The Inaugural Post of Four Eyes Writing

Our names are Nick and Jasmine and we are the two co-founders of Four Eyes Writing. But if you have made it this far into the website then you know this already. This post will serve as an introduction to who we are, what has led us here, and why we have started this blog. So settle in, get comfortable, and we will tell you about ourselves and our blog.

Nick

Hi there, don’t worry I won’t bore you with my entire life story. Instead, I just want to tell you a bit about myself, and give a little background about how I discovered my passion for writing.

I have always been interested in books, mainly fiction. My literary interests started with superhero comics, exciting tales of caped heroes fighting against an array of villains. In terms of my standing in that eternal war between DC and Marvel I come down on the former side. Both have their merits, but I just prefer the darker atmosphere of DC Comics and their characters.

I then moved onto novels, mainly science fiction and horror. It takes an engaging story and characters for a novel to really hook me and make me want to read it. I have limited time, so I am not going to sit down for hours reading a dud novel, but I do try to keep an open mind; this is also where my love for writing emerges. As I started to read more, I wanted to try my own hand at writing, so I utilized my knowledge and passion for science fiction and managed to finish an amateur soft sci-fi novel set in a dystopian world. I hope to one day publish and add my own voice to the world of novels and I am currently working on another novel of which I hope will be good enough to publish. Who knows I may even share some excerpts of my fiction work in this blog, so watch this space!

I also have a wealth of experience writing non-fiction pieces. This originates from my time at university, a place which combined two of my passions- writing and learning. I took the leap into university by starting with a B.A in philosophy. Now I know what you are thinking, you think philosophy is some boring subject where people sit around thinking about the nature of knowledge, whether colors are objective in nature or if they are simply a subjective reflection of our own minds onto the world, and other abstract ideas that have no bearing on the world outside of academia. You would be partly right but you would also be missing out on the pure joy of researching the great minds of yesteryear, writing about their ideas and then putting your own thoughts into the work. Thanks to my first B.A I have some experience in metaethics, epistemology and much more.

My second B.A is in history. Some people seem to think that history is just about memorizing dates, historical events and the like, but it’s nothing like that. The subject is very research intensive, essentially you make an argument for your particular perspective on a topic and back it up using primary and secondary sources. There are many interesting ways you can view history; you can view it through a social lens, that is how different groups of people interacted over time, how social structures changed and morphed. You can view history through the lens of politics, how political institutions, ideologies and powerful individuals shaped the history of their respective nations. You can even study something called historiography, which is simply studying the history of how people have viewed history throughout time, and how and why peoples’ perspectives of history have changed. During my time at university, I have done a little of everything, I have dipped my toe into the above disciplines and studied the history of the likes of China, Russia, the US, Victorian Britain and more. I enjoyed the challenge of research and always found it satisfying to dig my heels into my particular viewpoint and back it up with evidence. It would be great if I could integrate my research skills into future freelance writing projects.

Well, I think I’ve hit on the important points of my story. I will now hand it over to Jasmine.

Jasmine

My early memories of writing are rather fragmented and chaotic. My bedroom as a child was filled with piles of random pieces of paper that were stapled, glued, or taped together, each containing the skeletons of unfinished stories.

Reading and writing were a means to escape my troubled childhood, and the worlds I built were always idyllic, a contrast to what I was used to.

I’ve written short stories, dabbled in poetry, interactive fiction during my time at university, and I’ve also run a few blogs in my time.

Sometimes I think I have more creative ideas than I could possibly bring to life, as I seem to find inspiration in absolutely anything. Just recently I saw an image of a long, plain road surrounded by ocean on either side, and within the span of about 15 minutes I came up with a plot, several main characters and a complex backstory for a very Lovecraftian inspired story (that I’m still working on, mind you).

My hyperactive imagination is at times a little frustrating, but there is something comforting about the possibility of creating a place, or a world to escape to when life becomes overwhelming. There is always potential to create something new, even if it’s an idea formulating in the back of my mind, a mental tapestry to keep the place interesting.

I’m not someone who follows a pattern, or sticks with a style. I’m not habitual in how I work as routines feel forced and unnatural to me. My creative urge fills like a cup, to the point where it is overflowing and demanding attention.

In a way the chaos has followed me, somewhat tamed since my disjointed adolescence. Sometimes it’s a system that breeds half-finished concepts, but for the most part if I have a vision for something I won’t stop until it’s completed, even if at the end I look at it and think what was I thinking?

Creativity is my superpower as a writer, and as an artist. I consume books, music and art as if they are the sustenance that gives energy to my imagination.

But then life happened. Somewhere between my adolescence and my mid-20s I became much less inspired to write or be creative. I was studying English full time, aiming for my bachelors, and after writing essay after essay, exam after exam, year after miserable year, my urge to write recreationally went from an overflowing cup to a desert drought. My imagination now in hibernation like a bear losing all of its fat and muscle and strength.

I was stuck in academic writing mode, devoid of any creative thought, which had instead been replaced with citations and note taking, books that bored me to sleep or angered me to the point of tears and quiet rage in the middle of the university library (if you’ve read Less Than Zero you can probably empathize).

You might have guessed it; I hated university with a passion. I forgot how to read and write for fun, which were two things that used to fulfill my life and bring me so much joy, and now just brought resentment and dread.

And so, after feeling burnt out from my academic life, and dealing with the sudden death of my older brother, Nick and I discovered we were going to be parents. You would think this would have been the straw that broke the camel’s back, but it was the opposite. It returned a sense of purpose in my life. Knowing I was going to stay at home with our daughter when she was born was like a monolithic weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I was finally going to be able to breathe and focus on this new chapter in our lives.

I gave birth a week after my final exam and this has been my life ever since. For the first year of our daughter’s life, I was strictly in “terrified, but elated” new mum mode, and it took me that long to stop and reevaluate that I could be a mum and enjoy my long-lost passions that didn’t revolve around parenthood. Zia is about to turn three now, and for the past two years I have rediscovered my love for reading, writing, and art. In a way I have rediscovered myself as well, and as a consequence we have had to think intensely about what the future for our small family holds. Then along came our next child: Four Eyes Writing. Together with Nick, my partner in life and now in business, we are filled with all the feelings; the excitement, the giddiness of becoming self-employed, and the fear of it all possibly crumbling under our feet (we will be clinging on for dear life, might I add). This has been one of those big leaps in life that just feels right, and my biggest goal at the end of the day is to make our daughter, and ourselves proud.

Blog

I hope our introduction helps explain why we have both chosen to take this radically different career path, and why we think that such a radical step off a more traditional path fits us perfectly. But I hear you asking, what the hell is this blog for? Good question. If you have gotten this far then you should know that we both love writing. We therefore want to use our blog to write about topics that interest us, to build on our skill, and to have fun. So yes, we admit that there is a somewhat self-indulgent aspect to this blog. But the blog is not simply our own personal playground, there is a serious business side to this blog as it serves as a portfolio. We want people to know that we are proficient writers who are passionate about our work and who can get the job done. So essentially, our blog is an outlet for our creativity and a portfolio of samples.

Well, that’s us, and that’s our blog. Thanks for listening to our story and we hope you stick around and keep an eye out for future blog posts. Nick and Jasmine signing off… for now.