Hay Days and Dreams

I spent a lovely day yesterday at the Hay Festival in a place I love surrounded by books and other like minded people yet I felt a little out of place. The costs involved in seeing most of the talks are crazy and with us just seeing a couple of people and having food we spent over £100. I felt quite sad that this joyous festival seems out of reach for so many people, I only had to look at the number of designer handbags around me to realise that.

It seemed like another world. I sat watching so many people just lazing around in the glorious sunshine we had been blessed with, not with their phones or other high tech gadgets, but with books in their hands so absorbed in their pages that anything could be going on around them and they would not have noticed. I had to pinch myself just to make sure I wasn’t asleep and dreaming it all.

I found myself thinking how amazing it would be to have people absorbed in my books, staying up half the night just to finish it, just like so many Harry Potter fans. Perhaps one day it would be me that people would be queuing out the door of the Hay Book Shop to meet and have a book signed. So many people queuing for over 30 minutes just to get a seat in a large theatre just to hear my story and thought, “Wow” how amazing and humbling that feeling must be, that all those people found something to connect with in my words.

It seems such a long time since I started on this writing journey of mine, a long time since I first put pen to paper when I was younger (over 30 years ago) and just looking at my collection of poems and short stories I have just published of the beginnings of this journey, just how much I have neglected my writing over the years.

How some how I forgot about that dream, the one that has been with me all this time, a constant friend, always there when I need it, yet tragically forgotten in between. But finally experiencing the Hay Festival and seeing what may have been (if I had not ignored it and been good enough of course) has given me new energy.

This dream is one that I can no longer ignore, we only get one chance at this journey of ours, so why not chase our dreams? At least when the journey ends I can say I spent it striving for something I believed in, I’m just sorry it took me so long to realise it.

Here is a link to my first collection, now available in hard copy format. I hope you enjoy sharing in my journey.

Journey Into Light: Collection of Poems and Short Stories by Miss M J Fletcher Link: http://amzn.eu/48Q5dVg