Issue one of The Creative Truth is out now! You can download a free PDF version, or support the journal by buying an even cooler print version! The print version is only £3.99 and you can get 25% off by using code AUG2016 at the checkout until 24th August! Thank you so much for your support – I’m really happy with how the first issue has turned out, and honoured that so many writers chose to share their stories with us.
Tag: thoughts (Page 3 of 6)
Want a quick 60 second read (ish)? Here’s a little interview with me about writing poetry, inspiration, and advice. 🙂
Having PTSD – or anxiety, or whatever the hell this is – is like lugging a big heavy suitcase around with you all day, but it seems to be invisible to everyone else and you’re shouting at them in your head, “Why can’t you see this thing?!” But you don’t dare say it out loud in case the suitcase really is all in your head and your friends and family think you’re crazy and making a big deal out of nothing, or just attention seeking or trying to get sympathy. Experience has already taught you there are wrong people to try to talk to about it, so you keep your luggage to yourself and hope one day it becomes lighter, and someone sees it and says “are you okay with all of that?” And then you can finally say “No. Thank you for asking about it. I am not okay right now.” After days, weeks, months of lying, you will finally have found a chance to tell the truth. “No, I’m not okay, and this is a bit heavy, actually.” And then someone might give you a luggage trolley, or something. And things will be easier. I hope. Because I don’t even know where to find a luggage trolley.
The Creative Truth is accepting submissions for its first volume! We are looking for creative non-fiction including short stories, personal essays and memoirs up to 2,000 words. We love the brave and the honest, so if you’re a bare-all writer, this may be for you! Take a look at our submission guidelines for more details!
This is just for me. If someone else gets something out of it too, whether it makes someone else feel less alone, or like someone can relate, that’s fantastic. If not, then fine, it’ll just be an outlet for me.
I’m struggling this week. I had a bad dream a couple of nights ago, and because I didn’t want to have any more bad dreams, I delayed going to bed last night and went to sleep late. Not too late, but I was tired today. I feel perpetually tired.
Remember that game from when we were kids, where the whole point of the game is to not think about the game and when you do, you have to say “I lost the game”, causing everyone around you to also lose the game?
And then after that, all you can think about is the game, even though you hadn’t thought about the game in a long time and the only thing that set you off was thinking “hmm, I haven’t thought about the game in a while, I’ve been doing really well”?
That’s what thinking about my cancer history is like.
It’s a fucking tedious game.
I thought I’d been doing well. I had been doing well. It’s just been a bad week is all. Next week will be better.
It’s a radiotherapy machine you have to work yourself – yes, you, as the patient. There is a nurse standing next to me as I lie on the bed
part of the machine. And I mean bed in the loosest term possible – bed, as in something you lie on, not anything providing comfort.
1. Sometimes I don’t brush my teeth when
my parents tell me to.
2. Sometimes I daydream when I should
be listening to the teacher.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9. Sometimes I worry I’m not doing enough
naughty things. Maybe I’m supposed to
have more things to confess about.
10. Sometimes I lie to the priest
when I go to confession because
six year olds don’t have very much
to confess at all. I don’t know
why I have to do this and
I’m sorry I came
unprepared and
empty-handed.
Confiding in a friend is like shouting – you have to get a bit closer before they really hear you.
“I write songs I can’t listen to.” – Professor Green
Me too. I write poems I can’t read.
I want to write poems I can’t read.
They would probably be my best poems.
