I never intended to be a writer, in fact in school I was frequently told how bad I was at it. When I did start writing, I wrote for myself. I had several years of trauma therapy after my becoming disabled and it was suggested that I kept a diary. I did it, reluctantly, and hating it at first, but after a while I found it helped me, a lot. It helped me in two different ways: the first was that I could just write without thinking to get all my thoughts and feelings out, screw up the paper and throw it away; the second and the biggest way it helped was I would write down my goals and hopes. They gave me something to focus on and work towards and when I reached the goals, I could tick them off and it would give me a sense of achievement. The more I ticked off the further forwards I knew I had moved. If things are tough, I still do the same thing to this day!
As a result of how ticking my goals off felt, when I started getting back into swimming after acquiring my disabilities, I decided to document my journey. It would mean that in the future I could look back and see how far I had come; with pool swimming it helped me but, it wasn’t until I was in open water that I really started to enjoy writing.