Why Writing?

I was just having a cup of coffee and thought that maybe I should explain why writing is so important to me. This is not meant to earn brownie points or score on sympathy cards or anything like that. I just think that maybe the apparent schyzophrenia of this blog should be put into a bit of context, is all.

Let's start by saying this: I've always been a bibliophile, burying myself in books. Works of fiction - particularly horror or anything else of that "supernatural fantasy" persuasion, although I've also had an affinity for fast-paced action / suspense novels, too (think "Velocity" by Dean Koontz).

Since I was small, I used to hole up in my bedroom, scribbling away - illustrating where necessary - and stapling the pages together, proudly presenting the work to my folks.

By the time I was in Standard 6, I had already consumed the setwork books up to matric, as well as a vast amount of other material (including things on demonology and witchcraft I'm sure the Kimberley librarians weren't aware graced their shelves). The only book at my disposal I hadn't read was the Bible. To this day, it still graces my shelves (I have four different versions, to crown it all, from different eras) untouched beneath a fine veneer of dust.

During my first year of university, I actually wrote a novel and, thanks to Marguerite Poland's advice, submitted it to a reknown SA publisher. The manuscript made it all the way through to the ghost readers, where it was finally shot down and returned before hitting the press.

The words were encouraging, and I was actually requested to rework and resubmit the book. However, by that time (and what with my low levels of blood in my alcohol levels at that period in my life), I had actually lost all the electronic copies of "The Club".

So I left it.

Life was looking good back then - I was on my way to becoming a media mogul - so I pushed the dream aside in favour of a goal (and extra drinking time).

Now, there's another factor that's plagued me all my life, but fully reared its ugly head only twice thus far (thankfully).

I don't want to go into details, because it's intensely personal. But, try imagine you know someone's coming to kill you. But not with a bullet - nothing that clean or fast. They're after your blood, and to get the most of it, they're going to hamstring you, hoist you up by a rusted chain looped around your ankles and slowly peel away layers of your skin with a butter knife.

Now imagine that you have no idea where they are, but every now and then you hear their patient breathing right behind you: you feel the air tickling the edge of your ear. Sometimes, when you finally think they're gone, they whisper your name. And their voice is instantly recognisable - it's someone you love and trust. You're attracted to them, even though when they speak, their voice sounds like they're gargling pieces of wet tar.

If you can put yourself in that type of situation - if you can imagine knowing that you're out to murder yourself (I say murder and not suicide, because you strangely don't want to do it, but for some reason have to do it) - then you're on your way to understanding my condition.

And I'm not saying I'm special because of this. Not in the slightest. I'm not alone in this torment. I'd like to believe I'm special despite it.

Funnily enough, my road to recovery the second time around, was through writing. I had to diarize everything: note everything I had seen or heard, record everything that pissed me off. My shrink was the only one other than me with access to my journals (I wrote three a week). She read them, and something she said to me rekindled my dreams. As an aside, she told me how lucid and "real" my writing was; that she found it engrossing despite the content (which were records of the visions I was having: so blood-soaked and gruesome, I sometimes cried while writing them. Central character: me, of course).

But writing, I believe, saved my grasp on reality. It gave me a way to face my fears retrospectively - to grapple with the issues and confront what was happening in my life; in my mind.

And, with ES's unwavering support and understanding (for which I'm eternally grateful), I've also realised that giving up a dream in favour of just doing what I need to to get by knocks me down about five steps on the ladder of evolution. Ants do what they need to to get by. Dogs, cats, apes. We have the capability of dreaming and the ability to pursue our aspirations.

So, I'm taking my healing process and my dream - following it.

Because that's what people really ought to be doing.