This was a University assignment from last semester (mid 2005). I had to write a ‘memoir’ sort of thing about my experiances with reading and writing. I loved doing this assignment and managed to get a HD (High Distinction 80). As well I re-read it and still think it’s written really well. So here it is… all about me. :D

oioioioioioio

oioioioioioio

Ordinary.

This ordinary child, full of dreams and mistakes, of hopes and failures, but always with a child’s innocence. A smile and a laugh, and the next day everything was okay. What she lacked, or perhaps more accurately, what she would gain, was a passion.

It began by chance, as most great things do. Lingering in the forgotten library, pigeons in the vents and four aisles of books her only company. She was content to sit, to wait and waste time. Much more appealing than the other option; return to class. She never had a care for class, her mind always somewhere else, even in those early years. Nine years old, golden ringlets in her hair and a fey smile that could put anyone off guard, at least, that’s what she was told.

It was dead in that library, but for the breath of wind that would occasionally sing through the old attic styled room, and the pigeons that never ceased their coos and calls. Amongst themselves they had spoken tales of ghosts and spirits who haunted the cold and forgotten mansions of dreams, and she knew, like the rest, that if such things existed they would make a home amongst these books and shelves. For all her talk she never did believe, though often enough her friends seemed to. For her the serenity of the room outweighed any fears that could have existed as she sat, curled against the book shelves, wasting her time.

How she found it isn’t so important, though guessable in her stillness her eyes began to wonder and fell upon its spine. It wasn’t the first book she read, certainly not the last, but it was the first she can remember loving. It was what she was looking for, a tale of the ordinary coming into the extraordinary. Because she was, after all, very ordinary.

That day wasn’t life altering, at least not that she realised. It could have happened anywhere, but these where her circumstances. From that moment on she began to expand her dreams, and she began to write them down. Diaries were concealed in tales of magic and mysticism, far safer than a book under the bed. Dreams came to life and grew in realities unknown.

But reading… she never did find that second book. Oh she read, when school demanded it, when gifts where made of books, even liked books, but she didn’t love them. So from the age of nine to her mid-teens she was still, to all appearances, ordinary (with just a little writing on the side).

It changed of course, as all things must. Wandering through the much more populated and larger library of her high school, she found it once more, found life again. Another book, another dream, and her world once more expanded. She invested her soul and happiness in the words of strangers, because the words of those around were breaking her.

Maybe that was the real beginning, when happiness and hope were failing, when childish innocence was gone, and when salvation was all that could be dreamt of. Because in a world she’d never known people could be heroes, nobodies were noticed and things, eventually, got better.

A typist from youth her fingers flew with rapid speed, her dreams bubbled and boiled with life and she had something, something that was hers alone; her dreams. Worlds were born, life, death, heroes, magic, love, dragons, and anything else that came to mind. And none of it, not a word, was seen, it was only for her.

Time, as it does, passed and ideas came to her, aspirations, deadly dangerous things. She became, in a word, curious. She tried to get people to read her work, her best story; a hundred and seventy pages, typed, A4, single spaced, Times New Roman, in a 12 size font. It was too long. Teachers pushed it away without looking, a forced smile, “That’s good, now try writing something short.” But she didn’t want to and she knew what they really meant, they didn't have the time or care to even try or pretend. All she wanted was an opinion, all she needed was an opinion.

She struggled with her dilemma. She couldn’t hand it to her family, she would disappoint anyone but her family. Friends, not them either, it would be too presumptuous to ask, and seek that kind of gratification. She spoke about it around them all, hoped anyone would offer, but they never did, or when they did they never meant it.

Not that it mattered because in the end, she knew, she had to figure it out on her own. She knew as well that she needed to improve, because the words she had written didn’t hold her like the ones she loved. So she kept reading, sometimes, but always, always, kept writing.

Growing up she learnt things, things no one teaches; there needs to be villains, there needs to be flaws, and things can’t always work out, because if everything’s good, if everything’s smooth, everything is also boring. All the lessons she had stored away through life she sorted, and then put to use. Still writing, silent and unseen words being poured out with a desperation that boarded on necessity. Without writing she felt caged, the words couldn’t get out, she couldn’t get to the next moment, not until the first was written down. So she kept at it, vigilant in her endeavours.

Years, so many years, and no one would read any of it. Her cousin tried, but didn’t understand, her cousin was a bit of an idiot like that. Often pausing amidst the reading to comment that “He’s hot.” or “Are they dumb or what?” instead of helping, instead of saying what needed to be said. Others tried as well, few and far between and often the best response garnered from them was: “It’s okay.” Or some other uncommitted response.

It came to her some years later, a realisation that drowned out almost any other she had ever had. She was in love. Oh not the neo-classical assumption of the word, she was in love with a task, an action. She was in love with writing. For one overwhelming moment, tears came to her eyes, the kind that come when everything falls into place and the world makes sense, then the next moment her heart began breaking. It didn’t matter how much she lied, nor how much she denied it, she could not fool herself; she was inept at her passion. She knew in that moment though, that she was willing to devote her life and self to the practise, no matter what skill she had or didn’t, and nothing would come of it, in the end. She would always have to fight to keep going, to survive, because her love would not take her through the world with ease, because she would never be good enough to make something of it.

She hid her tears from the people around her, her family who knew little of what she could or couldn’t do but who’s undying faith in her would only ever give her, what she perceived as, false hope. It was sometime later she began to mend from that breaking moment. No wound that has not killed will not heal to some degree, so as she took breath she healed.

School was gone, a fragment of her past she was happy to forget, and for a time she lingered, half forgetting herself. Waiting in limbo for another book, another moment, or really, any opportunity to present itself. She did not, after all, have the strength to find her own opportunities.

Then came an obsession, though she never liked to call it that. She found another story, full of the most amazing things and prevalent throughout was an undying hope of eternity and love. She cherished it, then she spent money on it. She brought it in all its glory, pictures from it, a thousand things she didn’t need, but kept them close to remind her. And she did one more thing with this obsession, one few obsessions allowed, she got something back, she found an audience.

An audience was what she had lacked from the beginning, no one to share with, no one who wanted to know or even try. That’s a lie, she had her family, but that mater was complicated. This audience though, it wasn’t her audience. It was the audience who, like her, followed this obsession. She entered the world of fan fiction.

Before that day she didn’t know what fan fiction was, though the name itself would have given her a few hints into it’s meaning. She was a fast learner though, and in a few days she had it in her head and understood exactly what it was. Not your own work, at least, not exactly. You take the characters that people already held an affinity to and weave them into your own story.

She began writing, using other peoples characters to make her own stories and people began reading. Reading without coercion, without blackmail. For the first real time they read for what she had written. The words she had trapped away for so long, became free. Then she sat, heart pounding, waiting, thinking, hoping and slowly the readers began responding.

It might not have been her audience, but she was versatile and could make do with what was available. She was using it, feeding off its encouragement and twisting limits to the edge so she could make it her own. And with an audience in place she began on her real work, the stories she loved and wouldn’t forget, the things she had been building herself to since she first knew what a book was. And the audience slowly became her own.

It’s been some time since all this happened. Things have changed and some have stayed the same. When I was little, before all of it, I knew something, something which shaped who I am and the path I’ve travelled: If you can reach someone, anyone, then there’s a reason for your life, you’ve given yourself meaning. Through my writing, I feel, I achieve this.

I’ve gone through stages, rough and treacherous, heart wrenching and destructive. I’ve cried on shoulders and alone. Fallen, hated, being lost and forgotten. But I’ve smiled too, laughed and loved, hoped and dreamed. I’ve gotten up, forgiven, been found and remembered, and I’ll not forget that. My writing is mine, good or bad it’s a part of me. People read it, some love it, others discard and slander it. I’m holding hope and with that my story continues.

Today I’m writing a novel, tomorrow I’ll publish it. On my own, I’ll make my dreams come true, I’ll give it everything I can because it is my life. Mine is not a life scattered with memories of reading and writing, mine is a life of reading and writing. My heart, my soul, my everything lies in the words I write.

As I look at my past today I see only another story, and yes it is my story, but it holds as much of me as any other I have written. It knows me, and remembers me and will reflect me for many years to come. And in time I will look back to these words and like before, I will laugh at them and criticise them, because I will have lived more, and learnt more, and tomorrow this will be another memory to write in another story.