Creative Writing

“What on earth goes on in that house next door?” I moaned to Mr Man one night.
“With all that banging around they could be hiding a body under the floor boards for all we know!” I joked. Then thoughtfully I added: “You know, I should write a story about that…” And in my teens I probably would have, but I just don’t seem to have the creative energy any more.

School will be breaking up soon for summer. It was about this time of year in my final year at junior school when I started writing a story about a little girl called Elizabeth, who lived in a haunted house. It was obviously meant as school work originally, but when the school term ended I took my unfinished story home with me and continued writing throughout the summer holiday. In September I started a new school with new teachers, and when I showed my story to my new English teacher he encouraged me to continue writing it, even allowing me to write it during class time instead of having to do the assignments given to the rest of the class. I don’t even remember what happened to that story now; one of the many pieces of creative writing that was lost many years ago.

Throughout senior school this same English teacher was always positive about my writing and I often received top marks for short stories or scripts that I had written, which is ironic considering the low grade I received in my English exams.* Part of the problem was probably the fact that, although I liked writing, I didn’t like reading. I felt that reading was the death of creativity for me; my head would be filled with someone else’s story, someone else’s imagination, and not my own. Besides, it was boring.

When I reached my fifth and final year in senior school history seemed to repeat itself and once again I started writing a story, a script this time, which wasn’t to be completed until after I had left school. A friend of mine who had stayed on in sixth form took the finished script into school one day, to show my ex English teacher. He returned it with a simple message: “Get it published”. Unfortunately I never did, and then one day when I was having one of my “moments” I threw it away.**

That was about 18 years ago now. I’ve asked myself many times why I don’t feel able to be as creative anymore.

Do the pressures of life just eat away at our imagination? Do we get too wrapped up in the “real world” to play “pretend” in our minds? Maybe my expectations are too high now, and I fear failure, which in turn stifles creativity? When I was younger I just enjoyed the experience of writing; who did I need to impress? Only my English teacher if I wanted good marks, but to be honest I didn’t care about school marks. I just wrote for me.

I need to get back to that; writing for me. There are several things in life that tell me I need to do it - often when I am reading or watching TV I feel “dissatisfied” with the outcome of the stories. In these circumstances one of several things will happen:

1. I’ll predict the ending, leading to the over used joke in our household where Mr Man asks: “How did you know that?” and I reply with “I wrote it”


2. I’ll get frustrated with story lines not being developed properly and end up wishing I had written it.


3. Or I’ll just get bored and stop reading or watching the thing altogether. (Or a combination of all three)

So you see, I need to write a story – for me. For the satisfaction. I can choose my characters; I can choose my ending. What better indulgence is there for someone as spoilt as I am?




*There were only two teachers who ever seemed to appreciate my writing; he was one of them, and the other was when I was schooled in Wales for a brief period.

**I’m not a hoarder and I have these moments when everything has to go in the bin, and then I spend the rest of my life regretting it. I wish now that I had kept a copy of everything I had ever written.