Q&A

I asked not too long ago for people to contribute to a Question & Answer thing. Thank you everybody who offered up interesting and probing questions for my little Q&A. And thank you to those who offered terrible or inane questions as well. I won’t embarrass anybody by telling you all who asked what.

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Why do you blog?
I started publishing my poetry online in 2015. The general theme in my writing was the darkness I was lost within, and I wanted to show to others in similar places that it’s okay to talk about it, and that they are not alone. I received such an amazing response, with people telling me how much it helped to read my writing, that I simply had to keep sharing.

 

Where do you get your ideas?
Everything I write is either the way I feel about situations or circumstances, or the experiences either I or people close to me have had. I don’t have a planning stage or a time spent sitting and thinking “what shall I write about today.” If a thought enters my head I try to write it down as soon as I can, otherwise I’ll play around with it in my head to see if I can mould it into something.

 

Are there any topics that you feel you would rather not write about?
I used to write very adult-rated content, which I will not do again. Other than that I don’t think there’s anything I’d make an effort to avoid. I won’t write anything intentionally offensive or inflammatory, but I also won’t shy away from debate.

 

What do you prefer reading prose or poetry?
Poetry. My attention span is far too short for anything too wordy. I struggle even to proof-read my own short stories! I used to read novels, but haven’t managed to get beyond the second page in a long time. Poetry tends to be shorter, more to the point and simpler to read. It doesn’t need to hold attention for as long, which suits me down to the ground.

 

When you aren’t blogging, what are you in real life?
Well, I’m not so sure that blogging is not a part of real life… But my day job is an Accounting Technician, which is basically an accountant.

 

Have you published anything in print? If so, what? And Where?
I currently have one poetry book published and available on Amazon. You should probably check it out. 🙂

 

After reading poems by fellow bloggers do you ever feel you could have done a better job? And when you know you have written well do you find it disheartening that not too many people have liked it?
I try not to compare my work to that of others, because it becomes far too easy to be self-critical to such a negative extent. Sometimes I will read another poet’s writing and think “I hadn’t considered that!” but I do my best to avoid damning my own writing.
As for feeling disheartened when not getting many ‘likes,’ I used to. When starting out in a blogging community it takes a while to get noticed, and as somebody who has always been an introvert I struggled to ‘put myself out there’ and draw in readers. But I’ve never been, and hopefully never will be, somebody who thinks ‘followers’ and ‘likes’ are the be all and end all.

 

What’s a Brummie?
A Brummie is somebody from Birmingham (the real one, in the UK).

 

What do you most want to accomplish in your life, and do you believe blogging increases your ability to achieve those goals or takes away from it?
I don’t have any aspirations as such. I’d like to have at least one of the songs I’ve written performed by a band, but that’s it. All I really want is to be financially secure and with the one I love.

 

Who inspires you,  or who do you aspire to be like?
I think the only person I have ever been truly inspired by is myself. I looked at the person I was and that gave me all the inspiration I needed to become anybody else. So I became the person I am now. Which is actually the same person, just with fewer fucks being given.

 

You write a lot about scars. Do you have any (physical), and do they have interesting stories?
Yes – about eighteen scars, I believe – and no -the stories are all pretty boring. I got wiped out by a van when I was five years old, and still bear the scar where my shin bone tried escaping from my leg. I have a couple on my arm from when a glass shower screen randomly exploded near me. The rest are from falling off things as a child or accidents I can’t even remember.

 

If you had to give up either coffee or alcohol, which would you choose?
I think it would actually be coffee I’d get rid of. I’m definitely reliant on caffeine, especially in the morning, but I can get that fix from tea or other sources. Alcohol isn’t important to me, but beer is the only thing I can spend all evening (or day, if required!) drinking.

 

What did you dress as for last Halloween?
I don’t really go in for that whole thing, so I just threw on some old Airsoft and role-playing gear and went as some kind of post-apocalyptic survivor. I’ve only properly dressed up for Halloween once, several years ago. As Minnie Mouse. It wasn’t pretty.

 

What’s your favourite word?
I don’t have one. I find most words to be just as useful as each other, so no preference at all. But I will state that I am very much an advocate of swearing; there are times when it really is the best way to get a point across.

 

What’s the one thing about you that always surprises people?
My age. I’ve been accused of having fake I.D because I “couldn’t possibly be that old.” Either that or my job. People don’t believe I’m an accountant. Ever.

 

What were you like in school? Teacher’s pet, the rebel, straight A’s?
I was very well behaved, at first, and one of the top students. Then I started ‘acting out’ when I reached thirteen, just getting into minor trouble at school and intentionally going against the grain. When I was sixteen I got suspended from school for the first time, after berating a teacher in front of his class and telling him he needs to lose his job. After that I began making a point whenever I didn’t agree with things, and ultimately I stopped caring about my grades and barely made it into university.