Hi folks,
I just thought I’d share how this story came about, if anyone is interested, it was never intended to be such a personal or emotional write for me. The truth is a good friend showed me a picture of an incredibly hot looking tattooed girl and I just felt the urge to include her in a story! I was driven by my carnal lusts (and not for the first time…) but as I started typing, all this stuff from my upbringing just flooded out, I don’t know why or how. It certainly wasn’t my intention, but that’s what happened and the story progressed.
The first draft had Terri as a bitch, a stereo typical bully and the crux of the conflict was that she was accepted even though I wasn’t. this led to hatred and to a vicious fight in the car park of the college where I was winning until her friends showed up. The whole point was although I got beat bad, I still smiled as they couldn’t beat my spirit! As I finished it, it lacked the poignancy I wanted… somebody mentioned taking Terri as a good girl and the fight being my fault… I LOVED this idea! I thought it would spin the reader, I mean.. when you have two girls, one who is bitter but you sympathise with and the other who is a lovely, sparkly person who hasn’t done anything wrong… who do you side with?
The story just popped (well for me anyway, I hope you enjoyed it too! LOL) and I finished it. But the strange thing is the line I chose to finish it with… “but the next 2 years… well for the first time in my life I didn’t spend them alone…” I didn’t know why I wrote that… it irked me… it implied an end to the love and an end to the happiness, but it certainly wasn’t a conscious decision. I realised that I was using Terri as an avatar for my first ever relationship. It was around that time of my life and it lasted 2 years. I needed to write a second story. This one would be far more selfish as I was using the story to rid myself of burdens long forgotten rather than to entertain or enthral.
It handled the relationship of me and Rhian (although in the story, her name was Terri now) and dealt with how we broke up… the fight was more of a lashing out of my subconscious… the damage and physical beating mirroring how I felt inside, the fight was total fiction, although the stuff before it was real. I felt a bit silly posting it as it was such a personal tale, would anyone really click with it? After all, their perception of this character Terri, and my perception of her were totally different. But the feedback I got was humbling and brought more than a few tears to my eyes.
I needed to write a third story, I needed closure to all this and so brought my love back… this was complete fiction, just an emotionally led tale played out in a summer storm. I got the closure I needed and I just hope you did too.
Thank you for taking the time to read my story and for taking the time to read all of this. And thank you to all those who left comments, they really lifted my spirits.
Yours Gratefully
Gemma Rox
