A million stories inside my head; but too weak to pick up a pencil

This post is part of the The Who Said You Can’t Be A Writer Blog Tour The tour was created to inspire and remind writers that their inner desire to be an author is the most important thing that they have. The 10 bloggers participating in the tour each share a time when they have been told they couldn’t be writers, whether they were told by others, or they had trouble believing it for themselves, and how they overcame it. To sign­up and hear the other stories head to www.lovelesswriting.com/

Writing is easy, right? Ok I'm not talking about writing a novel, anyone who's ever tried knows it isn't. What I'm talking about is the physical act of writing, of putting pen to paper.

Five year old kids can do it. Ninety-five year olds can do it.

So what would you do if you suddenly couldn't write a word? Worse still you couldn't read either.  

That’s what happened to me.

I was bed bound for six years with ME a.k.a. chronic fatigue syndrome. Don't be fooled by the name, it's not just feeling tired. 

I was too ill to do anything apart from lay in a darkened room, 24/7. 

I went from reading anything and everything to being too ill to focus on a page of writing. It just looked like black and white lines.

I couldn't watch TV or listen to music either. It meant there were no distractions, no escape; just pain, fatigue and frustration. Of all three the frustration was the worst.

I felt trapped in my body and the only escape I had was my imagination. ​

​My way to escape

I used to lie in bed imagining a different life, a life that was far more exciting.

It was too painful to imagine the things I wanted to do, so I created characters, people who could travel the world, fall in love and live the life that I wanted.

These characters took on lives of their own, they had their own stories and adventures and without realising it I started to write whole books in my head.

All stories start out as an idea in the writer's head. A scene, a character, maybe a vague idea of a plot and then they put it down onto paper (or electronic screen).

​What happens when a writer can't write?

I had all these ideas, all these potential books inside my brain but I couldn’t write a single one of them down.

Instead of getting  frustrated and giving up I found a way to keep going. 
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I might not have been able to hold a pen or look at a computer screen but that didn't stop the stories from coming to me. 

I decided if I couldn't write them down I would remember them, hoping that one day I would be well enough to do something more.
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Why bother?

Giving up wasn’t an option. 

The stories were my life line. I escaped into them when the pain was at its worst. I lost myself in my imagination. It was the only relief I had.

It was only for limited periods during the day. I had so little energy that if I concentrated on anything too long, even my own thoughts, I got bad headaches and felt terrible. It was torture having to limit my only source of happiness.

During those brief periods I felt like I came alive.
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My secret ambition

I knew nothing of character arcs, motivations, plot points or dialogue. I was eighteen and had never taken a creative writing class, I was just figuring it out as I went along.

It awoke a desire in me that I had kept buried for so long: my desire to be a writer.

Ever since I was little and discovered my local library, I've wanted to write my own books.

​I never really imagined it was possible. I didn't think being a writer was a "real" job.

Now I had the time to dream and dreaming created a flicker of hope, of possibility.
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If I couldn't write, how did I do it?

Certain scenes, my favourite ones, I came back to and relived again and again.

I played them over and over in my head, committing them to memory. 

I would forget bits and then rework them, revising in my mind, changing and tweaking the parts that didn’t work.

It’s exactly the same process I now go through on paper but in all honesty there was a depth and magic to doing it all in my head that I can no longer capture in quite the same way.
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Finally I started to get better

It's taken ten years but I am now much better that I was - as you can tell by the fact that this is written down for you to read and not floating about in my imagination.

My health is slowly recovering and I’ve been able to start to write. At first it was just a few sentences at a time, letters to friends, blog posts, virtual adventures for other bed bound people.

​But still my stories stayed in my head.

I was scared to start. I didn’t know how.
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All my characters were waiting for me but it felt like a daunting task. ​Like transcribing all your favourite novels.

​The gift of NaNoWriMo

I discovered National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) by accident .

If you haven’t heard of it, NaNoWriMo is an international programme that encourages participants to write 50,000 words in 30 days. That’s 1,667 words a day! 

​I'm an ambitious optimist, so I decided to go for it. 

I liked that it had a set start and end date. A trial I could go for, then give up if it went horribly wrong.

Best of all? I never needed to admit to anyone that while my stories had been growing inside my head so had my desire to become a "real" writer.

Not an ‘I only write I secret’ author but a real honest to goodness, ‘I have books in a book shop’ author.
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And so it began...

On 1st November 2011 I sat down to my laptop and started to type and I haven’t stopped writing since.

I ended up doing two first draft novels during my first NaNoWriMo - 107,000 words!

One was brand new and the other was my favourite of all the stories stored in my head. It’s a story I still adore and one I want to come back to, to revise and publish.
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But I got distracted

Shortly after completing NaNoWriMo I came up with another idea for a story and its this one I’ve been working on for the past few years.

The act of physically committing my stories to paper is a joy I can only attempt to describe.

It’s like flying free but being able to touch down and share the amazing sights I’ve seen with the people I love. 
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My novel

I'm close to finishing my first full novel and I can’t wait to see what happens with it. 

​Here's a hint to what it's about...

Seeing is Believing

While I work on getting published I’m writing a serial story called Seeing is Believing. 

It’s a FREE story delivered via email in 200 words a week.

Seeing is Believing is a Crowd Sourced Story that means you, the reader, get an input in the plot. 

You vote on what happens next, the decisions the characters make and where the story is heading.
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What's it about?

As I'm a fantasy and sci-fi girl at heart, my story had to have a twist to it. 

Jess is losing her sight and with it her identity. After a series of unsettling incidents she starts to question everything. How can she be who she always was, when she can no longer trust what's right in front of her?

I've never done anything like this before. I've no idea what's going to happen but that's part of the fun of being a reader and a writer. All I know is it's an adventure. I'd love you to be a part of it.  You can sign up here and receive the first instalment today.

Sign up for FREE

​My Lifeline and Yours...

My imagination saved me. It was my light in the dark and now it's the guiding light to my future. Writing is a deeply personal activity but if you're like me it's not a choice, it's a part of who you are. Don't ever let someone tell you you can't be a writer. Who are they to judge or decide your fate? It's your life and your choice. Be brave and don't let anything get in your way - even if that's being too weak to pick up a pencil.
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