Do what you love the way you love

When I was little, all I wanted to be in the whole wide world was an author. I wanted to let my imagination flow freely and pour the contents of my very messed up head onto paper. I wanted so badly to live in a world of characters that I have created, and to spend every single day going on adventures with them. I wanted to sit at a desk every single day for the rest of my life and write the thoughts in my head and share them with the world.

This was never a problem in primary school. In fact, it was very much encouraged. At least once a month we would write stories, creating beginnings, middles and endings. Pretty much everyone else would groan at the idea of having to spend a week planning and writing a story, but I relished it. I particularly loved handing it in and finding out what my teacher thought, because that was to me how I was sharing my stories at that time.

Every day after school I would rush home and write stories (admittedly, I don't think I ever finished one), and illustrated them too. It was my hobby, and what I loved to do above everything else.

When I went to secondary school I was so excited to do 'big-girl' English, and write even better stories, getting A*'s in my GCSEs and A Levels before graduating from one of the top universities with a degree in English.

Boy, did I come back down to earth with a bump.

As you will all know, English in secondary school in very different to literacy in primary school. It's all about writing essays and non-fiction pieces, and there doesn't seem to be any link to creativity and fun at all.

But still, for a few years, I stuck at it, attacking each English lesson with gusto, determined to hold onto my dream. And, I've got to say, I did actually enjoy it. I liked (and still do like) picking apart texts (especially Shakespeare and poetry), understanding exactly what the writer wanted to convey in the prose. I've never been a fan of the language side of things, but I enjoyed English literature.

Then in the past two years, I've just hated it. Well, maybe not hated, that's quite a strong word, but I haven't really enjoyed any of it. I don't know whether it was changing teachers, from ones that I really liked (and swotted up to a lot) to one that I just didn't really connect with so well, I don't know whether it's the texts that we've been studying, or simply that I just don't enjoy the subject when its about writing the best possible essay to pass an exam.

But something else has happened that I believe has completely changed my perception on English - I started this blog. In my earlier years of secondary school I think that I clung to English and everything about it so hard because it was all that I wanted and the only way I could really get my creative side out. But when I started this blog, suddenly I have an outlet for all of my creative writing, somewhere to spill my weird and wonderful thoughts, and I don't need English so much anymore.

I remember (yes that's right, time for another anecdote), when I was in year 6 and one of my friends was moving to Australia. We all went round her house as a kind of leaving do (before going to see Arthur Christmas in the cinema) and painted our hands and made a hand print on this big canvas. Beside each of our hand prints we wrote our name and what we wanted to be when we grow up. It was a really nice idea and a nice way for this friend to remember all of us.
I went home after this party and showed my sister a picture of the canvas, and she said to me that she bets not one of us will ever do what we have written on that canvas.

I wanted to be an author, and was so sure that I would become one. I have so many diary entries about how passionate I am and how I never should let anything stop me. Today when I thought about this, it made me really sad. The only thing that I wanted I've already failed at and I haven't even left school yet. But that's when I realised: I already am an author.

Sure, I'm not a very good or even frequent writer. My little posts on makeup or rants aren't going to win any awards for outstanding literacy, but I am still here, doing what I love, the way I love. I share my writing with the world and maybe even a few people enjoy it. And I bet that if you'd told ten year old me that, she'd have been happy.

That's the message that I want to try and get across to you today. There's a countless number of clichés about following your dreams and never giving up, but what I honestly think is wayyy more important than that, is following your dreams the way that you want to follow them.

There's no set path to achieve what you want, no specific way, so why should you have to take the 'conventional' route? Yeah probably getting an A Level and a degree in English may have helped me to become an author, but that's not what I want anymore. I am writing now because I love it, and I am writing what I want to in the way I want to. I don't care about English in school now (well I do obviously, because I've got to study it, but you know what I mean), it's not important to me, because this blog and this writing, this makes me happy.

Do what you love the way you love.

What I'm trying to say is, if you love dancing but hate your dance class, dance alone in your room to your favourite song and love it!
If you love singing but can't stand doing exams, then don't do them! Upload a video of yourself to YouTube, it worked for Justin Bieber!
If you love to read, but hate having to read all those old classics because that's what's going to give you a wider knowledge then screw that! Read whatever you want, even if it is just trashy romances the whole time!

And let me tell you something. Since I've been at secondary school, I haven't written a single story. I just haven't had any in me. That is until this week, when I started to write a story for the first time in years, all because I have found my inspiration again through this blog.

Do what you love the way you love.

If you don't, you will slowly find your enthusiasm and passion and drive being chipped away until you can't stand it anymore. It's only by doing what you love in the way that you love that you'll be able to do it forever and love it forever.