Hi friends,
How are you doing? Last time we spoke I mentioned that part of my plan to ensure I love work without living for it is cultivating a creative practice outside of work, and something I’ve done to support this is sign up to a short story course by the brilliant Huma Qureshi. Some of you may remember I took her memoir course at the start of the year and shared the process here on Substack.
Today I thought I’d share a little more about my relationship with fiction and why I’m so excited to be returning to this medium.
When I started my media writing course at uni, I had dreams of being a music journalist. I wanted to follow bands, interview them, review gigs and albums. And I did a lot of that when I was a student. But I also wrote stories. Some for fun, some as part of my course.
For our dissertation, we were given two choices. We could either go down the academic route with a dissertation that included research, citations and study, or we could take the creative route, creating a story, screenplay, or whatever we wanted to show off our writing chops.
I didn’t hesitate to take the creative option. Some sneered about it being the ‘easy’ option but I didn’t care, I knew the only way to get 10,000 words out of me and not hate every second was for it to be creative.
I wrote a collection of short stories for my dissertation and recently I found the printed copies at my parents. I reread them and couldn’t help but smile. Each story focused on a woman going through something mental health related, from bulimia and addiction to narcissistic abuse and schizophrenia. The fact that I didn’t realise back then I had a future in mental health writing makes me chuckle.
Since then fiction has popped up sporadically in my writing life. I wrote stories for Cellardoor magazine, I wrote stories on my old blog (who remembers monthly mindscapes?) and most recently I wrote a ‘healing fairytale’ about a witch finding the courage to leave her toxic coven.
Revisiting these in the last couple of months made me pang with longing. A longing to return to short stories. This longing has been fed by TikTok’s algorithm showing me videos of writers documenting their book-writing process, making it look…. Not easy, but… attainable, I guess.
All of this to say, the longing has grown into a specific desire: I want to write a book. A collection of short stories. I want to submit to competitions, to literary magazines. I want to query agents (is that even the right terminology?). I want to be published, either traditionally or through the self-publishing route.
I want to do all of this alongside Happiful work, a side-project to help me have something creative outside of work. I feel fulfilled in my work, but I want to feel just as fulfilled outside of work to avoid that whole living for work trap and, I think, this is just what I need.
The last two books I’ve read have been short story collections (including Huma’s Things We Do Not Tell The People We Love) and I have added more to my list. I want to remind myself of the beauty of this particular medium I fell for all those years ago and see where the desire to write in this way leads.
As always, I’ll be sharing as I go. I actually impulsively started a series on TikTok/Instagram stories this week called ‘The Writer Diaries’ where I share what I write each day, which is proving to be a fun experiment. And of course I’ll share in more depth here.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on having a creative practice away from your day-to-day work and what that looks like for you. Let me know in the comments.
I’ll be back soon with an update on how it’s all going, and feel free to follow me on TikTok or Instagram for regular peeks into what I write each day.
Until then, Take care.
Kat x
I relate so much to this Kat, writing fiction is where I feel most like myself. When I first started writing seriously I attached way too much to external 'success' (getting an agent and all those things) and when I tried to sell my first novel, encouraged by mentors and prize short-listings, I was crushed when it didn't find a home. My biggest learning is to write for me, while it's beautiful to have a goal in mind to send it out, the joy of making the thing, of experimenting and playing and enjoying language and meeting other writers is all so beautiful. In terms of a day-to-day practice I became a coach so I could have a business that helps people and doesn't have to rely on my creative work and freedom over my time. Being around other writers is also something I find so helpful, so I think I'll always have courses and classes on go. I hope your return to fiction brings you lots of joy, will keep following to see how it goes! ♡