Making friends with the writer within me

For years I have shunned her. Pretended she wasn't there. The writer within me. Embarrassed to call myself a writer because I felt like a fraud if I did. Yet, she has always been me; and I have always been her. The writer. 

I was born to write. This is not a bold statement. It is the plain truth. A simple fact. My earliest memories are of me writing. Writing stories in my head as I watched the world unfold. Singing my stories at the top of my lungs as I stood on the compost bin in the corner of our back yard, the autumn leaves falling to the ground around me. Acting out my plays on 'the stage' - our front porch - a thick concrete platform raised to look out at the span of our front yard and the passing cars. Writing in my little spiral notebook on the swing, the sun warming my eyelids. Fully engrossed in my writing as I sat on a tiny chair randomly placed in the front yard under a tree. Writing furiously in my exercise book as it poured out of me under the covers of my bed with my torch as my only light. Writing in the heat of the tent, which Mum and Dad had set up in the back yard. Writing with delight in the privacy of the top level of our cubby house. Writing stories in my head as I fell asleep at night. Typing up my poems, first on Mum's typewriter and then later on our Acorn computer. Waking from my dreams, inspired, grabbing a notebook from my bedside table and, regardless of the hour, writing out whatever was in my head again and again and again - as a small child, as a teenager, as a young woman and now. I was always writing. I am always writing. I am a writer.

As a young kid I wrote stories about ghosts, death, murder, mystery and UFOs. My parents and siblings couldn't understand how their cheeky, happy, fun-loving young girl could have such a fascination with such darkness, such ugliness in the world. These were also the stories I loved to read. An insatiable young reader, I could not get enough of what Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden, Agatha Christie, Dad's copies of The Reader's Digest and the National Geographic, the UFO books, the books about astral travelling, the books about murder, the newspaper and the novel Jaws had in store for me. If I wasn't writing, I was reading. For me they have always been inseparable. When you write, you read. When you read you write. My reading as a young child wasn't all bleak, I loved the library's copies of Tin Tin, my birthday books - Snoopy, Fred Basset and Garfield. I also loved my sister's Archie comics. But I did not like her Sweet Valley High books. I preferred Virginia Andrew's sad tale of The Flowers in the Attic. 

We lived just outside a small country town. In a house on the corner of a gravelled avenue, with the river a short bike ride away. I wrote many stories on the bank of that river under an old rickety bridge. That bridge once became the greatest source of worry about my writing for my parents. I was around 11 when Mum pulled me aside to have a serious conversation. Immediately, I could tell something was wrong looking at Mum's stern face as she took me into my parent's bedroom to have a private conversation with me. My mind was racing as we walked in and I sat on the bed as she shut the door. What thing was I in trouble for this time? What had she found out? It could have been a number of things. I was shocked by the gentleness and concern of Mum's voice as she asked me about a piece I had written. The relief was enormous, I was not in trouble (this time). Mum was just worried about me.

She was asking about a piece I had written for school. My teacher had rung her. Worried. The piece was about a young girl who, tormented by life, hung herself on a rickety old bridge that crosses a river. Mum was really concerned. At the time, I couldn't understand why. 'It's just a story,' I told her, laughing. And it was. It was simply something that fell out of my head. A story I wrote. Nothing more. Mum took some convincing, but was relieved when she finally came around to see it for what it was. She then shared with me a family secret which she had not told me before, because I was too young. A piece of my family's history. Dad's mother. My Grandmother. Tormented by the war. Mentally unwell. Hung herself. In her garage. In Albury. I was shocked. I had never met my Grandmother, she died before I was born. As did my Grandfather, Dad's dad. But they always felt special to me. A mystery. Then, I was mad. How could Mum and Dad not tell me this before? I would never have written that story had I known this. My story must have been so painful for Dad to read. How horrible for him. And it was in this moment that my resolve for the truth was born. No secrets. Ever.

Except for the secret of self. As I grew up from a young girl into a teenager I learnt, painfully, that to be accepted there were things you should not say, and a way you had to act. Pretending. Surviving. Or risk being deemed odd, crazy or too intense. My creative writing became a place I could go, and be the real me. The me hiding in the centre of the maze. The maze I had to create around me, in order to be acceptable in this world. A maze of pretence, of social norms and protective walls. My writing became very private. When rarely shared, I felt naked. Exposed. Vulnerable.

As a teenager I wrote passionate poems about unrequited love alongside the essays I had to write for school. Often I wrote poetry in the inside covers of my school text books if something came to me in class, or while doing my homework. This was an OK thing to do, since I was the only one to read the text books. Until the guy who turned up and became one of my best friends, started tutoring me in Year 12 Biology after he asked me to tutor him in English. The fringes of our friendship were already laced with sexual tension. He had a long term girlfriend, we were just friends - despite his family telling us on many occasions we were made for each other. We were just friends. Despite our feelings. One day, sitting lazily in the sun on my parent's back verandah, flirting between biology questions he casually grabbed my biology text book instead of his. My heart stopped as he discovered my poetry and read it. Most of it was about him. Although he was not named, I was sure he would know. Our friendship was deeper from that day forward, but as our story played out the heartache became too strong. And with a broken heart, I hid the writer within me a little deeper.

As a university student I wrote poetry about existential suffering alongside the analytical pieces I was writing for my degree. I discovered philosophy alongside literature at university, thanks to the most inspirational thinker who taught one of our literature classes. It was at this time that I discovered writing from the body. Writing from the Anima. The unconscious woman. Writing without the Apollonian form and structure generations had dictated on centuries of writing, since the fall of the matriarchy. I remember in second year uni, receiving criticism on a piece I had submitted for lack of form and structure. Ironically, the piece was about writing from the body, and in writing the piece, I had to be true to what I was writing about and actually produced the essay by writing from the body. Without form and structure. I had to explain this to my linguistics lecturer, post him marking the piece. He regraded it after our conversation. I walked away, please with the high distinction he gave me and with a shift in perception of how things work. Suddenly realising, for the first time, that teachers sometimes learn from their students. 

I started writing with freedom. Writing like I had never written before. The lecturers loved my writing. My classmates loved my writing. And then, perhaps I took it too far. I am not sure. I just remember, one day, walking up to my favourite lecturer's office and hearing her chatting to my linguistics lecturer. As I got closer to the half opened door I realised they were talking about me. I heard one of them say, 'I wonder what is going on. She has lost it as a writer.' And then the other replied. 'I know, her latest piece is terrible. She doesn't make sense anymore.' I turned and walked away. And with a broken heart, I hid the writer within me a little deeper.

I got through university. But no longer with a dream to be a writer. Or a teacher. 

Turning my back on her. I wrote for business. I wrote for my job. And although I wrote poetry and short stories as they continued to pour out of me, they were now just for personal consumption. My public writing was brochures, websites, ad campaigns and business cases. I began to change. I was no longer a writer, or so I thought. I was a marketer. A communication specialist. A manager of a team. For many years the bulk of my writing was for business purposes and it changed me as a writer.

I let her go as I had my children. And fooled myself into believing that I did not have to be a writer to be fulfilled in life. That my creations were my beautiful children. My success in life was my family. The writer was no longer needed. She became the void inside me. Not long after the birth of my second child, I stood in our back yard, the recycled bin beside me and collected all my writing from the past. I spent the hours my baby slept, shredding by hand the pieces from my past. Reducing them to tiny bits of paper and watching them fall into the bin. Broken and disjointed words. I only kept a few pieces that would not let me let them go.

But as those of you who have a writer inside you know. She cannot be silenced. She will not be still. 

One day, after presenting at a conference about digital branding. I started this blog. Because people asked me to share the ideas I had presented that day. A blog for sharing my ideas. I thought. A blog about brands. I thought. A safe place to be. But over time, my blog has become a place to share my writing. Not the poetry and short stories I collect in notebooks beside my bed or the pieces I write in the notebook I carry with me in my bag (incase, inspired on the train or in the car, or at work I have to write). They are still too private. But the pieces about the things that inspire me and the things that often start in my head as I slowly wake up, pouring out of me at the kitchen table as my family make their breakfast around me. Lost in the writing. Not being able to type it out fast enough. This blog has given me the confidence to believe in myself. And today, I am writing about me. The writer.

It has been an interesting journey getting here. I noticed a shift happening a year (and four blog posts) after I started writing my blog. I bravely began sharing poetry with my friends on Instagram and Facebook. A safe audience. A safe place. Sharing with friends who love me. And who will still love me. Despite my writing. The second piece I shared on 6 November 2016 was, ironically, about the writer within me waking up. I wasn't yet ready, at that time, to name her as a writer. So I called her my Gypsy soul. 

Good morning
my Gypsy soul
good to know you are still there

You lay dormant
in domestic bliss
sleeping while dishes were washed
floors vacuumed
and during the kid's 'sports run'

It is nice to have you back
to know you did not disappear
completely

You make me brave
think outside the square
do things I would never normally do

Wide awake during university
questioning the world
throwing out new ideas

I thought the mortgage killed you

Until you bumped into another
I felt you stir
and remembered what I liked about you

Gypsy soul
dancing in my toes
bubbling in my laughter
Hello