There’s something special that happens for some, when they first pick up a pen; Wiggles become words with enough power to change the world.

When I first started to write, when my wiggles first became words, I started to plan stories.

I’d received a writing set for my birthday which quickly became a favourite activity of mine. I would sit on my bed, typically with one or two of our cats, and I would come up with epic first lines which held clues for the tale, an introduction to the main characters, fill out a story board for the plot where each panel showed the key evolutions in order, ensuring there was a consistent tale with a decent peak… would be useful to have that set again now. Haha.

I wrote previously about a time when I wrote with a girl I met in Oswestry, Wales, at a beautiful waterfall camping site. Writing stories line by line and taking turns taught me the beauty of writing with others. My mom always made sure we had entertainment for long journeys and holidays – my thing was gel pens and notebooks, pencils and badass pencil topper erasers. I wrote a lot.

From about the same age, six years old, I read a lot of books on my own. I felt inspired often and enjoyed the tranquility of reading, again, with a cat.

I listened to a lot of music too and started to write lyrics although I soon grew away from lyrics and into poetry. I can’t sing to well but I can read aloud 😂

As I grew, I was blessed with an incredible education, so many opportunities to learn in every interaction. At school, at home, on our trips around the UK and abroad, I was always ready to see something new, to observe new details. I loved to learn. I liked to read encyclopedias about space and the sciences. F a s c i n a t i n g.

As I matured my writing did too and poetry was the emotional out I clung to. I learned to express complex emotions to cope with the turbulent aspects of life. When I was angry, sad, feeling self sacrificial, I would pick up my pens and express.

Line after line oozed out of me until the ink ran dry. I stopped writing my heart. I started to cope in more chaotic ways.

Life snowballed for years. I lived largely in a state of dissonance where my experience had become so full of extreme ups and downs with severe disparity between the lives lived, that I had an identity crisis. All of my writing was academic. I had to focus and succeed, to gain my degree, but I was pulled and aching, grieving for lost ideas, changed relationships. The ongoing struggle of supporting others in turbulent situations caused a strange added pressure.

I moved away from myself internally. I had moved to university a fair drive away from home and while away, life back home changed rapidly and drastically. When I visited ‘home’ it was all alien. My life started to feel surreal. I’d only been gone a little while and the experience wasn’t going to plan. This combined with a total shift in everything else while at university caused a collapse in identity.

Writing brought me back. I started to write again after therapy. I gained a friend who also loves to write, we create a lot together through this shared passion. I found my pen again. Words returned to deeper levels than the mind and enabled access to my core emotions. From there my imagination comes the wind, my heart a kite, and me the child rushing through the field.

I write because writing is my freedom.

At the begining, I mentioned about words becoming powerful enough to create change. The core of any change is awareness. Words give us the power to share and to express, to reveal what is actually going on beneath the mainstream tales. I hope to help raise the volume of others who need empowering and recognising.

Why do you write?

With love

OnceUnchained