I got rid of all 9 stories, in a fit of defeat and despair, with never being able to write another story. Ideas seem to simply refuse to come to me until I met him…
Who’s him? I hear you ask. Well, I shall tell you, because he is the person that helped make Dawn Wake happen, the story that started all the other stories that came after it. But I’m getting ahead of myself, so I shall start at the very beginning.
I was on the whole in quite a depressive state after I had gotten rid of all of the stories that I had spent months on writing and completing, that in the end added all to nothing. I was quite gutted; I can tell you that.
Before leading up to the moment Dawn Wake happened. One day Paul had given me a tape of an audio story that he had done entirely all by himself, complete with sound effect tracks, that he had done with only just a tape deck a record player, a microphone, his voice and two LPs with sound effect tracks on them.
I can tell you this much, I completely blown away. The audio tale sounded really professional like, and I was seriously and sincerely impressed. I told him as much and that was when we got talking about doing stories. He had done a few himself, which led me to telling him about my Flightpath story and me throwing the stories away and being heart broken of not having any creative ideas for writing stories and I so wanted to write again, so badly.
He told me how sorry he was to hear that and that was it. Or so I thought. I was not completely expecting him to come visit me one day where I was living in a flat all on my own in Blackpool, long before the move to Kirkham, where I currently live. Paul sat on the sofa and produced a six-page unfinished prologue that he had written. And then he said to me.
“I can’t finish this off and I want you to have it. When you had told me about needing to write a story and wishing that you had the creativity to write again. After writing this prologue, I could not carry one and then I thought about you and what you said and I knew right there and then that I wanted you to finish this story.”
I was completely moved by his words. No one has ever been that kind to me, my whole life. For most of my life, I had been criticized in one way or another, more times than I can possibly count. No one was ever kind to me and yet here was Paul not only being kind to me but offering me such a beautiful gift. The unfinished prologue had no title to it. I read it and I was completely astonished.
The six pages had been written in a way with words of a words smith, that I could not possibly contend with, not on that level. I said nothing right away, because I honestly did not want to offend him in anyway. But one day I told him the honest truth. I told him carefully.
“Thank you for that six-page unfinished prologue you had given to me. But I honestly do not think that I can finish it. I do not think that I can ever possibly write in the same style as you.”
I held my breath, worried that he’d be offended.
And he replied with…
“Nonsense. I have complete faith in you.”
Those words right there totally blew me away. I thanked him. I did not start on the unfinished 6 paged prologue right away. I sat there going over and over what he had written and in the way that he had written it and his words. “I have complete faith in you.” Ringing in my mind. And then it happened, a spark. My mind started to fill with imagination, imagining where this prologue to lead to and so slowly and steadily I started off not only finishing off the prologue, but the whole entire story itself.
That story was about two souls existing in different people throughout different realities, waiting to be joined together as one. Waiting for the fall of the Dawn Wake, a mystical awakening of two souls becoming as one. I had written the entire story in exactly the same style as Paul had written and used fancy words just like what he had used. I do not know how or where they came from, they were just there in my mind. All I had to do was for me to write them down.
The title of the story of course was Dawn Wake, and I read it Paul and he absolutely loved it. In a completely unexpected events, Paul had stopped doing stories, as he had no ideas for any and I had begun getting ideas for the next story after Dawn Wake and from there on in, one story after another, simply kept pouring into my mind and I have never stopped writing ever since.
So, I owe completely everything to Paul, without him giving me that 6 paged unfinished prologue-none, of my stories would ever have been possible. His unfinished work was the seed that sparked my imagination which grew into something utterly and completely beautiful. I am absolutely beyond grateful for his belief in me and his gift, that made all of my stories possible.