Am I Still Writing?

Someone asked me this question the other day: “Are you still writing? I haven’t seen any stuff from you lately.”

Internally, I had a slight Sarah moment (from the Bible in Genesis 18) when her husband Abraham was being spoken to and told that she would have a baby. From another tent, she laughed inside and thought against what was said. I literally laughed within myself before I physically said “yes.”

Laughing to oneself

The only problem with writing is that when it becomes you, whatever is on your inside will begin to flow through your work. This could be mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually. Your work can begin to reveal you. This is not the same for all writer’s; and I’m not suggesting or posing that it is, but this is the case for me currently.

So, I am still writing but I haven’t been publishing my works to the world. As a writer, I am very conscious of splitting personal works (not for public domain) and public works (blogs, websites; etc, that is shared with everyone).  I don’t believe that everything you write should always be shared. I don’t believe in just releasing everything you write to the world.  And I don’t believe in releasing works prematurely. I believe that you need to have wisdom in what you share with people as it can; and more likely will, impact them. I only wish to better a person, and quite frankly all that I have written lately does not always do that.

A writer’s works need to be filtered through, only bringing out the best whilst still revealing the reality of what is going on. But again, this is my view and not your holy grail.

If you know me, then you’ll know that my writing is very much focussed on the mind. I love creating characters and diving into their minds, and seeing what is happening inside of them in order for them to be shown. It’s quite like a revealing, I reveal them from the inside out; hopefully having a happy ending but this is not always the case.

Lately my genre has been psychological thriller. My works have been focussing on the inner thoughts of a person: what they are saying inside that is different from the outside, what they really believe, what they like, what they don’t like, where they agree and don’t agree, what they really think of themselves, etc.

Arguing and thinking within oneself

Whatever I write and in whatever format I do it in, it becomes very mental heavy. It engages the reader (currently myself) to really take a look at themselves. At times this can become very weary as now that I am further in my process of becoming a writer (see my previous post on this) my works are asking me the question of: Is this in you?

As a writer, when your work starts speaking to your personally, it can be quite a scary thing. When the character becomes more of you than you intended, you can only begin to answer the questions yourself; honestly and purely.

So again, yes I am still writing but I am also having a Jacob/ Israel moment (an old and new nature fighting against each other). My challenge has always been whether what I have is good enough, and unfortunately some people have answered the question incorrectly for me, and I have stupidly let them.

Now I need to answer that question myself and know how to press forward. So I need God to work on my inside so that all the writings I release are strongly convicted in me and freeing to the world.  So just because I have gone quiet, it doesn’t mean that I am not writing, but I am walking out this writer’s walk as my writings ARE ME.

So you will be seeing my writings soon. Bare with me as I war against myself and find confidence again in what God has given me. It’s not always so easy to “get over yourself,” but it is always possible to walk through it and be the best you.

 

Will I Ever Be Able To Defend You Again?

I wrote this post 9 days ago and never posted it so here I go now…

I have thought a lot about the Media today. About the Media as an industry, as individuals and as a world dominator on human life. The sad thing is that as much as I love media, I actually cannot defend it much in debate.

A month ago I was invited to a youth event and the organiser of the event shared her heart about the event, why she did it and what her end goal/ dreams were. Whilst sharing she touched on the media and its publicity on the youth. She shared her experiences of the media and how they portrayed and represented young people to the rest of the world. Ultimately the coverage overall if rated was BAD. She expressed how most coverage of young people she saw was bad, negative; never showing, sharing or telling of their achievements or if they had made any changes that have impacted the world they live in. Never nothing positive. An example she gave was with regards to the the latest 2012 GCSE results. How one of the first things printed were about how the students had failed and blamed the Governing system as they had changed it. Her daughter had done her GCSE’s and happened to be highly sucessful; her daughter was not congratulated even though she studied night and day- there was no “well done”.

As the woman was speaking my heart sank and I wanted to cry. I remember thinking in my head “we’re not all bad ya’know… I’m not”.

Then the other day, more recently it happened again. I was at another event on identity. As we know it, yes yet again the media subject rolled up again. How the media have and create an enormous impact on identity and how people and things should be perceived. The more she spoke, the more frustrated and sad I became. She touched on how magazines tell you how to look rather than just finding out who you are and being happy with that. Further relating to this there is the whole talk about the body image GSCE.

Again a little voice in my head said “we’re not all bad ya’know… I’m not”.

Where am I going with all this? What’s my point? My point is… THEY ARE RIGHT. Most youth press in the public eye is bad and media have too much imprint on our identity that does not always or mostly have a great effect. The problem is I am finding it harder and harder to defend my baby… the media. The industry I have been learning about since the age of 14/15. The people I have met in the media and the skills and areas I have become acquainted with; I CAN’T defend them.

Not all press is bad and not all news is negative but the impact the media has is quite big, bigger than we know. The media are one of the biggest mouth pieces of the 21st century and beyond. We have reign over every area in the world and have the most precious gift of all… telling the world about the world. We tell you what is going on, what’s new and old, where’s safe and where isn’t, we advertise you, we sell you… summing this up; we give you what you want; but at what cost?

Clearly there is a community out there that the media isn’t reaching. There is a community out there that we aren’t getting through to or if we are we aren’t doing a great job. Why did the lady from the event not feel supported by the media in her cry to help the youth and show the world of their greatness? Why at the conference were study’s, images and “media opinion” so negatively shared. What is wrong? What are we doing wrong media?

The media is sometimes like an adult with a baby’s mouth, we don’t always know how to speak properly. If we look hard enough there are people and organisations with the media that are printing the positives about youth, there are good representations of natural every day women out there… these things DO exist but the problem is they are not always in the limelight like the bad news.

I remember one of the first things I learned as a journalist- “Bad News is good news”. People want to hear all about the bad news. My first thought was “well I don’t”. It was challenging; not everyone thinks bad news is good. Not everyone wants to hear about the bad side of Politicians or the recently known hygiene standards of the NHS being bad; some of us do like to hear about the good things in life. We love to hear about the man who saved another’s life, the bank who helped save a local person’s small business, the couple who got out of debt, the young person who has spoken to society’s most influencial people and changed something for the better. YES!!!! These stories are out there, you just need to look but we also need to make known these things to you.

The media I liken to ‘my baby’. I love it but sometimes when it is in the wrong, I can’t defend even though I would like to. You just have to sometimes sit down and have a think, go back and make the right changes yourself then hopefully the baby will learn.

I URGE you (the people) help us (the media) give you more of what you want. Help us give you more good news, even tell it us and I hope we will get GOOD NEWS more out there. Speak to us and help us changed what we print, broadcast and audibly tell. The media is a massive industry and sometimes you gotta fight tooth and nail to change it. We like everything else have formats, handbooks, codes, etc that we must follow and sometimes these make it difficult for change but we need a people who can think that it’s possible.

I hope one day I can look back and say “YAY” I can finally defend my baby”.