Taking The First Step Into Writing As A Career

Having declared myself to be a writer, I now need to develop this into a business which will allow me to write for a living. Currently, I am not quite sure what that will look like. However, it helps me to remember that I have a lot of experience.

Although deciding that I am a writer has taken a long time, being a writer, I realize now, has been ongoing since childhood. In school my strongest subject was English. I loved writing stories, my Teachers often remarked on the imagination of my writing. There was even an incident where my Dad was called into school, as I had described in blood-curdling detail how my parents were killed in a shipwreck. It seems when a ten-year-old writes, “My Dad’s flesh was torn from his body as it was hurled against the jagged rocks,” is a bit of a red flag to a School Teacher.

I’ve also kept detailed journals since I was very young.  I loved writing about my life, about my feelings and reflecting on the world around me, and I still do.  My YouTube channel and my Blog writing, are also not the first time I’ve shared creatively about my life on a public forum. I began in my early twenties, on My Space, that wonderful retro social media platform where all the cool kids hung out before Zuckerberg’s empire took over.  There, I shared poems and short pieces about living with mental health.

I have always secretly dreamt of having a book published, and indeed started many yet never finished. Over the last few years, I have had lots of chance encounters with writers, who have encouraged me to write. I feel like the universe has been telling me for a very long time that this is my path. I have listened, but I haven’t believed it. I haven’t believed in my ability and more importantly, I realize now, I was waiting to become a writer, rather than declaring myself to be one

I am still marvelling at the series of events which have brought me to this point of realization. I greatly thank the friend who emailed me the link to an LGBTQ writing competition. It was in writing a short story for that purpose which then set off a chain of events and here I am, declaring myself to be a writer.

Where I go from here I am not entirely sure, but, at least I now know my path. As long as I keep writing, I am a writer and that is the most important thing.  The places my writing goes to, I believe, will evolve naturally as I find my voice.  Whatever the outcome of the story competition, the seemingly simple act of entering, has burst open the backlogged dam of creation and beautiful crystal-clear water is, at last, running free!