pilot. 6/8/23.
It’s currently 1:42am on an early August day. I'm three drinks in on loneliness… well, Midori to be exact, and my inner thoughts power through tipsy gloom and tell me, maybe as an igniting spark into the unknown: you should write a blog.
Well, for early context, my most substantial dream of mine is to become an author. Yes, the typical ‘ever since I could remember’ type of dream. But quite frankly, it really is the only interest of mine that I feel any ounce of understanding that it is what I need to pursue a career in the future.
yet, I have no work to show for it. I’ve always had my ideas for stories slated in unfinished google documents, and the occasional B+ essay I’ve saved from high school, but nothing that screams ‘this is me.’Why?
Quite frankly, the last five years have been a whirlwind of its own. I’ll save the stories when the occasion on hand comes, but the tumultuous in a nutshell is that I didn’t have enough strength to put my thoughts to pen. Or, well, keyboard.
See, I remember when I was in primary school an Australian author Morris Gleitzman visited my school. You could already guess how ecstatic grade 5 Sid was. On his visit, the one thing that stuck with me was his explanation as to why he started his writing career so late in life. He knew right from the go that writing was what he was born to do with his life and how he couldn’t express enough the love he felt whenever he would write. But as he grew older, other elements took priority and his story-telling took the backseat in the drive to his future. He only published his first novel when he was 34.
On a level, this is what I’m currently relating too. I never felt any internal, nor external pressure to write. I guess I just always felt that when the time comes to really devote my time to writing, it would be the right time for a reason. The problem was that I didn’t have the ability to see it as a hobby. For it is the only thing I strive to do with my life, the perfectionist in me fortified for years and decided to focus on it when I was at a point in my life wherein I had enough time.
And of course, there is always enough time. Endless examples of talent across the earth prove this through how late in their lives their career took to take off. Morris Gleitzman is no exception to this. This is why I felt there was no pressure for me to act on my dream. However… while I’m on a gap year before going to university next year to study the very thing I’ve been writing about for the last hour, this is just the laziness and self-loathing taking over at this point.
I thought that after getting out the rut that is high school things would get better. For a moment, it was. but i’m afraid the cycle never ends for me; momentary happiness, and then I hit rock bottom again. It was undoubtedly a pain to experience this all throughout my schooling, because I felt like i could never have a moment to myself to process how to work through my struggles in between my demanding senior years and the COVID-19 period.
And no, I don’t think I’ll ever talk about COVID on this 'blog' at all. That’s a whole other... thing... in itself.
Anyways, now that high schools over and i chose to take a year off, I’ve had a lot more time to work on my health. Physical. Mental. Emotional. You name it. I suppose that’s been the silver lining to the loneliness I’m experiencing this year. The loudness is no more. I have less expectations that were expected of me. I have little to no friends left in my life to converse with. And at nineteen, I don’t know what will become of me when I reach my twenties.
Part of me wishes I had written more during high school. Only for me, not for anyone else. But instances I had of hope were crushed time and time again, and instead of building my resilience, it only put me off from following my dreams.
In Year 6, my friend of the time and I started writing on Wattpad (ha ha…) for fun. She ended up getting over ten thousand reads on her story, mine barely reached a hundred.
In Year 7, the head English teachers all chose a story that was written by a student from each english class to be shown off for the cohort to read. Alas, my story wasn’t chosen.
In Year 8, I joined a short-story competition where we were challenged to write about something that matters in our life. I put every ounce of love and devotion to my story, hoping this was the big break for me. It didn’t win any prizes.
In Year 9, one of our units were anthologies. This one was the hardest blow for me. My group had to pick which story was the 'best one'... very subjective if you will, and should be shown off to the class. Mine wasn’t chosen. Then across the whole cohort, similar to Year seven, the English teachers selected their favourite story for us to read. We also had to vote on which one was the best, and the winning story would be presented to a prestigious publishing group. Of course, mine wasn’t voted for, and I missed out on an opportunity that would’ve meant a lot to me. Finally, for another English unit that year, we were to make a short film and write a manuscript and screenplay on a story written by anyone in our year level. …No one chose mine.
In Year 10, we had ‘who’s most likely to…’ awards at the end of the year. Two of the categories were most likely too ‘become an author’ and ‘publish a bestseller.’ Another girl in my class wiped out both of those awards as she too shared a love in literature and writing, and little miss nobody won ‘most likely to create a new invention.' I guess the glasses count for something.
In Year 11, yet again, I had to write another short story. However, this was for my literature class of a mere eight people. I adored my teacher and really looked up to him for his love of, well, literature, english, history and philosophy. I would go to him for advice and have open and honest conversations about my life and mental health. For my short story, which I had thought to be a catalyst to start writing again, he graded it a D. i got the lowest score in the class, and he had mentioned repeatedly how much he loved one girl’s work in particular, and how he showed other literature teachers across Victoria her work.
In year 12, I gave up. I felt any happiness that would linger while writing decimate. Maybe because it was VCE, and I knew I would no longer get the same A’s and B’s across my work in comparison to those who didn’t feel any passion towards writing essays or analysis pieces like I did, but would excel purely because they had an edge on tutoring or paid assistance.
The accumulation of these shortcomings have stained my mind because of how much I care about my work. Maybe it was just the feeling of validation… needing something to prove. And admittedly, I didn’t, and to an extent, still don’t have the resilience to push aside my failures and continue to work towards where I want to be. Even the occasional reminder that Elvis failed music while he was in school couldn’t get me to look forward.
On top of these feelings, my own mental health problems and external factors of life has most definitely brought down my mojo for writing.
But ironically, through a strange sense of empirical realisation juxtaposed with tiredness in the four walls I call my bedroom, spinning from the booze, this is exactly what I need to do.Write for myself; my experiences.
my thoughts. my life.
my past. my present.my future.
For anyone to see if they wish to choose, and learn from my experiences, or share their own.
there is more of me to come.
