My Work In Print

It’s Waiting For Me

Down at the learning hub a book awaits. Inside are the stories from everyone in the writing class and the first copy has officially been collected. I’ve not picked my copy up yet, but I already have mixed feelings about it.

My original intention was to have a completed story in the anthology. However, this didn’t happen. My story got away from me and after 15,000 words, twice the limit we had, I am still only just hitting the major obstacle the group must navigate. I ended up telling the tale of how my group of misfits were formed and of them meeting the first of many challenges. Then I did something which may be brave or stupid. I included a link to this site.

I’ve been writing away here to myself so far. I wanted to get my thoughts out a little more before I started letting anyone know that I’ve done this. There are a few reasons for this.

Firstly, I’m not sure if I want to use a pen name for my work. Currently, I’m posting as an admin, and my name isn’t anywhere on this site. I’ve also been vague about the course and not mentioned specifics deliberately, so only the people on the course know who I am and what I am doing, along with a handful of friends and family. The main reason for this is due to my past work.

As a journalist who wrote about video games I expected to be safe from the harassment you hear about from readers, but sadly this is not the case. Everyone gets ridiculous comments about how your top ten list is “incorrect”, your opinion is “wrong”, your review is “unfair” and the like, but I have also had some incredibly malicious messages and a full on dog pile sent to me from an alt right content creator after I dared to write about gay pride in video games. And I’m the lucky one. I have ex-colleagues who had far worse on a regular basis.

Secondly, I’ve always been anxious about sharing my work and while I tell people what I do, I’ve never sent specific articles to people to read etc. I don’t want people to feel obligated to read my work and I cannot decide if having them pretend to like it is better or worse than them actually liking it. Both bring me attention I’d rather not have. When the class tutors told us they’d rather not know if we read their books and what we thought about them, I could absolutely identify with it.

Now people I know and have met will be reading my work, and I’m not sure how to feel about it. I was confident in my idea, and happy to share in class as I love hearing other ideas, and it’s taken me 40 years to become confident enough in a classroom to share my own. Sharing my actual writing? This feels like a different beast. A new experience I’m not entirely sure I’m ready for.

Also, I suspect they’ll be annoyed they have to wait for the ending (although they also know the twist, so maybe they won’t care). I’m sorry all, the fog is coming to engulf you. Just give me a little more time.

I mist you all.