i wrote my way out

Sunday 14 May 2017

When I was very little I wanted to be a singer, my sole ambition in life was to be a pop star and the fact that I couldn't hold a note or keep in tune to save my life was merely a minor speck on my otherwise clean road to stardom.. If I wasn't singing into my hairbrush I would be making up stories, scribbling about teddies and tea parties as soon as I learned how to hold a pen.

Then I got a bit older and decided that actually singing wasn't for me and instead I would throw myself into the world of acting.  Red carpets, film sets and the glittering world of stardom was so clearly where I belonged I didn't know why I hadn't seen it before.  Despite sticking up posters of actors all over my walls I continued to write, this time with the aid of my mums laptop and even though almost everything was inspired completely (and copied indirectly) from Enid Blyton, a few of my own idea's managed to sneak through and get written as well.

I got a bit older again and although I stuck with the overall acting theme I broadened my aspirations from film sets to include theatre stages, decided to pick drama for an option when I went to sixth form and daydreamed about opening nights for both live and recorded entertainment.  During this time I also stopped writing, gave up trying to come up with new ideas and fast forward a couple of years and without a single moment of hesitation I moved my entire stories folder into the rubbish bin on my desktop.  A year after that I got a new laptop and those files were left behind completely; a vague memory in my mind but nothing tangible to see or pick pieces from.

Fast forward again and I'm a bit older still, flying through university by the skin of my teeth, spending every other week shaking off not only the self-doubt but also the thoughts that crept in over night, thoughts of I can't do this and I don't want to do this that echoed in my mind.   I still wanted to act but everyday leant more towards the creative process rather than being in the spotlight myself; and my word documents and notebooks were still only filled with lecture notes and essays rather than anything enjoyable or creative.  But then my hatred of writing essays led to me taking a chance,throwing caution to the wind and opting to pick Playwriting instead of a dissertation for my third year project.

Let's just recap that last bit- hadn't written anything creative in years let alone academically creative and decided "oh whatever, I'll do it" when faced with the chance to not only write creatively but write a play for the first time ever..carpe diem indeed!  So even though I didn't enjoy university at all I can't be sorry or regret choosing the course I did because if I had chosen a different university, not only would I not know the people I do now but I wouldn't have had the option to write a play this past year.  Now I've started writing again I don't want to stop, being creative and channeling my own ideas into an actual piece of writing has quickly become a favourite way to spend my time.

happy, overwhelmed, excited & emotional - ten minutes before submitting.
Throughout the past year I wrote my way out of a degree I hated and into one I can look back on positively, I wrote my way back into a long-lost love of creativity and ambition and I wrote my way towards a possible career.   After having years of feeling like the creative equivalent of a mud pond I now feel like an ocean again, with bubbles, coral and pretty fish all swimming around in my head. I have no concrete idea of what form my writing will take-or if I'll even stick to one kind! At the the moment my ideas include novels, another play, redrafting my third year play into a film and I've even been working on a few poems (one of which you will be seeing on here soon!), but I'm completely loving writing and coming up with new ideas again.  Even though I whole-heartedly regret deleting my own stories all those years ago, and if I could re-do the past three years I would opt for a drama and creative writing combined degree I am a firm believer in everything happens for a reason; and if that reason is me refinding my passion, my love for writing and creating characters and new worlds then that's a good enough reason for me.  It doesn't take away the fact that university was a stressful and almost unlikeable experience at time but it does add a bit of shine to the end result.  As cheesy and cliche as it sounds my creative spark has been re-lit and I'm not going to let it go out again

I'm also using pinterest on & off to create boards, some more personal to me but a lot are character based and if you're interested to see which pins I'm shaping into ideas then you can find that here.


love el
xo

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