Floated Away

I couldn’t tell you the first thing I wrote, because I was too young to remember, but one of the first projects I remember writing, was my own story called “Floated Away”. I think I was about seven or eight when I wrote this, back in the late 90’s or early 2000’s. I don’t know why I wrote it, but I do remember putting it all together.

Seeing as I was a small child, and it was the turn of the Millennium, computers, with Microsoft Word and the internet, just wasn’t a thing available to me. In school, we were all taken down as a class to the computer room, on occasion, but it was only used for schoolwork and to use to the programme Paint.

I wrote my stories down the old-fashioned way, with a pen and paper, until I got my own computer when I was fifteen years old, and this project was no exception. I remember writing with large lettering, which I was always praised for in school, but this story was plainly just for me to enjoy. I drew little pictures next to my writing, which I still do today with my poetry books. I just hope my drawings have improved a little bit since then, but maybe not much!

I would write all my stories in notepads I had collected, from gift shops I visited when I went to attractions. They all had different designs, patterns, and thickness, which I still have today, all safe inside the draw under my bed. I vividly remember writing “Floated Away”, inside a spiral notepad, that was made from a scratchy material, which was bright green. It amazes me the little details you remember as a child.

I was on holiday in a caravan when I wrote the story, sitting at the dining table with coloured pencils and pens spread across the surface. The story I wrote, was about two young girls, the same age as I was at the time, because obviously I related to them more at that age. The two girls were on holiday too, I think, I can’t be sure, but it would have been the most plausible thing as I was on holiday at the time. The girls were at a beach, where they were playing out in the sea, upon a raft or Lilo or something, the details are foggy. But the girls were playing around in the water, when they both realised that they have been cast off into the sea and can’t get back to land, hence the title, “Floated Away.” I remember the raft being a big part of the story, but I can’t remember if they built it or found it or were already on it.

I know that when I was a child, and I still do now if I’m not careful, tend to add to many descriptive words to my stories, which made me sound very dramatic, especially from a child’s mouth. At school it worked, because you were praised for how many nouns, adjectives, and verbs you used and had to reach a certain quota to get full marks, in the real word, that’s not really the case. Less is often more, which I soon found out!

To describe the ocean, I would talk about it in detail, using every blue sounding word you could think of. The best line from the story, which still makes me laugh today, was when I talked about how one of the girls felt.

“She felt as though all the happiness that had ever happened to her, had just washed away from her veins and entered the sea.”

Still to this day, I laugh at how dramatically I write, trying to stop myself from doing this.

After I wrote, with my finest pen, in my best handwriting. I would always draw colourful borders around my work, and in this case, little illustrations of the two girls riding on the raft. I remember filling the notebook up and my mum being so proud. I’ve always written stories since I learnt how to write. I’m glad that I can follow my journey, right up to now, where I now write on Notes on my iPhone then transfer them to Microsoft Word. I may not write by hand very often now, but the memories crammed into these notebooks, shows that I’ve always been passionate about writing.

I sit here today with a master’s degree in creative writing, having self-published books and been part of books published through collaborations. I write poetry for groups, perform to audiences, and as I turn thirty this year, I think to myself, I have much left to achieve but I am grateful for how I started out. It’s like all happiness that ever happened to me is being whisked away from my veins and into the world.