It feels strange, really strange. That I could not intend to become a writer, yet here I am, five books in to a journey that I never intended to begin in the first place, and loving every minute of it! How can this be?
Strangely enough, it’s all to do with the way that our brain works. There are times when things happen that affect us so much that if we don’t do something to help the brain deal with the situation, then all hell is going to break loose is later life!
I’m preferring the word ‘results’ there to consequences, but they’re the same in this instance.
I can remember as a Kid, all I ever wanted to be was a Soldier. I grew up hearing tales of what my Dad did when he was in the Army, and the places he went to (he was only in for two years, but spent the whole time in the Middle East.
Grandad, on the other hand never spoke about his time in the Army! He spent five years away from home, mostly in the Middle East, but also Italy and Normandy, but would never tell what he was involved with, I often wondered why?
I was in the Forces in the late seventies and early eighties, most of my mates from School also joined, and it’s been rather disturbing to see what’s gone on in later life with them.
The guys I grew up with were really good, honest and hard working who just wanted to see the world and serve the best they could. We knew there were times and places that would be dangerous, but that’s what Army life was about right? What we didn’t know was the emotional strain it would put on us.
When I left the Army I knew the last thing I needed was a ‘nine to five’ job! I just wouldn’t cope with that life! I’d been used to very little sleep, running on adrenaline and pushing things ‘to the limit’ there’s no way I could go to a regular job!
For me, the tipping point came in 1996, just after I’d left Iraq for the last time, I knew there was no way I could ever safely go back there. Thigs were pretty traumatic, but I’d heard that writing things down gave you time to sit and think.
I was on a ship from Izmir in Turkey to Brindisi in Italy, the cabin right next to the engine room, weeping for what had happened, finally letting go of all the stress when I began writing things down in a diary.
It was one of those page for every day of the year diaries that I hadn’t written a word in, and it was September, I just started to write.
The journey was a day and a half, and I remember coming up for food and once when we went through the Corinthian Channel (an old canal that was dug by the Romans for ships passing from the Adriatic to the Aegean seas), but otherwise the only other thing i remember of that journey was that it was about midnight when we got to Brindisi and I had a twenty four hour drive to Vienna ahead, but something had changed, I’d realised how powerful the written word is, and how much healing power was in it!
For me, that’s when the written word started to get real , and for the first time I began to think that maybe using the written word was the way I wanted to go, but I still never imagined I’d ever write a book!
Lawrence's letters 