in my twenties, I lost my way. At least, I thought I had. When I came full circle, struck by a novel idea that I just had to commit to paper (well, laptop screen) a decade or so later, I wondered at the fact that I had left it so long, and become so disconnected from what had seemed like my true purpose, when I was younger.
Before returning to fiction, aged 30-something, the last ‘story’ I’d written, that I could remember at least, was a ‘novel’ entitled ‘Rough Passage’ which I typed with a typewriter over a frenzied period of intense creativity at 14. It was my second attempt at writing a novel, the first being a handwritten angst-ridden comedy romance scribbled into an exercise book maybe a year or two earlier. I can’t honestly remember the name of that one, and if I ever found it, it would be a miracle. I hoard with the best of them though, so when ‘Rough Passage’ fell into my hands on a distracted loft mission the other day (was searching for Point Horror books for my 12-year-old daughter – what goes around, comes around), I was prompted into reminiscence over how far I had come.
Still, it felt like a yawning chasm of time had passed between ‘Rough Passage’ (it’s the name of a youth club in the story, and I think was also a clumsy metaphor for coming of age, at the time) and my first ‘proper’ novel, begun back in 2017 at the beginning of my reinvention as an aspiring fiction author. I did enthusiastically take up a creative writing module in my Bachelors’ degree in the hope of kick-starting a new era of story-writing, and for the assessment, constructed some overly wordy short story about a girl on a train, which I was too academically connected to, to infuse with enough life for it to stay with me beyond the submission deadline.
I guess that was when I figured that my story-writing days were over. I was past all that. Writing essays and dissertations consumed my brain space (what remained after the heavy drinking of student life and the extra-curricular pursuits), then moving into the workplace where my connection with the written word became distinctly less cerebral, focused around transcribing audio dictations and writing emails to arrange meetings for my bosses in a series of administrative roles that when I think back on them now, were draining the life out of me. I lived for the weekends, and expressed myself through music, and for several years, the stories we told through the songs we wrote, and those I heard in the music I consumed, were my only connection with narrative. That, and films, hundreds of them, which came and went as I caught up on a childhood which didn’t include the movies as a medium – I was busy consuming all the books. Trashy ones, quality ones, classics and fluff alike, the foundations for a life spent engaging with storytelling on one level or another were laid, and though my own written creativity lay dormant, it would be sparked into life by another of my life’s passions: sport (let’s not focus too deeply on the LiveJournal deviation into morose, self-obsessed introspection period of my life).
Writing about sport fired my brain up; like switching on the controls to an old computer, I whirred back into life, committing my thoughts about football and tennis to the screen as I started yet another blog, then latterly falling head over heels in love with ice hockey and writing about that for a few years. Now, pro cycling owns my heart, and pays my bills, as I embrace the rich and complex narratives of a sport in which storytelling comes easily – whether it’s that of a rider, a team, a race, or something beyond the sport, there are endless opportunities to engage with narrative, though of course, it’s a whole different ball game (clumsy pun not actually relevant to this sport) to writing fiction.
Later in the evening, after finding ‘Rough Passage’ and consuming the first 15 or so pages (equal parts cringeworthy and eye-opening) I remembered a piece of creative non-fiction I’d had published in a literary zine a few years back and managed to find the manuscript. The piece was a fractured memory of the same youth club which had inspired my old novel, and having both side by side was one of the most uncanny experiences; layers of memory of the same place, separated by twenty-odd years, settled uncomfortably together, like some kind of meta psychic papier mache, with the older memories crystallised in the centre, and the less distinct ones sticking to the outside of them, clinging onto the kernel of truth nestled at the centre. My perception hadn’t changed much; my outlook and life experience had.
I’m several novels deep into my exploration of the stories I’m trying to tell, and each time, I feel like I strike a little closer at the heart of what I really want to say. I’ve been back to the first one, and shaped it, trying to trim away the excess and improve upon it, while new words continue to flow through and out of me like water on some days, and I wonder why I wasn’t doing this all along.
I’m here to tell any of you who want to write, that it’s in you; if you want to let it out. Storytelling is in all of us, as innate as our instincts for fight or flight. It’s in our DNA. Maybe you already tell stories through some other medium; maybe even in your day to day job. We’re telling ourselves stories all the time. What you do with yours, is a totally personal choice. Expressing the urge to tell something, to someone, is at the heart of it all. Communication. Connection. This is my medium. What will yours be?
Thanks for reading. I’d love to say I’ll be around more often but ADHD. Let’s say I’m here to stay this time though? I have a whole host of things to tell you about writing practice, personal development, and the interconnectedness of things. I’ll post some of my unpublished short fiction soon too because there’s not much point it staying buried. (Oh look, there’s that snow metaphor paying dividends!)
Subscribe and I promise to at least TRY to remain consistent (ish) this time. 2026 is the year. Novels will be published. There will be blood. Wait - what?