Writing: A Play-Doh Fun Factory of Suffering

I have this dream, a goal really, of seeing Sam Fender live in the UK at some sleazy festival. I can see myself through the lens of a camcorder dancing to “The Dying Light”. I’m wearing a handkerchief top or like a silk scarf tied around my chest and low-rise jeans; we know it's definitely not real life because I cannot pull off that outfit. 

Aside from the outfit choices, which I think are heavily influenced by my youthful screenings of Amanda Bynes’ What a Girl Wants, I can see myself crying very happy tears in that moment. It’s summer but night has fallen and the dark sky adds a reverence to the beauty of music. The crowd is all living it’s own little moments of dreams, and happiness, and watching themselves from the lens of a camcorder. 

I’m crying tears of joy because I’ve finally sold my book. Sidelines is being published and one of the albums that pushed me through the writing of it is playing directly in front of me and I’m reminded that the world is not a Play-Doh Fun Factory of Suffering all the time; it has moments where you are reminded that you’ve done what you were set out to do. 

Sam Fender is on stage and sings “But I’m damned if I give up tonight, I must repel the dying light, for mom and dad and all my pals, for all the ones who didn’t make the night.” That is the lyric that I remember hearing and thinking that this book is an important one. 

The words I have to say are not for me, but are for the people that both got me to this point; the people who may need to hear what I once needed to, and for the younger me that gave up so much and fought so hard to get to where she is today. 

I don’t get to carry my younger self into my moments of joy and freedom. I really, really, wish I could – I want her there next to me often.

Writing is so hard; it is a painful lonesome task that I adore. It is conceited to call writing a vocation, but it is one. I think it is a vocation for the people of the world who chose not to let go, those who would be damned if they gave up.