A big adventure…

Hello and welcome to my very first blog. In it, I’ll outline my reasons for writing it and why it’s taken me so long to actually post. You might even get to know a little bit about me. By nature I’m not overly keen on sharing my views to those who don’t want to hear them, but in equal measure I’m quite opinionated. So let’s see how this goes.
In case the name of my blog hasn’t given you an inclination, I’ve always loved to read. I crave the places you can go, the people you can meet, the experiences you can have. All from sitting in a cosy armchair with a cup of tea. I don’t remember the name of the book that first captured my imagination. But I remember how it made me feel. That impulse to keep reading past my bed time, that I was part of the adventure, that I had lived in part of someone else’s life. It was addictive and sparked my reading habits for the rest of my life.
That feeling when I read a great book is something that makes me truly believe Carl Sagan, that “books are proof that humans are capable of working magic”, and growing up with Harry, Hermione and Dumbledore god damn I want to do magic. For me, a good book is one full of imagery, deals with emotions and inspires creativity. I like the clichés of good and bad, heroes winning and a bit of a love triangle, what can I say? At heart I’m a bit of a romantic.
Which brings me on to why I’m writing this blog. My entire adult life I’ve wanted to write. All my years of reading has left me with such an imagination full of untold stories just waiting to escape. But self-doubt, lack of writing practice and general laziness has them holed up in a dungeon worthy Morath in the Throne of Glass series. A blog seemed like a great way to say some of the things I have rattling around my head and practice my writing.
Writing is an extremely personal activity and as someone who takes criticisms to heart the anxiety of how what I write will be received increases. However I’m fast approaching my 30th birthday and getting published (in any way) has been sat on my bucket list since I was 17. Setting realistic targets is something that I’ve worked with people around for years but never seem to be able to do myself. Until now. I’m amending my goal to “trying” to get published. The reason for this is my lack of confidence in my ability will not let me write for fear my goal is too unachievable. On some level I figure that if it’s never going to happen, then I don’t need to make myself vulnerable by trying. I consider myself to be an intelligent person, and know that by not trying I’ll never reach my goal but that vulnerability is frightening.
We’re in a world full of keyboard warriors and negative nellies. Criticism is no longer constructive, but a way to make ourselves feel better by putting others down. One can feel that this is true away from the computer or phone as well. Why would you willingly invite this onto yourself? Well luckily I’ve found a corner of the internet that seems to be nothing but supportive. A social networking site for book lovers, Listy is wonderful (go check it out). Joining this site has increased my desire to read and branch out to other genres and makes me feel that anything I write, even if it’s rubbish, will not be trashed. It’s a confidence boosting environment, full of people aiming for their own targets.
I hope that with practice writing this blog will become second nature, that people will benefit from what I write and I can finally put my ideas in black and white. It’ll be small steps, as I set up my wordpress account several weeks ago and it’s taken this long to write anything. As always, I’m full of ideas of what to write and for now I’ll use this space to write about whatever comes to mind.

But one day, thanks to this blog, I might have written something as poignant as Margaret Atwood, or as funny as Graeme C. Simsion or even, just maybe something magical as Rowling. I’m not wanting to be rich, or a household name. But just to have written something that others enjoyed, to share a story that might inspire new writers, that would be an awfully big adventure.