A couple months ago I wrote my first contributing article for The Riff Raff about writing as a dyslexic. This is the original version but should you wish to read the original or see what else The Riff Raff has to offer you can read it here!
I was eight or nine when I was diagnosed with dyslexia. At the time I didn’t really know what that meant other than I had to go to sessions where I was made to draw “lazy eights”, an infinity sign basically, and that was some how supposed to help me. As the years went on my dyslexia started to become more obvious to myself and others. My writing was illegible, spelling dire and read at a speed not to dissimilar to that of a glacier flow. My school report cards did not sugar coat my lack of ability. An English teacher I once had recommended, what now seems like very obvious advice to solve the reading issue, that I should read more. With that in mind my parents went out and bought me a large pile of books that just gathered dust. This may have been because I thought reading for fun was for adults, the Playstation was more enjoyable or that I just didn’t like reading.
It was only when Harry Potter came along that this changed. We were roughly the same age and he grew up through the books at roughly the same rate I did in the real world. I found that comforting and familiar (minus the magic and prophecy to do battle with wizard Hitler). Harry Potter did wonders for diagnosing dyslexics. Many people wanted to read the books but found themselves struggling. To be fair there are some daft words in there that even non-dyslexics would have struggled to pronounce. After the Harry Potter books ran out and I was bored of re-reading them there was a lull in reading that didn’t return until I was in the process of finishing university. I had discovered a love for travel writing. Travel writing still is my go to genre but I have broadened my horizons and have been known to dabble in the occasional history, science or comedic self-help book. Fiction, thriller, and mystery don’t appeal to me at the moment but Ready Player One by Ernest Cline was an exception.
After a few years of just reading about other people’s travels and adventures I started to jot down notes on the trips I was taking. They started out as rough notes and lists, which evolved in to journals and diaries and the dream of being a travel writer slowly started to form. I was eventually convinced to start a blog which could lead me a little closer to being a cross between Levison Wood, Simon Reeve, David Attenborough and Michael Palin I wished to be. One briefly existed a few years before on WordPress and thankfully it was impossible to find so no one read it. When I created the new website, I borrowed some of my old blog posts to get the ball rolling. I decided to update them a before adding them straight onto the new website and put them through Word which was one of the best decisions anyone has ever made, ever. The number or red, blue and green lines that popped up under my sentences that WordPress didn’t identify was horrific. Every post or email I write now is put through Word before it makes its way to its final bit of software.
I liked the idea of writing but it does scare me. You put a little bit of yourself out there to be judged and picked apart by people you know and those you don’t. It’s no secret that strangers on the internet hidden and protected by their monitors can be cruel but would a bad comment early on dishearten and put me off it? If it was easy everyone would do it. A problem faced with blogging, especially having a travel blog, is the world is saturated with it. Most, if not all, written by more accomplished, popular and talented writers than myself. How could I compete and stand out from the rest of them and with so much free content out there on the internet for people wishing to travel why would they pay for a travel book or guide? Only time will tell.
So, can a dyslexic make it as a writer? I don’t see why not if Agatha Christie, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Richard Ford and Lewis Carol are anything to go by. Yes, we may need a bit more attention from a decent editor than others (I pity the one that has to deal with me) but we are living in an age where there is more help than ever to help overcome most issues dyslexia can throw at us. Technology has advanced where the spoken word can be written down for you as you speak, autocorrect and predictive text, audiobooks, software that can read text for you and computers being more accessible. This is not to say I don’t think the skill and art of physical writing should be abandoned, but writing should be made appropriate to the individual. Dyslexics are going to need new excuses if our homework isn’t in on time now.
