As writers we often ask ourselves: when is the right time to begin? To start the story, the draft, the journey.
This is a personal reflection on how I came to find my time.
I used to wonder if I'd left it too late.
Why didn’t I start on this writerly journey earlier in life?
Maybe I’d have had more of a chance with a longer run in.
The honest answer is, I couldn’t have. I wasn’t ready.
I’ve always been a reader and a day-dreamer. Falling asleep with my head in a book, half dreaming new scenes or alternative endings. I thought it was strange, until I started writing and realised it was part of the craft. Part of how stories arrive.
Anyway, back to now.
Why now? Why not then? When is, or will be, the ‘write’ time?
Timing matters. And sometimes that timing isn't ours to choose.
It was over a decade ago when I started actually putting pen to paper, but then I stopped again. I knew I wanted to write: for me it had to be sci-fi (or space fantasy, depending on how you want to classify it) and I knew the parts of my life I wanted to tap into.
The tough stuff.
But I didn’t know how. The time wasn’t right.
What was the tough stuff?
Grief and loss were always going to shape the stories I told. By the age of 11 I'd lost two brothers, and by 28 my mum. Any story I had to tell wasn’t going to be able to skirt around that.
But, back then, over ten years ago, it was also a part of life that was still kept ‘in the dark’, ‘a secret’. That’s how it had been, as children growing up. Born to a generation who didn’t talk about things as much as I hope we can now, the death of our brothers had been a forbidden subject. Hidden. Secret. Taboo.
I understand it now, a little at least. I have two wonderful children of my own, so perhaps am afforded just a glimmer of what Mum and Dad went through. Only a glimmer though.
And then came the really tough stuff. The bit that enabled me finally, as I approached my 50th year, to free myself from the secrets of the past.
Dad was diagnosed with dementia.
It came as such a blow. Shatteringly so. Life could be so cruel, had already taken so much, and was now about to take some more.
At the time all that mattered was focusing Dad. Making sure we were able to get the full diagnosis and follow up care in place – not easy with the country in lockdown.
“The book” had already resurfaced; those characters just kept knocking at the door in my mind, refusing to be ignored. I knew what I wanted to write but still hadn’t found the voice, or the courage, to face some of it.
And this is the harsh, cruel truth. Dad’s dementia provided that release. Helped me find that voice.
With that cold, hard diagnosis, with the hurt and pain that followed, in some way, came my freedom. I could talk. I could write. About our brothers. Set them free.
It wasn’t going to hurt Dad anymore.
For a while I hesitated to share this because the timing didn't feel 'right'. But grief doesn't follow a schedule. It doesn’t stop at the end of one week, or one month, or one year. And we have to be able to talk about it. All of us.
Grief lives with us, is within us, is part of us.
Grief could, and can, destroy us.
But it mustn’t.
That would not serve those we have lost and, frankly, would be the very last thing they would ever want.
So if you're waiting, for the right age, the right season, the right moment - your 'write' time will come. Not on anyone else's schedule, but yours.
And when it does, your words will matter.