Written Hints from the Universe
Even though every logical part of my being tends to support the idea that the world is random, chaotic, and therefore the product of our interactions with it, I'm beginning to suspect there might be an insidious plot going on at a much higher level.
No, I'm not about to split my personality in two and arrive at a foreign embassy trying to renounce my British citizenship. We'll reserve that for John Forbes Nash Jr and the bit they left out of “A Beautiful Mind”.
I'm talking about hints being dropped.
While emptying my head into the blog over the last several years I've become friends with a number of people around the world – all of them wonderful in their own way. I've tried to follow a diverse cross-section of people, and it's inevitable that their hopes, dreams, aspirations, and background broadly echo my own – it's funny really – while we all rant about Facebook second guessing the things we are interested in, it turns out we do that with the real world anyway.
Over time, I've discovered that a number of the circle I follow are writers. Some of them are published, but the majority not. They write everything from novels, to short stories, essays, articles, poetry, prose – all sorts of things. Occasionally they comment on my brain-dump blog posts, and speculate that I might be quite good at this proper writing lark too if I set my mind to it.
I suppose the only “proper” writing I have done in the last few years has been NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) – which after numerous failed attempts throughout the last decade, I cantered through in 13 days this year. Don't ask me how.
Then about a month ago I discovered that somebody I've known and respected for years – a friend of a friend – had started writing a personal blog, and that it was all sorts of wonderful. Her words were unexpectedly honest, engaging, interesting, brave even.
Fast forward to last night, and I discover that a wonderful friend that lives nearby has been quietly writing too. In secret, I suppose. She writes everything from short stories to screenplays, and keeps them under lock and key. Nobody has seen them. I understand that. When I began using the old iMac during NaNoWriMo last year, the difficulty of getting anything onto or off it appealed to me. The words I wrote within it were “mine”.
Where was I going with this?
Oh yes. The universe. Yes. So I'm surrounded by writers – both known, and unknown – and here I am, emptying my head into this blog almost every day, not really shaping or polishing the words I share at all. It's still writing, I suppose, but only in the same way that both a bag of flour, and a victoria sponge cake are both food. My writing only tends to get as far as words and thoughts – rarely stories.
Is this really the universe stacking the cards – placing all these wonderful people around me – to convince me that I really should start writing something worth reading? Or has it just taken me an inordinately long time to finally realise how many awesome, creative, and inspirational people I'm surrounded by ?