EVERYTHING AROUND US - In Progress.

“Is it not just nice to imagine? To collect thoughts and versions of what the world could be like and use that as fuel to create?”

            “Create what?” I asked, my voice rising harshly. “Unhappiness because those ideals will never happen?”

***

Contrary to the snippet above from my current WIP, I'm a massive believer in imagining other versions of myself. Is it weird to be able to pin-point the exact moment your life kind of went downhill? I can, and it was weird. It was something I couldn't adjust to and have fallen prey to. So I planned to write a book, out of my comfort zone, to deal with it. I knew I wanted it to have truthful situations I knew I'd be able to realistically write about. But it was going to be another version of me. I wanted to write a boy suffering with anxiety and relying on something creative. I wanted to use my knowledge of film-making which has just been tumbling round in my head since I left college last year.

I left it as a really weak idea for months before I even named my male protagonist. But in December, I watched an episode of The Vampire Diaries and listened to Concrete Angel and suddenly, I saw this boy in my head, and the song became something to me. The lyrics turned into thoughts and I  viewed how he saw a girl that he wanted to befriend. He wanted to reach her but they both had their own boundaries, and the girl had a good reason to put up her walls.

Hazel came to me in tiny bits. Her trademark ballcap fashion came first, slightly inspired from a friend I used to have. Her attitude came from another song (Cider by Yezi), and I went from there to build an image of the girl who'd oppose Nicholas and tell her own story.

EVERYTHING AROUND US follows both their POVs, to see their struggles and the different people they find in a small film club. In total, there are only five people (including them), largely underestimated by the leader of the group who missed his shot at being on a lighting team in Hollywood. So they only end up making one short film. This story is about inspiring each of the five to look beyond the ugliness they see in their worlds and find beauty, and to capture it.

Hazel finds it hardest to adjust. Taken from another friend, I made her restless. I made her a free spirit who found it hard to sit still or stay in one place, to go where her feet took her when she wanted. But she finds her place there eventually, as each of the others do. They find that they have a place, that they're needed to make something bigger, which is what they've always missed.

The club coaxes Nicholas to deal with his anxiety rather than just sit and waste away in his room, pondering over a fulfilled past. Anxiety is something I've not dealt well this past year and I've used that in Nicholas to see how he handles it, to see the support he gets and what he does from that. Hazel comes from a family that has slowly broken down because of something she did three years prior to the start of the story, and her side is fun and free to explore. The other three all add so much life and exploration to the story: Stuart, who can't decide on how he wants to look and relies on the opinions of others to guide him because of his own past; Hank who hates his name and switches from being called Dean or Alex depending on his days, who has a lot of parental pressure to be academically clever when he just wants to explore; Ailee, a girl who wants to fly and make art but got rejected from her dream school and finds the club as another creative avenue.

This story is in the drafting process and incredibly close to me. I'm taking situations I know or have seen and making them into something I can work through and find answers to. Through it, I'm finding old passions again and showing that I'm a lot more than just a person who sits at their desk and writes and that's all. I've lived and explored and whilst that may not be the case so much now, I will again because if I can write it, I'll believe it and become inspired by it.