Writing For My Younger Self
9th June 2025
Stories have always been important to me. I can’t speak for everyone, but my love of stories bordered on delusion at times.
When I was lonely growing up, I found a world in the whimsical but gritty tales of the Grimm Brothers, Greek myths, and Hans Christian Andersen. That’s really how it began. I created a place where my stories were real. I can still see it in my mind even now.
It was a castle garden. There was a fountain at the centre, rose bushes curled into ornate shapes, and marble floors patterned with intricate designs. I was alone, book in hand, having a picnic with lemonade and chocolate-covered strawberries, lemon cake and scones. That was where I went when I was daydreaming or trying to escape.
I named it Monetia, after Monet’s waterlily bridge painting. Awful name, really, but hey, I was five!
My Dad took me to see it at the London National Art Gallery, and I remember the shock of recognition. It felt like he had painted what was already in my head half a century before. That’s what my world looked like. Soft, blurry, and beautiful, like an impressionist dream. The sky was all brushstrokes, like in Mary Poppins, when they jump into the painting and it stays a painting.
But over time, my world started to feel lonely. So I imagined I wasn’t alone.
At first, it was mythical beings. When I lay on the grass and saw the wind bend the blades, I imagined it was speaking to me, trying to communicate. When the sun set and the moon rose, I wondered what it felt like to be them. I wondered why they circled each other every day. Were they friends, lovers, or enemies? I had grown up loving Greek myths (you can blame Anthony Horowitz for that one!), so it all made perfect sense to me.
Eventually, I started creating characters: daring princes, brave princesses, wicked kings and sly sorcerers. I gave them stories to go on, and they came back to tell me about them. My daydreams began to slip into my dreams. I used to get terrible night terrors, and when I couldn’t sleep, I would place myself back in that little world again. I was safe there. I dreamed of wild adventures where good triumphed over evil, and the monsters under my bed didn’t stand a chance against my new friends.
In time, I became a character, too. Fighting off evil. Brave in ways I definitely wasn’t in real life.
I would love to say I eventually outgrew all of this. In some ways, I did. I feel safe in the world now, which my childhood self wouldn’t believe. But in times of hardship, I have always returned to fantasy, to that need for escape.
Writing has always been a crutch for me, but over the years, I learned to embrace it. There is something, I don’t know any other word for it but lovely, about writing. Whimsical and beautiful and entrancing.
Excuse my upcoming feminist rant. It is a common theme in my thoughts, so it will likely show up on this blog too (!), but as girls, we were taught to look down on our femininity. To hate the colour pink and tease other girls for liking it. I certainly did as a young teenager, ashamed of my own softness and femininity.
But I find something incredibly empowering about leaning into the gentle. Reclaiming what my fourteen-year-old self would be embarrassed to admit she enjoys. I am an ambitious and hard-working professional in a pretty male-dominated industry in my day-to-day life, and have to wear a mask of firmness and strength. But there is nothing quite so delightful as spending time with my female friends watching whimsical period dramas, and being earnest in our expressions of love for each other.
I guess you could say that is why I write.
Not to escape, exactly, but to create something soft.
A place to rest.
For me, and maybe for you too.
I have just finished my debut novel, a collection of short stories called Honeyed Myths. I don’t expect it to appeal to a mainstream audience, but I am, in truth, publishing it for my younger self. Of course, what artist doesn’t dream of success, but I have no real hopes for that. I only hope someone like-minded might find it and love it. A silly, unrealistic dream perhaps, but an earnest one. I am tired of pretending to be something I am not, and this feels like a reclamation of sorts in a way I can’t really explain!
Thanks for reading,
Jess x
