He didn’t know if he had it in him to be a great writer but he was going to be some kind of a writer no matter what. Why not? He was good at it. More important, he got off on doing it. When the words came right, he got off on it in a big way. And they wouldn’t always be able to withhold the money from him on a technicality. He wouldn’t be eleven forever.
– The Dark Half, Stephen King (1989)
I think I’ve always wanted to be a writer. I wish I could say that I wrote stories as a child, but I didn’t. I wrote one for my English class when I was eleven, and my teacher, Mr Pearce, obviously thought it was good as he read it in front of the whole class. I was beaming until I got the paper back, and there were red pen marks around the characters’ names, which I think I had sub-consciously taken from that great writer, Judy Blume, who I was a fan of at the time. My innocent plagiarism aside, I would not write any further creative fiction until the age of 32 when studying in Judy Katz’s Women and Lit class at Juniata College, during my study period abroad.
Like Thad Beaumont, the eleven year-old whose quote I have borrowed for my opening, I don’t know if I have it in me to be a great writer. But I know I can be some kind of writer. And like Thad, I get off on writing. I can re-read my blogs over and over with a sense of pride, and sometimes excitement that it was me who actually wrote it. I’ve never felt like I was good at anything until I started writing.
Of course, writing hasn’t always been an easy path. This blog is a testament to the journey I have been on through my thirties. My blog has been criticised for being too negative, but what do you expect from a blog called 33andlostinlife? Sunshine and roses? Well maybe some of you would. Those of you who have learnt to see the world with happiness, no matter what your situation. For me, that has always been a difficult thing to do and I envy your ability to see the world in a rose-tinted way without the need for spectacles.
This Wednesday gone, 28th January, was the third anniversary of starting this blog. As you will know or can calculate if you can do basic maths, I am no longer 33 years old. I am in fact 36 now. I have given much thought before to changing the title, and with each birthday I do consider changing at least my age. But I just haven’t been able to switch the title, because I still feel lost in life, and at times more than ever.
I now realise though that it is time to change that title. Perhaps it is the fact that I am defining myself as “lost in life” which keeps me on that path.
So soon, I will write my final blog as 33andlostinlife. I am sad to say goodbye to the one place I have felt safe to admit my feelings, frustrations and fears for the last three years. But I’m excited to be moving on to what will be a new…time in my life. I almost said chapter, but as I’ve learnt in the 21 months since I left Lincoln for London to start a “new chapter”, I’m just not very good at finishing things. Especially chapters, both written and in life. Creative writing is not my forte, though I hope one day it will be. But I am good at writing blogs, and yes I did just say so myself. I met American crime writer, Jeffrey Deaver, at a book-signing in Waterstones Picadilly last year, and I asked him for some advice on writing. He told me not to make it personal. Oops, epic fail. Anyway, one thing I struggle with is self-confidence, and if I think I am good at something, then I should continue to do it, no matter what the advice from one of my favourite authors.
I have thought long and hard about whether to just change the title of this blog to something different and carry on from here. In the two years since I started this blog, I’ve written 257 Posts, which have been viewed 15,723 times. Those posts provoked 221 comments and gained me 222 followers. That to me is a huge amount, and I have worked hard to build my following. While I hate to start my following at a big fat zero, I hope you will understand that I wish to keep 33andlostinlife for what it was – a way for me to journal my thoughts and feelings during this whole thirty-something crisis, and to give others the knowledge that they are not alone in what they are going through. It wasn’t meant to be a woe is me announcement board, although some saw it as such. What I will take with me though is that I had far more positive comments than negative ones, and not just from friends and family, but from other bloggers and readers from all across the world.
So I hope you will continue to follow my journey once my new site is in place, and I promise to blog regularly once more. This last two months has been a big transitional period for me and I hope you accept my apologies for disappearing off the virtual page. My apologies especially go to my reader, Angel, who has commented twice during my absence, to say how worried she was by my lack of posts. I wouldn’t normally avoid responding to comments, but in typical Jodie way, I couldn’t bring myself to write because I didn’t know if I should write anything else as 33andlostinlife. So I buried my head in the sand and ignored even the comments.
But I couldn’t avoid it forever and so here I am. Once I have found my new blog, you will be the first to know. I want 2015 to be just as productive blogging-wise as last year was, and for my blogs to be full of the positivity in life. I also want to expand outside of the blogging sphere and into other forms of writing.
In the spirit of new starts, I do accept that Rome wasn’t built in a day, and I won’t become the greatest writer overnight. But perhaps with a little work, and a lot more effort, I can become some kind of writer.
33andlostinlife 