Writing Workshop: Lost Words
Posted by Josie on Feb 25, 2010 in Writing, Writing Workshop | 30 comments
Welcome back to the Writing Workshop link-up! At the bottom of this post you’ll find the widget to post the link to your workshop posts.
First of all it’s my turn. I’ve chosen prompt number four: a childhood passion that got left behind…
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For those of you that haven’t been following this blog from the beginning, or there abouts, it may surprise you to know that the childhood passion I ‘lost’ only to rediscover again recently was, well, it was writing.
Before starting this blog last year I hadn’t written anything for a very long time. I would half-heartedly start journals only to discard them a few weeks, or even days later. I would get the odd day when some urge would take me and I would write pages and pages to offload something but inevitably end up tearing out the pages, dissatisfied with what I would read back, even though I didn’t even know what I was ‘supposed’ to be writing in the first place.
But when I was a child it was different. I wrote freely and without censorship. Writing was about ‘letting out’ all the things that went on my little head, which seemed full to bursting of strange imaginings and senses; things I struggled to find words for but I tried anyway. I remember stories I would write and illustrate. I remember a notebook I had with a cat on the front that I named ‘Charlotte’ and who I would write to, after being so moved by reading Anne Frank’s diary at what, in hindsight, was quite a young age. I was a bit of a bibliophile – I had read everything I could lay my hands on by the time I was 11 or 12. Books like the Narnia Chronicles, The Lord of the Rings, The Little White Horse, and the Faraway Tree – they transformed my inner world. I longed to create worlds like these and I remember long nights spent unable to sleep as the characters that inhabited them marched across my imagination.
But then, I don’t know, I lost it somewhere.
My teen years were tough, very tough, and did a good job of pouring very cold water on a lot of my creative aspirations. I was robbed of a lot of ‘me’ in that time, parts of myself I feel like I’m still trying to reclaim. I spent a long time feeling very lost and searching for I don’t know what. And the things I discovered a long the way are a whole other story but I guess all that really matters is that all the ups and downs, all the false starts and doubt and wondering what on earth I am supposed to do with my life, led me right here.
One day I started a blog on a whim. And once I started I just couldn’t stop. Words poured out, seemingly from no where, and the more I wrote the more I wanted to write, gradually finding a confidence and a ‘voice’ that I didn’t know I had.
In August last year (is that all it was? It feels like a lifetime ago!) I spent a month in crisis. I was being pulled, deeper and deeper, into a need to write and express myself. I felt quite overwhelmed by it all, almost consumed by this new part of myself. I wrote this post about my all-consuming new love affair, and about my confusion and doubt about it all.
And then I decided. I had to do it. I had to take a leap in the dark and follow where this was taking me. I pulled out of a Science degree I had enrolled with and signed up to a Creative Writing course instead.
I haven’t look back.
Writing is as much a part of me as breathing now (as pretentious as that sounds). I’m still not entirely sure what I’m going to do with it all but I’m hoping if I can just keep pouring the words out they’ll lead me somewhere, someday.
I have a long way to go. A very long way. But since re-discovering writing I feel whole in a way I don’t think I have felt since I was nine years old, hunched under the duvet trying to fool my mum I was asleep and scribbling down my thoughts and dreams.
Thank you for listening to them now.
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So now it’s your turn!
1. What is your personal motto? Or if you haven’t got one, then it’s time to make one up!
- Inspired by my friend Rosie Scribble with her post “Keep Calm and Carry On”
2. Go on a fantasy shopping spree. I’m giving you a virtual £1000 – go nuts! What will you buy?!
- Inspired by Life Slighty Used’s “On the topic of clothing…”
3. Write a letter to something that you own, that you love, or maybe that you hate.
- Inspired by Victoria from It’s a Small World Afterall’s letter to her bed.
4. Tell me about a childhood passion that somehow got left behind as you moved into your adult life.
- Inspired by Dad Who Write’s rediscovery of ‘Riding’.
5. Talk about a time where you found something magical in the mundane.
- Inspired by ME! and my ‘Falling Snow’
Leave your name and the URL to your post in the MckLinky below (the URL should be to your post not just to your blog) andleave me a comment to let me know you’ve taken part. If you have the time it would be great if you could try and read and comment on at least two other entries. And be kind! It’s supposed to be a bit of fun – we’re not looking for the next Booker Prize winner here!
If you haven’t had chance to respond yet, then you’ve still got today! Or just wait till next week, when there’ll be five brand new prompts to get you thinking.
This Writing Workshop is brought to you in association with Mama Kat’s Losin’ It – who’s lovely author came up with the concept and runs her own workshop over in the U.S.
Related posts:
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http://lifeslightlyused.wordpress.com/
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I'm so glad you've rediscovered your love of writing. I've only really discovered mine in later years. I was always an avid reader but didn't realise I could actually string a sentence together until I took a job in a PR consultancy in about 1998! Since then all I've done is use my writing skill (to whatever extent it exists!) for other people. Recently I've decided my dream is to use it for me. I'm so much more inspired when I'm writing about my own thoughts and feelings.
I love this whole Writing Workshop idea and have joined in for the first time this week, writing a letter to my boiler. Thanks for your post, I loved reading it.
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http://www.andthenallithoughtaboutyou.wordpress.com/
As usual Josie loved your post although it was scary as it was almost standing back and reading a bit of my life as we both stopped writing when we were younger and have started again and am now both studying it! I also loved reading Dear So and So they were very good letters loved them and what is wrong with wanting to be good at something, that post is so true xx
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http://mwaonline.blogspot.com/
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I've also been overcome since I started blogging with a deep seated love of words, that got buried somewhere along the way. And your writing workshop is what's reignited it, it really is. I was enjoying blogging before, but since you started the workshop, I have put so much more thought into my writing and I get so much from it. Big fat sloppy kisses.
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http://deerbaby.blogspot.com/
So glad that you have rediscovered your writing passion that was lying dormant. Know that feeling of not being able to stop – it just pours outonce you've reopened the floodgate. First time I've joined in with this- it's such a great idea.
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http://crunchiemummy.wordpress.com/
I can definitely relate to you. I too lost my passion for writing somewhere in my 20's only to discover it again through my blog. I still wrote but instead of for myself, it was for work or charities I was involved with. So happy I found your blog and your writing workshop as it's inspiring me even more to continue to plod along and finish my book(s). =)
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http://suzannewestover.blogspot.com/
So glad I found your site. Love your gentle, wry wit. Look forward to reading more.
Why can't everyone have a British sense of humour and love tea. The world would be a better place.
Will definitely be participating in future![Reply]
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http://planted-in-the-earth.blogspot.com/
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I was just like you, reading everything I could get my hands on from a really early age. I went through an Agatha Christie phase when I read every single one in our local library! Then I'd spend all my time putting together magazines and newspapers. I feel really lucky to have ended up working on a magazine, though there is actually little scope for writing in the end. I've done a post of my own for the first time this week – written a letter to some forgotten things in my house. Really enjoyed taking part and looking forward to next week's already…
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Josie Reply:
February 26th, 2010 at 7:32 pmHee hee that made me smile as I went through an Agatha Christie phase too!! A famous incident in our house was me running into the kitchen sobbing my heart out and my mum wondering what on earth was wrong before she managed to get it out of me, between chokes, that Hercule Poirot had died!!
Really enjoyed your post – thank you so much for taking part
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http://www.chatty-t.blogspot.com/
Expect an email sometime Mr A! x
Josie Reply:
February 26th, 2010 at 8:50 am
Sometimes feels more delusional than anything else but still. I have a feeling that if I didn't go for this now, I'd find myself drawn back here in another five years or so and then I would have wasted time when I could have just been getting on and writing!
But thank you x
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