story

Hello! Growing up, reading as a hobby was never cool – using the library was weird, reading in your own time was ‘nerdy’ and don’t get me started on fangirling over books. I was definitely the geek growing up but so were all my friends, so I actually had the opposite problem… I’m a slow reader (or at least, I was always led to believe I was!) – my friends would read a book every couple of days and I would take weeks just to finish one. No one ever made a comment about it but it always made me feel silly for not being able to read as quickly. Fast forward to today with kindles and goodreads and bookstagrams and I’m feeling the pressure to read faster from a different place – I can generally get through a book in a week, depending on the length of the book and how much I’m enjoying it, so my goal for the year is 25 books which is the equivalent of two books a month with one bonus, or roughly two books a week. Of the people I follow on Instagram and book groups I’m in on Facebook, some people have already read 50 books this year and have goodreads challenges of 200 books and that is baffling to me. I’ve read 10 books this year and I’m 5 books ahead of schedule for my goodreads goal but suddenly 10 feels like nothing compared to people who’ve read basically a book every single day. But I was surprised that it didn’t make me feel like I wasn’t reading fast enough – it inspired me to make more time to read my books at my own pace! I don’t have the time or energy to read a book every two days – I’m not someone who enjoys reading in the morning or on my lunch break (because I would never want to stop to go back to work!) and whilst I would love to spend my whole evening reading, I also like spending time with my fiancé! So I manage to read for a couple of hours a night before bed and in the past couple of nights I’ve read about 100 pages which is a lot for me! Ironically I’m not enjoying this book as much as the last couple of books I’ve read but it’s somewhat addictive and I can’t figure out how or why. It’s so easy to compare yourself and your progress to other people, whether it’s life goals, careers, holidays or even reading but here is your sign from the universe – you are exactly where you are meant to be in this moment. Reading, in particular, is meant to be a relaxing thing that is done for joy! Take your time to enjoy reading as a fun activity, whether you read 10 pages or 100 – it’s not about numbers. It’s about the way your eyes start to burn a little bit because you’re desperate to just finish one more chapter, it’s about the way you tell all your friends and family about the character drama because you’re so excited about it and the way we feel everything our protagonist feels. I’ve properly fallen back in love with reading and stories over the last couple of years – I love statistics and numbers, I love setting my goodreads goals and reading as many books as I can but it’s not about numbers; I love the stories and the amazing characters and getting lost in the words. Reading isn’t a race – read at your speed! Comparing the amount of books you’ve read is like a squirrel and fish comparing how many trees they climbed – climb your tree however you like! Was that analogy too weird?

Thank you for reading!

Sophie xx

YouTube | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

She was lost. Running, fumbling, already so far from her team and pushing further.

She was being chased, by the kind that rendered humanity to despair – 15 feet tall and strong, mindless humanoid creatures with angry red skin, razor sharp teeth and no concern for human life.

Humanity had united – all those left alive were brought together on central mainland Europe and the community worked fast to protect itself from the invasion that nearly destroyed Earth. No one knew if it was a human disease or an alien invasion but they knew they had to survive.

But humanity couldn’t resist – surviving wasn’t enough, they wanted to dominate and have control of their planet back. So a new army formed.

And she was part of it. She swore she would fight for her life – fight until there was nothing left and she did. The rest of her team were together, she had been separated and she made the decision to lure the Colossal away from her team – she knew she was to die, she wanted to do what she could to make sure they lived.

But she was running out of energy – she knew she wasn’t fighting for her life so why was she still running? Why didn’t she just let herself die?

And then she tripped over and rolled to a stand still, hearing the Colossal’s heavy footsteps catching up. But there was lighter footsteps, fast and getting louder – she looked up in time to see a heavy boot plant in front of her and leap over her.

Suddenly this mysterious woman was taking on the Colossal by herself – she launched herself into the air again, using the tree as a lever to reach his full 15 feet of height and her poised sword cut effortlessly through it’s neck.

The body stopped dead in it’s tracks – the head continuing to roll forward, the body slowly dropping to it’s knees and falling flat on it’s chest.

She had rolled onto her back and the head came to rest at her feet – it’s deep, black, electric eyes still open and staring at her.

Her anonymous saviour sliced her sword up it’s spine and stabbed her sword through it’s head into the ground, as a secondary precaution.

“How? How did you… all of humanity is inside of the walls and no one is allowed outside of the walls unless they are part of the outside attack devision of the army. How are you alive?” The soldier fumbled, scrambling to her feet and matching this anonymous fighter.

The fighter just narrowed her eyes, looking the soldier up and down and smirking.

“Nice coat. Is that your uniform?” The fighter teased, turning to pluck her sword from it’s place in the ground, wiping it clean on the nearest tree’s bark and sliding it back in it’s sheath.

The soldier was taken aback. “Um, yes, it is. You didn’t answer my questions.”

“Because a stupid question from a naive soldier of the Community is irrelevant.”

“Stupi- what do you mean ‘The Community’?”

“What do you call yourselves, the last humans alive?”

“We are-”

“No, if you believe you gathered every human and build a wall around them you were childish and stupid.” The fighter snapped.

The soldier realised. “You were forgotten. You didn’t make the boats, did you?”

The fighter sighed. “There’s a group of us, we’re travelling the world trying to find the rest of the stragglers. We’re going to build another camp – in Australia, start making Earth what it was by actually destroying the Colossal’s.” She snapped.

“How much do you know about them?” The soldier asked.

The fighter scanned her surroundings and shook her head. “There isn’t time – I may fight them but that doesn’t mean I want the Colossal’s to pin point me. I can take you back to the Community wall but you’ll have to get yourself inside.” She promised.

“Come with me.” The soldier begged instantly. “Inside the walls we can talk – compare knowledge, help each other, we can find your friends and make them safe.”

“We don’t want to be part of the Community. We want to take action. I wouldn’t get out again anyway – you said yourself only the army can get out.”

“I can get you in and out, please, just tell us what you know?”

Oh I thoroughly enjoyed that one. Can you tell I binge watched Attack on Titan recently?

I really love writing these posts – I don’t know why I don’t let them inspire me to actually write creatively in my own time but for some reason I just don’t, I’m not sure why. I wish I did write more though, I’m slowly working on it but computer time is difficult when I have uni and work and online stuff to manage.

It means I appreciate ‘away-from-computer’ time a lot more though and that’s nice.

I think I need the pressure of a deadline to make me actually write something, I could give myself one but it wouldn’t mean anything because that deadline would come and go and it wouldn’t matter. I always see YouTubers talking about their publishers giving them deadlines and I feel like that’s what I need but I’m not a big enough YouTuber to get a book deal, y’know?

Either way – what were you thoughts on todays writing? Something a bit different, but I really enjoyed it so I hope you did too – feedback would be much appreciated if you wanted to leave a comment!

Thank you for reading,

Sophie xx

sophie counts clouds

read at your speed – comparison is the thief of joy

the world is not what you thought | creative writing