STARTING

SO IT BEGINS

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SO IT BEGINS 〰️

I am writing this first ever blog post (scary, lol) from my bed in Costa Rica, struck with severe period pains I have decided that to soothe my stabbing ovaries I will overcome a fear by channeling the period pains into beginning to write online. Fight fire with fire baby! I challenged myself to do this a very long time ago (years) and what better time than now to focus my mind away from the fact I have some sort of gremlin with a pick axe rage-rooming in my womb.

I have always found ways of ignoring the desire to share what I write by busying myself into other less vulnerable pursuits, and due to my ADHD, many of them. So, I have decided to stop being a silly little poo head and commit myself to sharing on this journal. Scary? Oh fuck yeah. Worth it? Yes. I think we can all agree that often, doing the scary thing is worth it in the end, I know some of my biggest lessons and most magical experiences have come from doing the scary thing and so this should be no different, and after all, it’s words on a page. It is not a break up or moving my entire life abroad, like I did last year with funnily enough, less anxiety than this. I have always talked myself out of sharing writing by deciding that no one cares OR everyone will hate it. It’s really fun having a brain that likes to talk me out of creative pursuits by either saying to myself that it is a silly hobby or, assuming that all people are judgmental and as unkind as I am about myself in preventing myself from sharing what I write or publishing anything. That ends now!

Writing feels scary, new, exciting, thrilling, daunting and alien in some ways, all wrapped up into one ball. I want to get that ball rolling and share what it is I spend so much of my time doing, be it in my journals only ever with a four colour-way biro, or feverishly typing into my notes app at any given moment when a thought, poem or some gibberish feels eager to come out. I love to write, I want to write, I am deciding that in writing this blog and sharing my poems and submitting my work to publications and my poetry, that this very first post will be something that eighty year old me will have a jolly good time reading back on. Hopefully, if my dreams that I am finally daring to dream, come true, my eighty year old self might be a published author by then, or perhaps more romantically - about to finally get published at eighty because that would be very iconic.

I am writing for the younger me

for the little Frankie who wrote all the time, entered competitions in creative writing and poetry at school, who made family newsletters and stories and wrote songs and drew all day. She was less afraid than I am, I am writing to give this little girl a chance at her dream.

I want to write as honestly as I can about the things that I feel, or think, or observe, or the stories I want to tell from the actual truth of my experience of them as much as I possibly can. I am acknowledging to myself that this is going to require courage and maybe even exposing certain parts of myself that I have always done a good job of buttoning up and shushing away. I am writing for me, to feel like a writer - something I have dreamed of.

I hope that my writing doesn’t upset anyone and that my truth can be respected as my version of reality, and I want to make it clear now, anything I write, I will always endeavour to share from the right place, without causing any harm or upset or offense, I know that you cannot please everyone, but these intentions are important for me to share. Ex partners, acquaintances, strangers I pass by, friends and family members - I will always respect your anonymity if I ever decide to tell a story or share about something that you may or may not be involved in and I will check first with you prior to posting any pieces online that involve you in some way.

I am excited to begin this journey and this first post now gets the tricky bit out the way - starting!

Frankie x

PHOTO BY: Luc Coiffait