My Lifelong Dream
And where it all started
Recently, in an article I published, I talked about my life-long bucket list. Some of the things I had on my bucket list from childhood I have managed to achieve, such as graduating with a 1st class degree from university, or working and living in America, but some will take either money or desire. It is desire which will affect the dream I will be exploring in this article, which is to be a published author.
Now, this is not from writing these articles, ranging from mental health to more humorous or analytical topics. Rather, it is fiction, tales I have developed and I hope to write at some point. The issue I have had with this in the past is confidence and conviction. I think in my 23 years on this planet, I have planned out one full story. The idea was similar to like a modern day Assassins Creed mixed with Peaky Blinders, and was told from 4 different perspectives and revolving around a teenager being recruited to a gang who targets evil individuals. I planned 20 chapters, and as soon as it came to the time to begin putting word to page, I deleted it and gave up.
Before we go into recent history, lets go all the way back to 10 year old me, about to finish primary school. Even back then, I loved to read and craft stories in my head. I wrote a trilogy of short stories, which I still had until recently. The name alone made me cringe, and the story made no sense, but I was a kid. Whilst it may not have been my Harry Potter, it was certainly a start.
This spark of creativity from a young age was probably due to my dad, who, until I left primary school, would read to me every night before bed, something I wish I had thanked him for at the time. I could not go any further without also mentioning my mum. It was my dad who read to me, but it was my mum who was the English wiz, who would help me with my homework and where I got my natural English ability from. The two of them set me on my path to pursue this lane, and I am thankful every day for the both of them.
Going into high school, I continued to excel in the core subjects, including English Language and Literature. I wrote a sonnet at GCSE which earned me a high grade, and although I was not the biggest fan of my teachers, the lessons were always good for me. This was expanded upon in college, when I took English Language. I had a terrible time socially in college, but English classes with my tutor Nick were the highlights of this period. He was a teacher who clearly loved his job and his field, and felt more like a lecturer sometimes than simply a college teacher. He pushed me further into the lexicon of the language, and my favourite pieces I wrote during education came during this period, including a Star Wars review, a language investigation (I published this as an article recently) and I did well in the subject come exam season.
Going into university, my creative juices were in full flow. As I had so much spare time between lessons, especially during COVID, I was having more and more inspiration. My notes app started to fill up with ideas, which I still have saved, although now all my ideas are on a single document too. My biggest achievement with this was coming up with a concept very similar to the Ryan Reynolds movie Free Guy, where a video game character becomes sentient and battles real life players, an idea I thought of a whole 2 years before the film even released.
All this is to say that I would love to publish my work in future. I think I currently have at least 10 short story ideas I want to write, which range from Sci-Fi, to Thriller, to Romance. I also have a few novels planned at early stages, which one day I could look to write. I think my concern now is time, as I feel like I hardly have any time presently to pursue my hobbies. I haven’t read a book in over 6 months, and writing these articles once a week on top of the gym, practising guitar, playing video games, watching TV shows and socialising is too much.
It may be early just now, but my new year’s resolution for 2024 is to write out at least 1 story fully, which would include planning and then executing. A lot of my stories are currently just notions, and are not nothing more than cool premises. I have been heavily inspired by the dark nature of Black Mirror’s storytelling of future technology potentially having negative aspects, and also Philip K Dick’s anthology works and collections of short stories, which tell a more psychedelic and unusual approach. The stories, which usually come to me going to sleep or commuting, I have tried to make original, as I do not want to try and tread on similar paths as others.
If I cannot write these stories out, I would love to sell the concepts to a publisher to have somebody else write, as I feel some of my premises are really unique and could be a brilliant story. That, for me, would be a happy second option.
