12 Months Ago I Wasn’t a Writer and Now I’m a Published Author
And I didn’t even have to sell my soul to sell my writing!
Wow! This is my first official blog in my newsletter. If you’d like to hear me read this in my own voice, then click here: (6 minutes)
This is a slightly updated version as when you read on I have included a poem for you at the end and a chance to listen to me perform it too!
5 minute read
Just do it! The well known phrase from Nike probably trying to encourage you to just buy their merchandise. I’ve always been a bit more of an Adidas fan myself; my feet never really fit into Nike shoes. My feet, like me never really fit. Never really fit into my existence; the expectations, the programmes, the persona and the image. Today I’m taking the phrase ‘just do it’ to apply to my writing. I am actually sitting down to write what will be the first of many blogs, articles, stories, poems — whatever. It has taken me forever to get to this stage.
I am a writer and I always have been; since I was a child. Nobody told me I was a writer, I didn’t tell myself and the option was never really out there. I loved writing in school and I still have some of my English books from secondary school up in the loft. One of my English teachers read a piece of my work and commented in red pen (as teachers did back then) that I could earn money writing like this! How? Becoming an author never occurred to me and the only occupation I could think of where you earned money writing was being a journalist. That was my exposure.
I remember doing work experience at a local newspaper. I got to shadow a journalist and write a tiny article. I can’t even remember what it was about but I remember that it didn’t really light me up. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t expecting to be the next Lois Lane (my only example of a journalist and she was white so that role couldn’t apply to me) but whilst I enjoyed being in a real newspaper office, I didn’t find it particularly creative. And I didn’t fit.
I think I stopped writing creatively when I left secondary school and went to Sixth Form. I didn’t study English at A level so in my head that was it. I didn’t write because I never thought to do it for fun and because I didn’t write, I no longer felt I really could. Until not too long ago.
Remember how I mentioned that my feet never really fit into Nikes? Well I tried to make them fit. I tried to make my feet small, I tried lots of different sizes, different styles, tried to stretch them out with newspaper and they still didn’t feel comfortable. At times they were bearable but hardly that perfect Cinderella fit. Reflects my life really and decisions I’ve made. My mum was a nurse and when I was little I wanted to be a nurse. I adored my mum and wanted to be like her and be loved by everyone the way she was. I was really clever at school though. I could read before I’d started school, read every single book in the whole school before I finished the Infants (aged seven) and in the Juniors I was in a class with children two years older than me.
But as Uncle Ben warned, with great powers come great responsibility. And with great intelligence comes great expectations. So being a nurse wasn’t good enough. I wanted to be a doctor; a paediatrician in fact because I was pretty good with children. This fit beautifully with the programme; the image the family wanted to present. Unfortunately, attending a comprehensive school didn’t allow for such high expectations. I wasn’t allowed to take the three sciences needed to pursue a career in medicine because we could only pick one or two from each column for our options (rigid much?).
And, that was it. That was the end of that idea. Career advice was shocking back then and to be honest no one expected a black girl from a working class council estate to amount to much, despite having consistently great grades. I never thought to pick up the extra GCSE at college. So I downgraded and aspired to become a pharmacist (no offence). That was still medicine, right? I was still kind of fitting the mould. It was only like going from Air Jordans to Air Max. But Nike doesn’t fit me!
So, during Sixth Form, I changed career aspirations again; a teacher, a respectable vocation and one that stuck. My toes were still a bit tight though. But no wriggle room because in my late teens it happened. The single game changer that stumped me. Flatlined. Like a finger snap from Thanos. And so my writing abandoned me or I abandoned it because to be honest, after what happened, it was all I could do to breathe in and out — anything else was a bonus.
Nothing prepared me for that single event that halted my authentic expression. Nothing prepares you for a bereavement and this was a major one. I’m not quite ready to write about it yet but one day I will be. I am one step closer because I have chosen to write.
I have my Adidas now, quite a few pairs actually. And I’ve found where I fit, comfortably. Not too comfortably because change is both natural and certain and change is growth: transformation. What loss did I experience? When exactly did I start writing and why? Why have I just decided to share my journey? Don’t worry, I won’t leave you hanging reader. More coming soon. Thanks for journeying with me. It’s good to know I’m not flying solo.
More from me here including a FREEBIE!
The takeaway: You think you can’t write? That you didn’t have the opportunity? That there’s no space for your voice? Let me show you how to destroy those limiting beliefs like an ‘extinction level event’. If I can, you can. Look, I really did do it…
Warrior Wisdom Sun: Poems on battle, lessons and liberation
Buy Warrior Wisdom Sun: Poems on battle, lessons and liberation by Elliott, Sarah from Amazon's Fiction Books Store…www.amazon.co.uk
Listen to a poem from the book here:
Life gets in the way
That’s what we
Always say
When we do not
Reach a dream
And our passions
Always seem
So far beyond our reach
If someone could
Just teach
Us we do have a choice
To just be and
Own our voice
We would take
A risk and see
Our dreams
Could be reality.
© 2022 Sarah Elliott
Please tell me:
Next time: 5 Ways in Which You Are Already a Writer!