When You Fight For Your Dream & Win

Lara Parker / Instagram

As a firm believer in taking life by the horns and living the hell out of it, it's sometimes incredibly hard not to sound completely full of it. 

It's such a fine line to tread between being empowering and being patronising, because we've all grown up with fairy princesses and teeny bopper bands telling us to Reach for the stars! Just be yourself! Make your dreams come true!

But what does that actually mean in reality?

Learning To Let Yourself Be Saved

I like to think that 20 years from now, I can look back at my life and regard the 17th September 2014 as the day my life changed forever.

What begun as any ordinary day and finished as little more, turned unexpectedly into the day in which I learnt one of the most profound lessons of my life so far, the day that the ignorance I had been clinging to for so long was gently prised from my fingertips and I finally faced the music I'd been persistently shunning.

The 17th September 2014 was the day I realised there are times in life where you simply have to let other people in, so they can help you, to help yourself.

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2am Truths As The Universe Sighs

I have these moments sometimes. 

Moments when I feel this little niggling tingle in my chest, when I find myself easily distracted away from trivial things and overly cynical about the people who partake in them.

And so I turn off all the lights, I put in my headphones, I turn the volume up on full and I listen to a playlist I have on spotify called 'Gravel Fingernails'.

And at that moment, I know those songs are able to penetrate a very deep layer of my mind, and I go a bit strange. I often cry, I often have my head in my hands or fists clenched tight, sometimes I even get a little out of breath, because it brings forth to the surface some of the most astounding epiphanies I could never otherwise access. The music itself is able to delve deep into my soul, extract a series of thoughts and observations, and string them together upon this logical thread of truth which is tugged through to my conscious mind and I just suddenly understand.

The Day of Frost - 30 Days #10

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To find out more about the 30 Day Writing Challenge, click here.

Foreword: This prompt requested by Michelle Louise Love via blog comment :

'I would like you to write about a perfect Christmas dream!'

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The forest had never been so dead, yet so very alive. 

The frozen mist which had descended in the night had solidified branches, leaves and spiderwebs, the latter of which now appeared to be constructed entirely of diamond-like thread. The spiders were nowhere to be seen. But the absence of life was neither eerie nor daunting as it should have been. The forest was so inexorably still and silent, that even the delicate fluttering of a butterfly's wing would have ruined the illusion that time too, had indeed also frozen.

The bleak leafless trees were like rigid skeletons looming inward, as if suddenly petrified during some epic race. Their bark was coarse, dark and rough, but the magnificent glitter that coated every inch of them seemed to soften their imposing harshness. The litter of broken twigs and remnant leaves were coated silvery grey, their delicate, veins highlighted ivory white. They crunched under my feet; the frost had made them brittle.

The Illicit Thrill of Secrecy - 30 Days #9

Sponsored post: I've been given the opportunity to team up with Ray Bans to share with you the worst kept secret in the world.

To me, there's always been something inextricably fascinating about the idea of the secret.

In a world where each of us carry a device in our pockets which is connected to an entire mainframe of human history, knowledge and expertise, we are so used to knowing pretty much everything, and if we don't, being able to find it out in a matter of seconds.

And that's why the idea of the unknown has far surpassed the notion of being something to fear or something to be frustrated by, and has steadily grown to become the opposite - a complete fascination.

For me, I think it explains a lot of things which excite me and pique my curiosity.

The White-Haired Girl - 30 Days #8

photo source 

To find out more about the 30 Day Writing Challenge, click here.

Foreword: This prompt was sent to me by Sophie Fletcher via email.

The prompt was:

 'set in a small town a girl dreaming of things far more extraordinary than she feels she's capable of achieving. riddled with debt stuck with parents, I'd love to hear your take on her breaking free and making dreams a reality.'

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I think in total I probably only saw her about ten times. Spoke to her five, maybe six.

But that wasn't exactly uncommon, I guess I was hardly to be classed as the social type. 

It's not that I was shy, or some voiceless wallflower lurking on the periphery wishing I was involved. Quite the opposite in fact - It just seemed a daily, draining struggle for me to even pretend to tolerate other human beings.

There was only one exception to the rule,  Jessica Mays. She was a bit of a rebel and was into the same weird, dark shit I was - we were inseparable. But then in the way that I learnt that everything you love will always leave you, her family upped sticks and moved to America when I was thirteen.

And pretty much from then on, I was sure I'd never met a single person that I could entertain the idea of for more than a couple of hours.

5 Things I'm Not Allowed To Say - 30 Days #7

Honesty.

It's what the blogging world thrives on right?

This is my honest opinion of this, check my blog for an honest review of so-and-so, this is what I honestly wear and do and how my life honestly is.

Yet,

Why is it we are so over-zealous to be honest about positive things, yet are decidedly more hesitant when it comes to the negatives?

There are some things I have noticed for a while, things which have frustrated, upset and baffled me as a fellow blogger, and for just one post, I think I'm going to let that slip.

These are five things I'm not allowed to say as a blogger, but I can as a human being.

Tales from 1955 - 30 Days #6

About a week ago I had the pleasure of finding myself among the dazzling lights and retro splendour of the  infamous 'Back To The Future' event run by Secret Cinema in East London. As you know, I'm a sucker for vintage and ANYTHING that goes out of it's way with storytelling to create a real sense of theatrical illusion, and this event pretty much epitomised this.

The most unique and exciting aspect for me was that you were not just a spectator of the show - once you were there, you were a part of it too. A while back when we'd secured our tickets, we were emailed a secret log-in, which redirected to their website for you to input your details. Then it generated your identity, a character for you to play.

Tom & The Strange - 30 days #5

I was only seventeen, when that rusted beat up old Dodge pulled on my driveway, inside the man that I loved and a trunk with my name on it.

In the house I could hear the cries of my family, too busy cursing at one another to notice the creeping absence of their daughter.

I grabbed anything I could see before me, some clothes, some money, and on a whim a bottle of Jack I'd stolen from my Father's forgotten evenings, asleep with a still-lit cigarette dangling from his crooked fingers.

Letter to my Future Self - 30 Days #4

Foreword: This prompt was sent to me by both Leah Symonne and Rachel Farrell.

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Dear Katie,

I read some of the first draft of your book the other day, and I was quite taken aback.

Not because of how good it was, or even how bad it was, but by ardently flawlessly you were able to articulate and argue the case for your philosophies. You words screamed off the page and sang out into the air like celestial hymns - but that's not what surprised me most, I know you can do that.

What surprised me is how different you are now, how subdued. You don't seem to have quite the same conviction as you did back then.

And I know the reason why.

Other People's Thoughts - 30 Days #3

Do you ever have one of those moments,

 When you're walking down a crowded street or, maybe squeezing through the rush hour of human traffic on your way to work, your absent mind whirring over recycled thoughts, body trudging forward on autopilot - when your hand drops to your side, idly, innocuously, and just for the briefest of moments, catches the hand of a complete stranger?

London - 30 Days #2

To find out more about the 30 Day Writing Challenge, click here.

Foreword: This prompt was sent to me by Jessica Crisp via email.

The prompt was:

 'It's my birthday on 15th September and it'll be almost a year since I left the UK. It's my first birthday away from home, family and friends and I do kinda miss the UK believe it or not! So, I'd love it if you could write something about England. Just take me home for a little while.'

The Bite - 30 Days #1

And as the clock strikes midnight... we are officially in Septmeber, which means my 30 Day Creative Writing Challenge beings! Instead of taking a month off my usual blogging to dedicate Scarphelia to fiction, I've decided to blog normally once a week to have 4 normal posts in between the days and days of stories. You can find out a little more about this project  here.

So without further ado, let us begin! I hope you all enjoy the ride.

Foreword: This prompt was sent to me by Harry Harris via Twitter.
The prompt was simply two words.
'A Bite'