![]() My Fear of WritingA Story by Erika Jones![]() This is an essay I did for a literary narrative last semester for my English course. I hope everyone likes it. I'll post another one up in either a few days or longer.![]() I can recall sitting in front of my laptop early this past April, starting one of my first few original works I’ve had the guts to start for something called Camp National Novel Writing Month (Camp NaNoWriMo) and typing like a mad woman to reach my goal. It’s a story I’ve not only become proud of by the time it was finished in early July, thinking “what an amazing idea!”, but also something I’ve become to fear of immensely. My story, Shattered, is written through the eyes of a
seventeen year old young man who’s mute due to the effects of long-term child
abuse by the hands of his mother, whom was arrested two years prior to the
beginning of the story. Throughout Shattered, his mother is released from jail
early for “good behavior” a month and a few weeks before his eighteenth
birthday and was allowed to live in the same house as him as long as she
followed strict guidelines and is to never be left alone with him under any
circumstances. While he constantly put himself through the struggles of
trying to communicate with people at school who don’t believe his mother abused
him and thinks she was wrongly accused. Claiming that his silence is because he
knows the truth and refuses to speak due to someone calling him out on his
supposed lies he’s spread. Though one person does believe him and it’s the same
person he tries to push away, knowing full well what his mother’s like when
he’s had friends in the past, and truly believes his mother is the one at
fault. Not only that, he has to live under constant scrutiny and
degrading and hateful eyes of his mother, all because he exists in her life. While I wrote this book, I became attached to my character,
Koda, almost to the point I thought I was living his life. I had become the
quiet person from the story to where I’d go hours ignoring everyone vocally and
refused to speak to them. And times where I didn’t want to be left alone in the
same room with someone or I’d stay in my room without doing anything for long
periods of time. There were a few nights where I’ve woken up from nightmares
where I was Koda from the story, breathing heavy like I had been running from
someone and drenched in a cold sweat, unable to go back to sleep for hours. Shattered had started taking over my life until I decided a
break was needed and I put it aside from the end of May to the last week of
June. During this time, I felt like I was able to breathe, sleep and interact
with people as best as I could while I was in school. But when I picked Shattered up again to finish it, it all
returned. The fear. The anxiety. The restless nights. It all came back but not
as bad as it was before. I was almost finished. Had two or three chapters left and
it’d be done. But it was also when I had to think about the horrible pain that
Koda went through, the pain his mother inflicted to make two years of his life
nothing but silence and fear driven. I went to bed crying just thinking about it only to wake up
and cry some more the next morning. I truly felt like a horrible person for writing something as
horrifying as this story. Like this was a part of me that exists deep inside of
myself and got me thinking, “maybe I’m like his mother, only people like her
would ever think of something as horrifying as this. I must be a monster.” It took quite a bit of talking and convincing from friends
like Christine, Lisa and Sora, all three of them constantly telling me that my
story is fine, that what I’m feeling is normal for anybody who writes. I
remember them saying “it’s alright” over and over again. It’s something I still need to
hear from them. There are still moments when I believe I’m a monster because
the story exists and days where I regret writing it at all, but it’s something
I’m still going to be proud of, because I wrote it, finished it and didn’t give
up on it like I’ve done so many other things in my life. It’s something I can use to prove that I’m not a failure at
the things I love to do, because I still love to write, even when they make my
emotions a rollercoaster that scares the living daylights out of me. © 2016 Erika JonesReviews
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Added on February 1, 2016Last Updated on February 1, 2016 Author![]() Erika JonesMedway, OHAboutI'm Erika and I'm a 25 year old Author. I've self-published a small poem book called "Screams of the Outcast" a couple years ago and slowly selling. Not only do I like poetry, I love writing novels an.. more..Writing
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