So, due to last year being overwhelming with the divorce, I did not participate in Nanowrimo last year, after three consecutive years of reaching the 50,000 word goal. But I am back this year. I've immersed myself into writing again, working on the draft of "Edge of Glory" I will be publishing as the first installment of the series. I am currently posting chapters on Wattpad. Please check it out.
I'm a few days behind, but I am catching up with Preptober - the build up to Nanowrimo.
So here we are, on day one. "All about you."
I'm a 29-year old divorcee who has spent the last year of a massive life transition rediscovering my love for adoration for writing and life. Journalism grad turned high school janitor, who dreams of being a stay-at-home writer mom to my ten cats and giant dog, all of who keep me sane. I'm atheist, old school feminist, and shamelessly childfree. I don't want kids. Ever. I like my freedom, sleep and money. My nomadic heart is planning its next adventure as I enter my thirties.
I'm a rocker chick at heart but appreciate all music genres. Rock and roll is life though. I love going to concerts. It's where I forget everything but the music.
I live with severe chronic depression and PTSD resulting from a decade of child sexual abuse. This used to be the first thing I'd put into an "All About You" blurb, though over the years I've built my life up in other areas. While it still impacts my everyday living, it doesn't define who I am . My own choices do.
I also love, cooking, baking, gardening or anything craft. Basically, I thrive off creating. If I were to make a list of things that describe me, it would look a bit like this.
Day 2 - Why You Write
This is a loaded one. I write for many reasons. The art of the written word heals. It inspires, it permits emotional bleeding, and most of all for me, it means I still win.
Back in 2004, my abuser (my mother's ex-boyfriend) burned down our house months after being kicked out. I lost all my writing. I had several novels, poetry books, journals. Binders of writing from my entire life. It was merely a pile of ashes. I was 14, devastated and spiralled into a nearly fatal depression for a year in which I didn't write a word. I was numb. Emotionless to it all. To the loss, to the bullying at school, to how deep of a madness the years of abuse would have thrown me into otherwise. Ten years of sexual abuse towards me, watching my mother get beat, and then the house fire. I think I was afraid to feel. Terrified to let those emotions out.
A year later, I had turned 15, and was tiptoeing the edge of a mental and emotional breakdown. Then it happened. I don't remember what happened that day to make me snap. I don't remember much of anything except the moment I was sitting at the desk in my bedroom. I was staring between a razor and a blank notebook. I wanted to die. Just to end it right then and there.
But I didn't. I opened the notebook, picked up a pen, and just started writing it out. It didn't make much sense, it wasn't anything legible, but it was the emotional bleeding I'd needed to do so I didn't do a physical bloodletting to kill myself.
I write, because writing saved my life. It continues to do so. I write because it's the only way I know how to carry on when my life falls apart. It is the only way I know how to heal, how to vent, how to truly feel again when I become overwhelmed.
I write because suicide would be giving my abuser what he wanted. And I refuse to give it to him.
Over the years, I've been slowly rewriting my novels. My fantasy one was finished, though I am eventually going to go back and rework it. "Edge of Glory" was one of those books I lost in the fire. I've resurrected it from the wreckage. It's online now for readers to enjoy. I might not be a famous author, and I might never be, but I am a winner in small ways.
That's why I write.