It’s fair to say I’ve taken a substantial break from writing any fiction over recent years. And that wasn’t necessarily out of choice – a lot changed in my life, notably a new job. I love it, but it takes up a lot of time.
There was something missing, however. I write other kinds of texts for my work, but it’s not the same. Writing fiction takes me back to my childhood and the experience of being lost in my own world for hours at a time. It’s also true that we don’t create fiction in some kind of hermetically sealed bubble. It has a habit of spilling over into other areas of our lives – and that can have a positive impact on the other texts we might be required to create.
Above all, however, I realised that my writing was a way of understanding myself and the world around me. It is a kind of excavation of the psyche – if you return to a piece of your own writing after several years, you realise what it was trying to tell you. Or what you were trying to tell yourself – and pieces of the puzzle just seem to fall into place.
And so this is why I decided that the fiction that I’ve written so far, and the fiction I’ll create in the future – including the work I’ll be publishing on this blog – is really one massive exercise in self-exploration and self-expression. It is my voice.
Over the coming weeks, months (and I hope years) I’ll be publishing my short stories and novels here, as well as reviews and general ramblings like this one. If something on here resonates with other people’s experiences and ideas too, then that would be great. I hope to enjoy some dialogue with other readers and writers. I also hope that I’ll manage to entertain a few people. If I succeed in doing that, then I’ll consider it to have been worthwhile.
Kate Cudahy 