The A Side ✔

17- How My Writing Voice Came Back

Oh the joys of writer's block, especially after withdrawing from a creative writing undergraduate degree due to a lack of support for your mental health needs. I had dreamt about this particular campus for years and wanted to have that freedom to run around the circles of the countryside for acres on end. There are moments over the last year or so that I've missed that setting to write in. One section was filled with a large pond and a huge community of birds and ducks that liked to watch you from the comfort of the still waters as you sat down with a notebook and pen to write.

My desk now is literally my old laptop propped up on my lap with sore knees to show for afterward. I have one of those fold-up wooden desks that my mum got for me as a present but if my cats are with me on the bed, they don't like it near them. Google docs are my friend as I can access everything and anything. I used to enjoy typing away some new story ideas when commuting or descriptions of potential characters that may feature in a future project. Those were the golden times.

So, how did my voice come back? It was all thanks to the world of TikTok. Something that wasn't around when I first joined Wattpad a decade ago. In all the months of writing and book reviewing, I had never once shown my face to the world until last year and managed to connect with readers and authors. For 12 days of filming a content project that I did last Christmas, one of those videos was about my writing projects and goals for this year. Even though it was my least watched video of the ones I created, it still got me thinking that maybe I could try writing again. After all, it had helped me at some points during my life first with my mum and then communicating better in my years of schooling.

Some of my original projects are still live on this Wattpad page including You and Me, which to this day, I have stopped mentioning much about publicly as my writing tastes and ideas have changed so much since the age of 15. Letter and diary writing are strong interests that I still enjoy writing from the POV of. In real life outside of Wattpad, I used to keep a diary in which I would spill the secrets to just about anything that was on my mind with names of real people and all included. My first crush, family members, classmates, everything was revealed and it is so cringy to look back at my shoddy handwriting and how critical I was of others.

You and Me if anything gave me the confidence to say that 'Hey writing does change lives!' and that feeling remains even now 8 years later from the novella being featured on the Wattpad front page to millions of users. Could I end up with a publishing deal one day? My reply is never say never. Not with that project but something else should all go well? Absolutely. I visit bookshops all the time and every author I believe has had that what-if moment.

If I was to focus on expanding my ideas and creating longer projects that are relatable and don't follow the popular trends, then I will do so. There is that writing trap where you feel forced to work on something that you feel no joy or passion with and as we all know, that can end terribly. I've been there before. All of my main characters have the same birthday as me: the 14th of July. I don't do that on purpose, it's just a favorite habit of mine. There may be a project idea about that date but there are no notes on that just now. There are many things that need to be tackled one by one if I feel there is a future for them on Wattpad and for my main writing portfolio.

Non-fiction is a lot easier than fiction since over time with the diaries and letter writing, my openness to being reflective and self-aware has made me a better person. Every confrontation and awkward moment I would cry and lock away in my room for hours. That isn't much of a case anymore. I still have feelings but I can work out who to turn to such as a work colleague or one of my parents if they can help and 99% of the time, they will.

I look forward to being Scarlett/Alice again and meeting new readers young and old from wherever in the world they may be from. I hope that what I write can help raise awareness of something or someone.