My Writing Journey So Far

Somewhere back home my mum has kept the first book I wrote. Several sheets of pink paper stapled together with my childish writing and drawings messy on the pages.

I presume at primary school we did some form of creative writing but I don’t remember it much. At eight my parents started homeschooling us and we did a little creative writing and I remember writing a letter of complaint to the local bishop.

 At 17 I had to write my first ever essay for a level two Latin paper at uni. The subject: “The characteristics of Catullus as a poet of love and friendship”; from memory I wrote something sarcastic about Catullus not having much idea of either… I did not enjoy the majority of his poems, picked by someone who seemed to think that sordidness was required to make Latin poetry of interest. I was given a fail grade for the essay. Luckily, Catullus was not our only study and I was better at translation than writing so I passed the paper.

The last paper I did to complete my degree was an essay based classics paper. I had studiously avoided essay based papers as I was convinced that I couldn’t write essays as I had only been taught the basics and had very little experience or success writing them. 

The next writing I did was CVs. I have written multiple successful CVs for my immediate family. 

It was when I went to London that I began my “real” writing. Putting down my thoughts and beginning to build the story that had been pestering me for some time. 

And when lockdown came and I had time to think I started to write little bits. Bits that were stories and ideas and experiences. And so began the Random Writings file which is now being converted into this blog.

I was amazed by the response I had to my writings from the few people who had seen them and concluded that I have been given a gift and I had better not bury it.