My Writing Profile

As a 29-year-old female, I am at the point whereby I wish to start taking my writing further forward. Although I can say I started writing as a child, I feel I only started my true creative writing journey relatively recently. Nevertheless, I have developed a lot as a writer, even in the past six months. Yet, there is still always more to learn.

As I mentioned, I started writing as a child. However, as an insecure teenager I stopped after one of my friends told me it was “silly”. I am ashamed to say that I took heed of their comments and gave “the pen” up for a very long time.

My reading and writing abilities have always been above average, so I excelled at essay and assignment writing at school and college. Unfortunately, however, my ability to do well in exams left a lot to be desired. Therefore, I left education feeling disheartened.
A few years later, I found an interesting university degree, which did not require students to take exams: assessment was purely based on written work. So, I attended university and gained myself a First-Class degree. I then found a Masters degree with a similar assessment process, which I was equally as successful in.
Succeeding at university gave me great confidence in my writing ability. However, academic writing is very different to creative writing. So, I still had a long way to go.

I started to keep a journal in the initial months of 2008. But I stuck to writing about daily life, rather than testing the creative waters again. The creativity didn’t start returning until 2011. I was having a tough time and decided to, one day, attempt to write a poem about how I was feeling. It was not the best poem I’ve ever written. But I enjoyed writing it and, somehow, my mind felt clearer.
Despite still being in the midst of academic study, I tried to reignite my passion for creative writing. It was an very gradual process, which I thought might never go anywhere. But I am very patient and determined.

Not long after I wrote my ‘first’ poem in 2011, I joined writing.com. This is one of the biggest online communities for writers in the world. To start, I felt a little intimidated by all the writers who appeared to know exactly what they were talking about, unlike myself. Nevertheless, I stuck with it and now it is my online base for anything to do with writing. I visit writing.com for advice, support, prompts/ideas, and the sense of a tightknit community it offers.

If I were honest, I would say I had only got my creative passion back in the past 12-18 months. It is in this time that I have started trying new things, taking on challenges and stepping out of my comfort zone. Indeed, I have taken on a number of prompted blogging and poetry challenges and achieved the desired results. I’m now preparing to write a thirty-poem poetry collection within National Poetry Writing Month (April).
In 2014, I had three of my poems published in a fledgling online poetry journal. Even though it was a somewhat unknown journal, it felt good to have my work recognised and enjoyed.
I also took part in my first ever NaNoWriMo in 2014. Prior to this, the longest story I had ever written was only one thousand words long. Therefore, the thought of writing 50,000 words in thirty days felt like a daunting prospect. However, I planned everything meticulously and broke down the target by day so it felt much easier to manage. My novel plan filled an entire lever-arch folder and was full of character profiles, setting and item descriptions, maps and photos. It was with the help of this planning that I was able to write 50,000 words, with days to spare.

I am unsure whether I have established a specific writing style, favoured genre or favoured writing form yet. So far I have stuck to poetry and short stories in the main because I am the most comfortable here. However, as I said, I am willing to step out of my comfort zone: I am open to the idea that my true talent may lie within something I have yet to try.
I would say the same about genre too. So far I have written in the following genres: comedy, romance (poems only), life writing, fantasy, and horror. There are many genres I haven’t touched yet, but trying new things excites me. So, I hope to broaden my horizons soon.

I am an avid reader and try and read no less than five books a month. I do not purely read books from a single genre; I’ll read anything because I think it makes for a better writer. In fact, I think Stephen King (2001) was absolutely right when he made the following statement:

If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.

Overall, I think my writing is finally starting to go in the right direction. However, I am fully aware that the learning process is never finished and I will always have more to learn. Therefore, my reasons for taking this course (aims) are as follows:
• To focus my creative mind
• To learn new skills and polish up old ones
• To gather new ideas
• To completely get to grips with writing related vocabulary
• To try new genres, forms and styles
• To go back to basics and enjoy the challenges.

References

• King, S., (2001), On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, Hodder and Stoughton, London