So this is me; here, now, actually putting pen to paper and writing. In a cafe in the centre of Manchester with my tuna melt panini and chai latte. Feeling vaguely self-conscious in my geek-chic but secretly super-glued, off the shelf reading glasses from Waitrose. Here, with my A5 notebook and randomly selected corporate biro acquired from God knows which event, sometime in the foggy past of the “proper job”. Writing… me! Now, after thirty odd years of listening to the inner voice telling me “…you can’t do that, it’s too risky / too frivolous / too self-indulgent and you will FAIL”, I have finally found the courage to say “sod it” and to over-rule my personal Jiminy Cricket.

Ever since that “sod it” moment, I have been quietly fizzing with excitement, the sensation building inside the pit of my stomach and up through my chest. I have been thinking and planning and listing ideas. Jiminy hasn’t entirely gone away, I still keep asking myself time and again “what if you’re rubbish? what if no-one reads what you write, or worse still, hates it?”. But I know that I must have made the right decision because I keep coming back to the same answer…”I don’t care”.  Or at least “I don’t care enough to NOT try”. The overwhelming urge to vent my creativity is, somehow, finally stronger than my fear of failure. I need to do this, to see the words on the page, to share my thoughts and hopefully stir some sort of response from the people who choose to read it.

So this IS me; here, now, living the dream. Well not quite…the chai latte isn’t hot enough (as ever in this particular establishment), and the tuna melt has a peculiar and distinctly floral aroma, but hey…I’m writing! I may have to pinch myself. My initial excitement has not dissipated at all and I’m alive with ideas, pulsing, wired. If someone were to reach out and touch me at this precise moment I swear they would jolt with a static shock.

It’s wonderful, cathartic and yes, very, very self-indulgent. But the ideas keep coming and I’m scribbling furiously and I want to keep pouring the words onto the page, sorting through them and joining them together like an intricate jigsaw, creating an image that will reflect my state of mind. Or perhaps a thatched cottage in an English country garden.

So this is ME; here, now, rapidly developing RSI from scrawling by hand after a lifetime in front of a keyboard. Listing the ideas I want to share, to enthuse over, to rant about, to ponder and muse. This is me, finally, re-kindling the ambitions of 6 year old Lian, writing.

If you’re interested, I’ll keep you posted…