My Long Term Relationship with Writing

As a child, I religiously kept diaries. These diaries were full of my thoughts, feelings, and what I had for dinner. So it’s hardly surprising that my writing nowadays is full of me me me; my narcissistic brain just loves to write about myself and my experiences. And this post will be no different.

Through the years, the diaries have varied in content… Starting with, “I had marmite toast for breakfast and then I had a sandwich for lunch and then I ate spaghetti Bolognese for dinner at Granny’s house and then some biscuits and went to bed”, aged 7 or so. These ones are quite boring, but I like to keep them anyway to remind myself of a simpler time.

I remember this time of my life so clearly, desperately trying to think of something else to write about, or hoping something interesting would happen to me. The most exciting thing was when a friend told me about a boy she fancied, but banished me from writing it out normally in my diary, and instead had to write it in code. But even that wasn’t enough, and so I wrote it in the back of my diary in tiny upside down letters, just in case my mum cracked the MI5 level code.

As I grew up, my diaries progressed into the boring bitchiness of being a teenager, saying I HATED my poor parents, for grounding me; that ‘Katie’ is trying to steal my best friend… And then my undying love for some boy in my class… The usual melodramatic crap, that meant so much to me at that age. I was convinced I’d read these back, still full of vengeance towards that bitch Katie 10 years later. Instead, I read these entries back, fascinated by my levels of anger, trapped in a time capsule from 2010.

As I got older, my writing improves, and each entry is composed like an article or blog post: as if it’s meant for an audience, despite the fact I would completely kick off if anyone ever read it. In fact, around the age of 12, a girl stole my diary and read it out ON MY BIRTHDAY. I’d written a lot about how much I hated her, and it was a very awkward situation as she was sleeping over at my house.

I carried on writing bits here and there well into my later teens, discussing my 16 year old prom; my first time getting ‘drunk’ (very slightly tipsy)… a rather pornographic make out session with some lad… I even wrote out a minute by minute account of my week in Zante, aged 18. These are all written for the purpose of future me being able to pick up these works of art and remember my hoe antics for years to come. (I will die if anyone picks up one of the hundreds of notepads stashed under my bed at my parents house, i.e. the guest room/ my dad’s study since I moved out).

As I look back on my life, writing always seems to be there… There’s the piece of great literature I wrote aged 8 that my grandad recently found… A story about a dog who’s lost his mum. After reading this back a few weeks ago, I was shocked by the fact it’s actually pretty good?! Along with that, I still have boxes full of writing from when I decided to ‘start a magazine’, and long lists about the hottest celebs at the time (the cast of gossip girl and the members of Mcfly make up most of these lists).

Later in life, I did English literature and English language as separate A levels, despite my English teacher suggested I didn’t take English language, as I was stronger at the arty subjects. Jokes on her, as I took it anyway and got my best grade in English Language… And then completed it as a degree.

But despite my endless writing, I never actually pictured myself as a writer until around age 22. In fact, I had no idea what I wanted to be… There was a short period of time where I thought I could try and be an author, around the age of 13, but after attempting to write these ‘books’, I’d give up, unable to think of a story line, completely bored 20 minutes in.

It wasn’t really until the end of my degree that I started regularly blogging… And then last year that I started writing my book. But looking back through my life, I guess it was always there, through years of stressing about having no career goals; through writing and writing more, I finally realised… Oh yeah maybe I should give writing a crack. My love of writing had clearly always been there.

So it’s no surprise my blog is called Amber’s Diary: it’s an account of me and my life, as most people’s blogs are, and is a diary/article crossbreed. It’s a continuation of a love for writing about myself, which in reality, isn’t that narcissistic at all, it’s just writing what I know.

Thank you for reading!