one day a friend of mine in secondary school asked me to write a story. i wrote this shitty, larger than average paragraph of a story on that whatsapp chat with crappy twists and mediocre turns but turns out it was apparently a very entertaining read for my friend. She asked me to write her some more after that and i enjoyed it so i did. i found myself spending more and more time on these fictional stories about our friends and eventually i came to the conclusion that i might just have some kind of ability with this thing. eventually furthering on from that, i started getting cocky. every english language exam section B that came my way (Creative writing part of the test for my non UK friends), i scoffed at the option to merely 'describe an image'. how DARE they suggest i don't put my novel ready writing to use. i spit at the option. pew. anyway, my cockyness was warrented. i was killing that shit. 42/44 marks or something like that. light. its unfortunate that you can't see your gcse tests after they're done; i wrote a proper tearjerker trust me you would have loved it i promise. (i definitely do not promise, i borderline know for a fact that it was mid at best. good for a 16 year old though maybe. maybe.)

 

anyway a heartbreak and some deep dark despairs later, i turned to poetry. poetry is where i really started to see the art in writing; the freedom it comes with. Poetry to me is painting with words. it felt like, and probably was, my first real forray into true creativity. i would spend ages trying to perfect whatever it was that i was writing. staying up until 4am, 5am trying to wholly convey whatever it was that i was feeling. i would be lying if i said i wasn't aiming too high for quality though; i say that to say i don't know if the pursuit for objective perfection (which i definitely did not obtain anyway) hindered the extent of purity in my expression. the argument could be made though that the root of that pursuit is inherently tied to the intensity of the emotion itself. eh, idk. and if i don't know, who knows. God. maybe. anyway, all of that said, i didn't write poetry often. only when I was truly in the absolute gutter, the truest of trenches did i write a poem. most of them were pretty mid but occasionally there'd be a banger. one of them i will always be proud of is called 'Philippe Petit', named after a French artist who walked between things. look him up, cool guy. I'll post that on here probably very soon.

 

what really took my writing to another level though was my snapchat private story with my closest friends from school, cribs. MTV Cribs: roro's crib🤠 held a truly special place in my heart and life. ah there's plenty lore to go around with regards to cribs but i'll stay on topic. it ran from 2018-2024 and one defining aspect of it that got me to the point im at today, not just with writing but with life as a whole, was the extreme extent to which i could be write vunerably. almost every night i would run through what kind of day i had and where i was at in that moment at the end of it. you won't be at all surprised to know that i was, 99% of the time, in the bin mentally. i spent hours writing out and meticulously breaking down my thoughts and emotions; paragraphs and paragraphs of pure introspection all in the name of trying to understand and better myself. part of the reason they'd take so long was because i was trying to make sure it made sense to the readers, not just me, and you probably don't need me to tell you how difficult mental illness can be to sufficiently describe let alone analyse extensively. it would get pretty heavy. it's probably important to note also that the 'readers' in question here were people i was incredibly close with, which probably has the biggest impact on my writing style being what it is, what you're reading right now; a personal tone which feels like im talking to you. if you know how i talk in person, you can probably hear my voice in your head as you're reading this. anyway, yeah doing that as often as i did it, my prose writing ability was forged. among some probably detrimental side-effects from being too introspective. so focused on my inner world that i in turn neglected the outer world and my place in it. resulting in my sense of self being thrown when inevitably confronted by what's real. by living. the question then becomes: did i get closer to understanding myself or did i get further away?

bofum.

 

anyway, yeah aside from some philosophy stuff i wrote (which was really only a few pages in a book i've long forgotten so it counts as much as a 10% chance on rain on the weather app), that is the entirety of my writing origin story. here we are now. i had thought of doing this way before but didn't think it was worth it. however, the monthly newsletters have been getting real good feedback so i thought why not? and yes, here we are now. hope you enjoyed this and hope you enjoy what's to come.