Day 93

Did you always know you wanted to be a writer?

…

Perhaps not in the beginning, but as time passed, yes.

In my younger years, as an awkward child who didn’t fare well in school, with the sort of boys who treated the weaker kids with aggression, and at home where we were victims of domestic violence, it became necessary to immerse myself in another world than the one that I lived in.

That’s when I began to invent different lives, mostly generated from reading books morning, noon and night and spending any spare time in the school library, anywhere other than in the schoolyard.

Those books fuelled my imagination. I could be anyone else other than who I was, go anywhere, and do anything. The Secret Seven, The Famous Five, Biggles, Billy Bunter, all those characters that today would never get a fair chance.

Soon, those imaginings became scribbles, and the first story I wrote was one of a spy landing on a distant beach in another country and executing a mission which, when I look back, was rather strange, but it kept me busy.

Then a thousand or so books later, fuelled by Alistair MacLean, Hammond Innes, James Patterson, Clive Cussler, Steve Berry, David Baldacci, and countless others, I improved my writing skills, the story became more focussed and less childish, and I decided thrillers were the go.

And when romance didn’t seem to work out all that well, I decided to write myself into one, imagining how it would be. For that, I devoured a few Mills and Boons, but when it came time to write a similar story, it got half way then veered into thriller territory.

I think, in that first effort, I was not the hero, but the forever tired, always battling to stay alive and discovering the love of his life, found ways they could not be together. A bit like real life at times.

My latest effort, I used to read stories for my grandchildren, and then foolishly one night told her I would write a better fair tale. After 11 years, much toiling and excuses for not having it done, I have finished it. 3 volumes, 1,000 plus pages, it is an epic.

Did I always want to be a writer?

Maybe I did and just didn’t realise it back when I was too young to know.