Member-only story
I remember the moment I first discovered writing. It was just me and a flickering cursor in Word on a bulky, second-hand PC running Windows95. Through the voyeurism of hindsight, I now realise I wrote to both cover and process sexual abuse. Abuse I didn’t have the language to name. Whilst I couldn’t articulate what was happening to me, I could craft stories of worlds filled with beautiful people, ripe with adventure. Writing was a cozy nook of solace.
Decades after I typed my first story, with two writing degrees to my name, I come back to that initial feeling. Even in writing this, I stared at the screen, the habits of my profession threatening to strangle creativity. Let me explain. From the moment I wrote ‘the end’ on my first piece of fiction, printed it out and reread it, I was hooked.
My previous fanciful dreams of becoming a paleontologist were immediately brushed aside — digging in dirt could never give as much satisfaction and joy as creating a story had! — I knew I would become a writer. Growing up the only artistic person in a family of people with sensible jobs, the daughter of a teacher and a Baptist preacher, I was hellbent on proving that I could, in the words of Jane Austen, live by my pen.
Such was the need to prove that my written words could feed, clothe and shelter me, that I applied for writing programs, bachelors of English and…
