I'd wanted to write a long time ago, when I was naive and thought I could get past with a homegrown version of Sweet Valley, of high school romance and of teenage thrills. I thought my english was okay and hey, people write chick flicks and harry potter and get famous but these aren't the kind of authors I really admire, it's stuff like Roy (yes, think J2 lit and scary A papers and I'm so thankful I got it good) and Mark Haddon and even Ben Elton that makes me go wow because their insights, no matter societal or psychological, are so acute and astoundingly put across it's like they created miracles. Because it isn't easy, you know, the ability to make someone see what you see. And it isn't easy seeing what should be seen. What should be seen, and felt and heard and touched and acknowledged, recognised, understood because life isn't ever straightforward and we don't ever quite know offhand what's really important.

I haven't written proper english for so long. I need to start. I'm thinking of getting myself a scrapbook, but sometimes life takes away what life should be, y'know? Sometimes it's kind of a paradox, because writing's what should be when pens touch paper, when nibs are pressed and ink flows. It's the beauty of scratching words out from your soul that matters but when life presses in, closes you up, you search and fight for time and there's just no space for inspiration anymore. The mere thought of lifting a pen is exhausting and more often than not I can no longer think of anything to write. My mind is a blank. Like now. I'm rambling. Jumble of words masquerading as an attempt to make some sense, prove some point, but hey, the quantity's just a facade because there isn't actually any depth inside. It's all crap. Isn't that sad? I'm pretending to write.

I should choose a topic, except titles flashing across my mind now say "euthanasia". "Abortion." "Crime and Punishment". Overdosage of GP hammered into my system and I can't get them out. I want to write about things in a drawer. Stories behind roses in vases and perfume bottles. Instead now all I write screams bloody typical sometimes-angsty sometimes-happy teenage girl. I don't have anything against myself for it but sometimes it's sad and it's heartwrenching,

because I don't know what has happened to the dream I had, when I was young and I'd wanted to write, when I was naive and thought I could publish fifty novels.