From First Cringy Blog Post to Winning Prizes

Did you ever write F*** all over a page? Big, bright bold letters etched so hard onto the paper that they almost scored right through? Call it Eternal Anger of a Teenage Mind on a Spotless Page. I like to view that as my first foray into flash fiction. A lot said with the utmost brevity.

I'm not about to write about the diaries I have kept since childhood. I'm sure you kept many, too. I won't rattle on about the first piece of prose I was super proud of when I was 15; the one my English teacher showed all his colleagues because he liked it so much, then consequently lost. Yes, he LOST it! It was part of my GCSE (O'Levels then) portfolio and there were no copies. We didn't use computers then.

I won't tell you about the cringeworthy stories I scrawled as a teenager about boys and girls fancying each other and falling out. But oops, I just have. It's worth reflecting on our fledgling journeys into writing; what prompted you? Were you angry, sad, in love? Did you have secrets you longed to share but would feel mortified if you did - out loud? What was your first public piece? Were there many firsts?

Here is what I'll reveal: the time I had to stop working and my husband suggested I should write. Briefly, our family circumstances, plus my adverse menopause symptoms and brain fog, affected my mental health and my ability to cope. I had no idea what was going on with me, which made everything worse. My husband's patience, understanding, and belief in me offered opportunities I couldn't fritter away. He's my number one fan; what can I say?

At his suggestion, I started a blog because why not? Where else was I going to go with this? After years of no creative writing, this felt like the right place to start. There was one problem though: actual people might read it! So I turned myself inside out, marched towards the salt cellar, and prepared to pour it over my raw self.

First, bum on seat and get on with it

Having acquired a laptop, I sat in a trendy café that was bustling with life. Easy chatter permeated the atmosphere with infectious good humour and limitless optimism. The above-average cute factor of my dog thwarted my attempts at invisibility. This led to my attracting more attention to my quiet corner than I had bargained for. I didn't want to be that pitiful person in the corner with a laptop faking it, so here was where my story began….

I began to write. Just do it became more than a coffee cup slogan. It was a new beginning, and that's what I'd tell the world. I wrote about my belief that life - or my life - began there and then; at 50! Create your own marker - age, new location, marriage, divorce, empty nest - you choose. New beginnings don't disregard your wonderful family, education, driving licence, friends, or home; but they allow room for your POTENTIAL.

Being a reflective person, however, I was painfully aware of what I'd missed along my journey to 50. I regretted the missed opportunities, absence of confidence in myself, and procrastination; the latter probably emerging from the former, but that is another tale. This story touches on that:

Can I share one of my favourite quotes with you, in case it might help you?

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

- Eleanor Roosevelt

Realisation, not reinvention at 50

As I wrote my piece, I held a question in my mind: Why then, was this a beginning? Optimism underpinned my theory, like a new garment you wear for the feel-good factor, knowing that when you wear it, you can change the world.

Many people have achieved a great deal by age 50. Some have not. If, best-case scenario, you live to 100, then you have another 50 years to start again. You could fill in the gaps. Achieve as much as, or more, than you did in the first 50 years, minus the learning to walk, talk and potty etiquette stuff. I wrote all these thoughts and realisations down.

Procrastination had been the thorn in my side of my personal growth. In phase one of my life, a lack of confidence blighted me. I can't do that; others will do it better; too much effort or money required for something that could fail and blah blah blah. Boring with a capital 'B'. Now, I had this laptop and the promise of a fresh start.

Knowing what you want at 50

You must have heard many motivational speakers discuss finding your passion, your spark, the thing you would engage in even if no one paid you to do it. I'll bet you enjoy tons of stuff but wouldn't choose to do it if pressure became a part of the equation.

Journalling is something I returned to, and it responded with wisdom, insight, and motivation - but not overnight. The answer became obvious to me as I thought and wrote about the questions: language. Language, words and their capacity to educate, comfort, and entertain, but also to deceive. They are the creative medium afforded to human beings alone, one that enables accountability.

How else could we explain or express ourselves? Defend ourselves? Attack? Express beauty? Find answers?

Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about Creating Yourself

- George Bernard Shaw

Having navigated through the technicalities, I hadn't anticipated the impact of what I was about to do. Words have a strange ability to either clothe you or strip you naked. You can hide behind them and they can reveal your hiding places. My guts churned on realising that I was about to expose myself online. Never had I needed to be both as brave and vulnerable in my 50 years of life. Finally, I wasn't talking myself out of something. I was about to jump into the digital universe, naked.

If you're about to jump into a shark tank, now is the time to draw on your support. Look for an open hand. With my husband's support and encouragement, I treated any negative self-talk with the respect it deserved; but I also declined my inner critic's advice. It was there to protect me. Hal Stone, Ph.D. & Sidra Stone, Ph.D state that:

The Inner Critic's original function is to spare us shame and pain.

I attempted to research where they were selling bags of confidence 'two for the price of one' but finding none, I dug deep into my own reserves and wrote as me; just a little person who wished to connect and share my experiences with others.

However, translating my private musings into writing out loud was another matter. Would people judge me? Eventually, I decided my blog would not be for all people and that I simply needed to grow a thick skin. After all, if I couldn't write with confidence, then why bother at all?

You live but once; you might as well be amusing

- Coco Chanel

And this, dear reader, is where I suggest you shrug and prepare to chuckle at yourself; because if you do, it matters less what others think. Have you ever heard of an early clip of Ed Sheeran's singing? I'm grateful he didn't give up. Replace ES with whoever works for you.

What you have just read is more or less based on my first piece of writing in the digital world. No fireworks, power cuts, or apocalypse occurred. I might cringe now when I read it, but back then, a little unicorn was dancing in my head, throwing me a thumbs-up.

You too could start with a personal essay. It may initially look like little more than an edited journal entry, but it's a start. Let it rest awhile, read it out loud, then edit some more. Remember your reader. Pretend you're chatting to a friend. You'd try to bond with them through shared understanding.

What next?

Writing begets writing. This challenge asks how your writing has developed from your first piece, so I'll summarise. More blog posts followed, along with a newsletter and Instagram posts.

On Instagram, I discovered a community of like-minded people I could learn from. I engaged in prompts and challenges, such as mini-stories, prose, and poetry. Within the cocoon of a supportive group of creatives, I stretched my mind and my words. I wrote a lot around the subject of journalling and offered 1:1 sessions on getting started.

I consumed craft books, podcasts, and articles, and joined writing platforms, full of inspiring stories by talented writers. I entered a challenge. My first challenge entry was more of a lyrical story poem:

Then I followed with something I'd never attempted before–a dystopian story:

Momentum leads to productivity leads to small gains

Perseverance was the tool that destroyed all the little gremlins in my path. Soon after, I won second prize in a fiction competition:

Personal circumstances caused me to pause my novel and retreat from my platforms. Life sometimes slaps you in the face and cuts you in half, while simultaneously revealing itself to you. This time, I couldn't turn to mindset because the issues were external, tangible obstacles. Sometimes the only mentor is patience.

A bizarre dichotomy of restless anger and peaceful satisfaction sat within me. The former because of frustration, being unable to write; all I wanted to do was to write, learn craft, and write some more. The latter was down to the revelation that all I wanted to do was to write, learn craft, and write some more.

I held onto the answer that I longed for, that had always been there ever since I made little booklets from paper and scribbled stories as a child.

Where am I now?

Whether as a hobby or for a living, it's a bizarre feeling to be doing what feels intensely rewarding. The world makes sense because I write. I mainly focus on poetry and flash fiction, which usually appear in handwritten scrawls on a page in my notebook. I submitted a few pieces to publications and found, to my amazement, that they accepted my offerings. So I'm all-in now, preparing more work to submit, taking part in workshops, and re-establishing myself in my writing communities. My trajectory from that first blog post to where I sit today reflects a journey you too can undertake. Where will it end? Who knows? But it answers the question: Why then, was my first blog post a beginning?

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Thank you for reading my story. I hope you found it encouraging and galvanising. It's easy to think it's too late, I'm no good, where do I begin? But if your thoughts want to travel down that pen, and find a home on a page, then write.

I haven't written on my blog for a long time, but feel free to visit and have a look around if you like. It's called LadyChicPea.