Finding My Creative Voice

I have always found stories fascinating. As a child, I would read all the time. I used to sneak books to and from school and stay up late into the night reading, despite my nan yelling at us to turn our lights off and go to bed.

As I grew older, I found writing to be the release I never knew I needed. Words would take on a life of their own, and often I found myself writing short stories, poems, or parts of lengthy novels that never got finished.

When I started writing The Chronicles of Gardainia: Salomens' Prophecy, I was a young teen starting high school. The characters were fashioned after those I had either read about in one of the many books I had devoured or seen in shows and movies I had watched.

One such show was the childrens TV series called Merlin. If you have seen the show then you will know why I may have become obsessed with magic. Yes, I had read the books about Arthur and the famous Round Table. I even knew Lancelot wasn't one of the original characters, though I still loved him all the same.

I was a huge crime/thriller/drama/detective fan at the time but watching that show made me fall in love with fantasy completely. Which is why my main character is a powerful mage. Like Merlin, she has magic that is ancient and innate. But unlike Merlin, I made it so mages in my world was rare.

“And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.”

― Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

I would build entire worlds, trying to find one where my favorite characters could live and thrive. Then I added antagonists—people who would add realism to my world and give my characters meaning.

I added and I added and I added. Then I subtracted and I kept subtracting. I imagined worlds where dragons would fly, but then because I saw dragons everywhere, I removed them from my world. I imagined a world where the magic was channeled through staff's. Then I saw that every mage either had a wand or a staff, so I removed that from my world too.

Doubt started to creep in where before there was passion and excitement. The torment of writing became so unbearable that I essentially abandoned my craft for a few years, returning only in moments where I needed a release. Almost like I was sneaking away to guiltily grab some chocolate cake from the fridge, when the reality was very different.

Self-doubt in my own abilities grew, despite a few people saying that I have potential and should continue writing.

Picture by E. Martin.

I studied hard and got a job as a chef at a chain of restaurants famous for its Sunday roasts. The hours were crazy, but the pay and staff made up for the late shifts and imbalanced sleep cycle.

But as anyone in the hospitality industry can attest to, stress is something that you cannot escape in that type of job. So I revisited my book—my work, my child of creation.

And I decided to finish it.

One book turned into two, then three, until I had an entire series I was working on, al whilst working hectic shifts in one of the most famous restaurants in the UK. Salomens' Prophecy is the first in this series with the introduction to the main protagonist and the prophecy that would govern her path, being the main focus.

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”

― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Of course, because I was working an intensive job and my brain doesn't enjoy switching off, I edited my manuscript and did a complete overhaul of the book until it was almost unrecognisable from the original. The main character still escaped to a new world, but this time Earth still existed. This world would be real too and it wouldn't be the only one that existed in this series (sorry, spoilers!).

The main character would still have an affinity for magic, but it would exist alongside science and advancements in technology that, for some reason (which I will not state here) is not evenly distributed throughout the world.

Instead of writing about the whole world, I would focus each book on one stretch of the joureny, one goal per book that must be reached.

And I set myself a schedule that I, admittedly, failed to keep but still somehow managed to work with. I joined a writing group so that I could get out of my bubble and I started reading more again.

After I left my job, I still had a crippling case of insomnia, which worked to my advantage since I could spent hours a time at night writing to my hearts content, or discontent.

Finally, I started to really research into how to become an author officially, because by this time my work had been such a labour of love, and I had recieved such a level of encouragement to get it published, that I had decided it was time to at least attempt to cross the finish line.

One thing I believe people rarely talk about, is what not writing does to someone who has been infected with the writers ailment. Your mood starts to lower, you start become irritable. You genuinely flail where before you might have soared.

When I had taken that break from writing, I hadn't realised how detrimental an effect that would have had on my psyche. I am glad that I got back to my senses and started writing again. If I had not, then this book would never have been published and I would never had gotten to hold my book in my hands.

Sometimes the best way to find your creative voice, is to keep on trying and to have faith in yourself and your own talents. That is usually how dreams are made. You believe in yourself and others will see what you have to share, and then the rest follows.

By E. Martin