Starting things has never been my forte, but when I last night found the title for THIS THING in the middle of a dream, I couldn’t keep it away any longer. So I stood up, wrote it on a piece of paper and went back to bed. Or so I thought: when I got up again at 6 a.m. and found a sharpie in my hand and some words scribbled on the desktop, I kind of hated my idea, had forgotten what my masterpiece was about and mumbled that it would be good to sleep just a little more.
But the morning continued, and after my 3rd cup of coffee I realized maybe I was trying to leave a message for myself last night, so I jumped around and did the happy-dance when I remembered what it was about. Obviously I was thrilled and ecstatic, but the other 9 students standing in line with me to get some books seemed less than impressed by my happiness… so I tried to get out of there and home without causing any more negative impressions towards my person or, being honest, trying not to cause any more embarrassment.
And now here I am.. I must admit, over an hour of dirty, late and smelly public transport usually gets me down on my way home, but today not even Fred the homeless man was able to make me uncomfortable with his flirting looks, which usually makes one feel naked and observed. But again, today was not going to be that day! I had decided that this would the day I start my blog!
Not that anyone really cares… or that anyone is expecting it… or that anyone will read it. But I started my blog! Yaaayyy!! :D (Note to self, stop at the second cup of any stimulating drink)
I have been writing since I was about at the age of 6, had moved to Spain and decided to share my gift with the world by creating a half-page-long story about a pirate girl, which won a local short-story competition and made me feel more important than I was, and definitively more gifted than I am. Because lets be honest, I seriously doubt that my story would have won if the contest had had a little more participation. Pirate girl a cool, but when all you have to say about them is that they have a sword, it gets a little less exciting.
From there on, I decided I wanted to write, and started at the basics: diaries. I got a pink-glittery-scented notebook from my mother, who was more than surprised by my recent devotion to writing, and probably thought that my newborn wish to become a writer would leave as fast as it came. I guess I would too if my 6-year-old daughter came up to me and told me “Mother, I have decided to dedicate my life to writing and sharing my experiences, and I need your support and something to write in. What are we eating tonight?”.
I guess I did not expect it to be hard. First of all, my expectations towards inspiration were quite false, and I found myself with the ugly truth: a 6-year-old girl doesn’t really have much to tell the world: no big love stories, no extreme travels, no girl drama (unless you count as girl drama a friend stealing your teddy bear), and definitively no excitement. Also, the fact that I had convinced myself of me needing not to write the date down because I would remember everything made it awfully hard to put things together when I got older. Especially because at that time page-order had no place in my idea of a diary: the page selection was determined by my favorite colour that day.
When I got older I decided to start writing short stories, mainly because I couldn’t get myself to start a story interesting enough to keep me captivated for the whole time the thing was to last. Yea h, building a whole story, book-length, was never my forte. Don’t get me wrong: I tried. I tried VERY hard. But my idea was completely wrong. I would start writing, from the start, and would never really give much thought to anything that was to happen after the two pages I managed to get decent. It was like placing a pretty vase with flowers in a house that is not yet built. So let’s just say my original ideas would soon fade into the background because most of the time I had no clue of what to do with them.
So I started reading. A lot. Too much if you ask my classmates and inappropriate books for my age if you ask my teachers. I guess housewife-love stories are not suited for a 10-year-old. When I told my older sister that I wanted to write a book, her first comment was “About what? Your super-interesting life?”. At that moment I felt insulted. Why not? Why couldn’t I write about my life? I mean, I HAD lived plenty of things and I DID so have an opinion to share!! …nowadays I understand her amusement…
When I grew up a little I decided journalism was it for me. I could write articles, be a reporter or become a famous columnist. That thought stayed in my mind for years, and it wasn’t until I gave myself a little time to think about my so-called passion that I started having second thoughts: I didn’t care about politics, I did not want to interview people, and I most definitively did not want to have to think about if what I had to say interested people or not: I simply wanted to tell a story and be listened and loved for it. Pretty egocentric. But hey, aren’t all teenagers allowed to be it a little?
And that lead to a lot of situations, each one stranger than before, that all made me reconsider my passion, and I returned to my short-story days, once again: making people become interested in characters that most certainly they wouldn’t remember the next day (or after two minutes), and convincing myself that I did not have a book published because I didn’t want to. But let’s be honest, I never actually worked for it, and I guess the dream of it was easier than getting it.
So here I am now: frustrated writer and blogger-to-be. Not that my life’s story is any more interesting now, but at least I have the guts to put it out there and make something out of my dream. In the orm of a short story.
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