I started writing in my last year of secondary school.
While reading profusely, I thought to try my hand at writing after my best friend asked me to proof read one of her own stories. After reading, it intrigued me - the thought of creating worlds and loveable characters, of living a more adventurous life through someone else.
So one day I did it. I sat down at the computer and wrote my first ever novel about a young woman, who suffers not only at the hands of an abusive father but also a terrifying and bullying headmistress. But all of that changes when she discovers she is a witch and with the ability to change everything.
At the time, I was proud to have completed something of my own imagination. I was proud to have taken the time to create my characters, build relationships and set the story in a time and place that people could relate to.
But when I look back at that first novel now... I shudder. It was riddled with spelling mistakes, terrible grammar, and the overall presentation and structure of the story was appalling. For so much of it, I was adding things that made no sense or had no real place in the story. It was just there, like I'd suddenly thought of it and wanted so desperately to include.
I'm happy to say that when I tried to write the story again, it was better planned out. The characters and their relationships really filled out. I moved away from the cliche, and tried to find originality in my writing.
But when you are so inspired by the novels you read and the films you watch, it is difficult not to replicate. It is difficult not to base your own characters on epic personalities, like Katniss Everdeen of the Hunger Games trilogy, Annabeth Chase of the Percy Jackson series, or even Harry Potter. It is difficult not to set your characters in dangerous and beautiful backdrops like the lands of Narnia, medieval England and Middle Earth.
So many of the characters I have created exhibit traits of my fictional idols, but what makes them mine is that they possess some small speck of me, of my personality. My shyness, my passion, stubbornness, the need to help others, my desire for adventure.
This is why I write. I write to express myself, to inspire others that it is okay to be so many things, that it is okay to want more, that it is okay to dream.
Writing has given me the chance to dream, and dream big and beyond the confines of my own life. And I hope one day to inspire someone else to do, and to feel the same.
In tomorrow's posting.... read about my five favourite authors and why they inspire me.