This piece was an experimental piece that I was working on, and reading it back (I forgot it even existed), reminds me of how much my mental health was worse off when I wrote it. It laid my thoughts and feelings bare, and I think that’s why I never submitted it. If you don’t quite understand, hit Ctrl + A.

I love writing. It’s my passion. The ability to spring forth magic from my mind to a page got me through my childhood. People have many things that interest them that they are good at and writing is that special thing for me. I was good at maths, but I hated English, and yet it turned out that my creative writing was my strongest talent. A lot of the teachers loved my writing and I learned how I could make other people happy while making myself happy.

But I was average at comprehension. Because I moved around so much as a child, I didn’t have foundations for grammar. I could spell fine but I didn’t understand the exceptions to the grammar rules and so I couldn’t apply them properly. And people have different tastes. One teacher told me my writing was not sophisticated enough. Another told me my writing was too sophisticated. And the last told me my writing was perfect.

People often ask me how I do it, how do I write? But I don’t know how to properly explain it to them. It’s just something that I love to do. A scene or a character sometimes just comes into my head and it suddenly explodes into a story, it blooms, and flourishes and my fingers itch to write the story. And then I get carried away. I get lost in this gorgeous world that is blossoming inside of my head. The bloom presses right against my skull and releases euphoria within me, racking my brain and whining until I get the words on paper.

I do it to escape. All of the hurt that I have, I get my justice from fictional worlds. I’m safe there and no one can hurt me. I get to choose who is safe and who gets hurt there. I am in control in these places I design.

I’m studying my craft now. I want to become a better writer and fulfil my dream of becoming an ‘Author’. I’m most of the way through my degree and I have learnt so much. There is so much more to the writing industry than I thought there would be. There are many different topics to cover and my grades are good.

The first year was good, but it wasn’t what I thought it was. They keep drilling into my head “it’s about connections” and it’s making me wonder if that means my work has little worth if I don’t have any friends. It’s been difficult. I still have no friends and I still don’t remember how to connect with other people. I’m better than I used to be, but I still feel like everyone leaves eventually and so what’s the point? How am I meant to build a network when I don’t even know how to make friends?

The second-year subjects are definitely more theory based. I didn’t think there would be so much theory around something that I just create from the heart and mind. I didn’t realise people thought so much about what they write. Thinking about genre, voice, tone and length and style… I’d never thought about it before. Before I started studying writing at university, I’ve never sat down to write with any specific elements of writing in mind. I’m finding it difficult to do so. But that’s part of the learning process.

It’s really hard. I don’t know why I have to sit down and choose a genre. My stories have always just moulded themselves. I breathe life into the paper, I don’t create it in a test tube. I don’t understand. They want me to think outside of the box, but they want me to follow the rules. Who creates the rules? Why should I abide by them? How can I do anything unique without bending the rules? Who decides that it’s unique? I have to pick an audience? I have to pick a genre? How do I create my own writing if I have to design it based on what others want?

There is so much to consider when I write now. I didn’t think about it before but coming to the end of my second year I realise the writing is a lot more complicated than just pouring out words from inside as they come. I have to think about what people want to read. I have to think about what is okay to write about. I have to think about what I like to read. I have to think about what is popular. I have to think about what is appropriate for different audiences. There are a lot of discussions and debates about what’s being written today.

I see shackles on my wrists. There are shackles and chains on them whenever I sit down to write. I can see them dangling down and disappearing somewhere under the desk. They’re so heavy. When I move my head too quickly, I can hear the rattling in my head. It’s a clinking that appears gentle and yet it makes my insides churn and my fingers hurt. It feels like I have arthritis.

I love writing. If I want to be a professional writer then I need to develop as one. I think I am still unsure as to which field especially I would like to write in but I’m getting a taste of different styles of writing: newswriting, fiction, non-fiction, script-writing, and poetry etc. I like to dabble a little bit in all of them but I’m definitely at home with fiction. It’s easy to make things up.

I blink back the tears as I try to think about when writing was fun. I think about how it let me escape and remember the joys of building other worlds from the ground up, of creating safe spaces. But I don’t feel that here. Why isn’t it the same? Why am I doing the same thing and yet I feel so strangled?