Passing The Baton Along The Journey

We all love writing, right?

Maybe we even aspire for greater things for ourselves in life too, such as turning what we write about into books that (hopefully) flourish and earn over time.

Well, I'll admit it, I haven't yet reached that point. I already have two books published on Amazon at the moment which are:

1. The Short Sight Of Fear. (1.64/$2.00)
2. A Collection Of Flash Fiction Shorts (£2.00/$2.44)

I joined Vocal a little over two years ago now, and Medium, a few months later after starting to enjoy writing once again.

A staggering thirty-four-year writing hiatus.

Nic Janz (a writer and coach over on Medium) spoke in her article (published in The Writing Cooperative, 5th September 2022) and said, "it’s common to get bogged down by other aspects of life. Some writers might take breaks due to their day job or school holidays. Others stop because they feel frustrated or they’re unclear about what they want to say. In order to get back into writing after a long hiatus, identify what stopped you in the first place."

Well, I have to say that I tend to agree with her too.

If you have ever written but suddenly stopped then there must be something that got in your way at some point along your journey through time.

This was certainly true for me. I began my journey through writing when I was around eleven years of age. Not because someone told me what I should do but, because it was a tool that I discovered at the time which I found helpful to me after the sudden death of my dad. The art of writing was a way that provided comfort to me at a time when I most needed it. Writing gave me a way of 'escaping reality,' and distracting me from the current hurtful situation I was facing (even if it was only for a temporary moment) it helped me to find strength and understanding that I didn't possess up until then.

Catharsis is an emotional release. 'According to psychoanalytic theory, this emotional release is linked to a need to relieve unconscious conflicts. For example, experiencing stress over a work-related situation may cause feelings of frustration and tension.'

You can choose to read more about this painful moment in time through my article below:

But as the years passed by, writing taught me how to cope with things that came to challenge me, however, when I chose to embark upon psychiatric nurse training everything changed - my writing stopped.

Not because I suddenly hated doing it but because my newfound career path altered my focus on what writing was about. Writing for me over the next three decades of nursing care changed that focus on writing from creative, to healthcare & professional article reading.

32 years after having stopped writing for fun and creativity, the sudden damage caused by the Covid epidemic in 2020 affected me physically and I needed to quit working altogether.

As my physical health began to improve slightly, I discovered once again that writing was calling me back.

So that's just what I did.

I picked up from where I left off and picked up the writing therapy that I left behind all those years earlier.

I love writing once more, being able to conjure up creatively, helps to strengthen my emotional side of life (not least the inability to work any longer) which in turn then supports me in dealing with my physical disabilities going forwards.

I have always welcomed the challenges that Vocal continues to churn out, as they can sometimes just provide enough of a leash with which to get those creative juices course through my imagination and enable me to travel along that safe and imaginary world of make-believe.

Nothing more refreshing and exacting at the moment is one of Vocal's latest pieces for me is this challenge:

Granted though, with all of these writing competitions to boot, I am discovering some actual daily trials in locating time to sit down and focus on the process of finishing my science-fiction novel too - let's simply say that this one, well, it's a work in progress...

Even if all that were not enough to fill my days (hmm, and nights) with, I also go and task myself with owning and running two popular publications over on the Medium platform too.

Vocal opened up all these thoughts and aspirations to pick up and continue where I left with writing so many long years ago...