How I got into writing.

My writing journey began when I was thirteen during the summer before I started year 9. My summer was very boring due to the fact that most of my friends were on holiday and I had just got back as I went during the beginning of the summer. My days consisted of binge watching Grey's Anatomy and playing endless levels of Candy Crush; I know I was a very cool child. The first time I remember writing a story for fun was after scrolling through Facebook and seeing that someone had shared a writing prompt and I decided to continue it. This story to say the least was very cringy looking back and reading it now but it was the beginning of one of my favourite de-stressors now. So now my summers were watching Grey's Anatomy and writing stories that now wouldn't even seem to be stories at all with my built up experience.

So now you must be thinking okay Millie you got into writing during the summer and suddenly became good at it. Well that wasn't the case at all. When I was fourteen one of my mum's friends sent me a link about a young writers club at my local theatre: The Mayflower. And I became one of their young writers and still am now. Through this club I have learnt skills and built very unique friendships. When I started I was in the younger group which were from the ages of 11-14 meaning I was only there for a year before moving to the younger group; well moving up a group deserves a post to itself but to sum the experience up; moving up to the group was a bit overwhelming they were all in college and randomly burst into either a tune from a musical or some obscure song that seemed to be an inside joke for them. I felt like an outsider at the first but soon found my place there and now I join them in the random singing and inside jokes.

In these three years I have written three books and self-published them into a series book all together this year. If you are interested in buying a copy the link is here: http://www.lulu.com/shop/millie-james/the-runaways-series/paperback/product-23529686.html. The process of writing these three books started in the summer when I began writing. It was the second short story that I wrote during this few weeks off and I posted it to my Wattpad (Link attached at the top of the blog.) and my friends who were following me on it at the time enjoyed it so I continued writing it. My aspiration slowly started to change from wanting to become a Chef to becoming an author or journalist; anything really that would get my writing out into the world.

The main problem with being at school and telling people you have this aspiration is that secondary school is very orientated on finding a job and starting a career and something you need to know about writing is that it is a very difficult job to get into and you really have to be committed and ready for rejection. I have been rejected a few times now and it really is difficult to get rejection from professionals after pouring your heart into a story or article but I feel the best thing to tell yourself is that they are professionals and they have a particular style of writing that they enjoy which might not be yours. Another issue with wanting to become a writing is being judged by people of my age. There was one specific person, I won't go into names or any details about the person for privacy reasons, who used to ask me if I had a plan B or if I was going to accept that I was going to be a dead end writing which was difficult to hear from someone who I used to consider a friend. With all things like this my advice is that if they aren't positive or don't make you feel happy they aren't worth your time or attention.

Back to the writing, currently I am working on short stories as they take up less time during the GCSE period with my main priority being my revision so I can get the grades I need to get into college. One of the reasons I started this blog is to build up non-fiction writing experience which is needed if I do want to become a journalist but also to help others with the mistakes that I have made along the way. From just writing this current blog I have realised that it is a good way to talk about what is on my mind and to distress almost as it is a virtual therapy to dump all of my feelings in a creative way that others can hopeful enjoy and maybe even laugh at. Like I said in my welcoming post I want this blog to become a community of sharing writing experiences and life experiences in general. So please feel free to message me either by email or on the blog messaging and I will respond as soon as I am able to.

Thanks for reading my first proper blog post. Signing out Millie.