Addies Friendly Feelings

If you had said to me 18 months ago that I would be actually 18 months into writing one, maybe more, children’s books, I may well have shot you. But here I am.

How did it even start?

Well actually it started with an emotional breakdown.

When self doubt and the voices of trauma hit me hard, the voices that said I didnt finish projects, the voices that said that I could only do ‘easy’ things, and the voice that kept telling me that I ‘gave up’ easily, especially as I pretty much had no inner resource to keep going. Yeah thats not a great start to writing a book.

I could write, and could write 1000 words easy on a blog, and then forget about it, flitting from one idea to another, but with no inner self confidence to keep anything going. And to actually sit down and write a book. Something I had always wanted to do, no thanks. No chance.

And I had tried. trust me. Lots of ideas, lots of storyboards, lots of writing pads. Nope.

Just couldn’t do it.

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So, what changed.

Two things.

Firstly I didnt start off writing a book, in the midst of an emotional breakdown, that wasnt going to happen. Too big. Too soon. Too daunting.

Secondly, I looked at a few primary school photos of me, one I was 5, another 7, another around 9, and I looked at child me in the photos.

And I decided to write to that 9 year old boy.

But not just pens.

Pens, meant work, blue and black meant the world of day to day work (and that was the source of some of the emotional breakdown)

It needed to be colour, and so I went to the stationers and bought a cheap pad, and pens and found what became my favourite table in the Darlington Waterstones cafe. Over that August Bank holiday 2023, in 4 whole days I wrote and wrote and wrote, enjoying every moment, and this began the flow, and it just continued.

I wrote the kind of conversations about feelings that would have been what I needed to hear when I was that 9 year old little boy. I didnt want to get hung up on names, so the early stories have him as ‘Bob’ but then I changed his name to Addie.

The stories were based on my memories, of childhood, and through the process of writing I realised they began to heal the haunts, and love those memories, and the boy that survived through them.

Thats how this started, and from August 2023 to January 2024, I wrote 7 – 8 short 1500-2000 words outline stories.

That’s how this started, and in the next post, ill share a little bit more…

Thank you!