whalebeings

I’m not sick but I’m not whale

I’m Zoë . I was born in Camden (London) six months into the ’90s. This sounds quite cool but I haven’t actually been back to Camden since those few hours of sticky-skinned infancy.

I can sum up my entire identity like this: I’m a writer.

I could throw in other things, like the fact that I enjoy travel, walking, nature, music, art, that kind of thing…but these interests don’t prop up my entire sense of self in quite the same way as being a writer.

What makes me a writer, is that in order to experience anything at all in my life, I have to write it down. It’s not a hobby, or an interest. It’s a necessity. Without writing, I would float away. Writing makes concrete what is – to me, abstract. Life is liquid, and writing is a container. It gives the infinite, formless, confusing void of existence shape and boundaries and meaning. When I write, I make connections; I find answers and questions; I build and deconstruct. In doing this, I unearth the parts of life that would otherwise have gone unnoticed – and I have time to reflect on them and let them sink in to my being. I think all art forms do this.

I know, it’s all a bit pretentious.

Luckily, you have a choice. You can stick around and browse some of the things I’ve written over the years, or you can hit the back button, get back to whatever you were googling and forget this ever happened.