Why Writing?
A bit of an explanation…
Those that know me as the Hockey Player and International Athlete might struggle to draw the comparison to this particular vocation and it’s easy enough to see why - there aren’t too many that tend to bridge that gap between professional sport and literature.
In truth, there are only a handful of people that know this about me.
There’s not many, even those closest, that know anything about the first manuscript that I wrote in the 2021 lockdown.
It was the culmination of a thought process and storyline that had been eating away at me for a while yet it took life grinding to a halt in order to truly bring it to life. Inevitably, life has a way of flipping the script sometimes and when the wheels began to turn again, they steered me in a completely different direction to anything that I had been expecting.
That first experience of writing a manuscript was a 92,000 word soliloquy of everything I thought a fictional adventure should entail. After letting the dust settle, re-drafts were placed well and truly on the back burner as I was thrust into the world of professional sports following a post-Tokyo Olympics trial with the Great Britain and England Hockey squad.
The 3 and a half years since have allowed me to travel the world competing internationally as well as winning medals at a European Championships and Commonwealth Games with England. As a result, the sheer time and brain capacity required has meant my writing has taken a back seat until some time off the pitch through injury in the latter half of 2024 has rekindled that passion and brought my dormant pen to life.
Towards the end of the summer, an idea had begun to form and, piece by piece, the foundations of a plot began to reveal itself. Through the Autumn and into Winter, the details were added to and it became an idea that I simply couldn’t shake. As a result, I’m currently writing my second manuscript and this website is going to be the platform on which I’ll be curating my passion for writing in its various forms.
If you know me however, I can probably bet that the overriding question you have is; ‘This is a bit random?!’
Whilst hockey and representing England and Great Britain in particular has taken up my time and efforts of late, I’ve been able to teach English and freelance as an Editor, Copywriter and Guest Blogger in the years prior.
The truth is that I’ve had an affinity with literature for as long as I can remember. Whilst I was anything but a bookworm when I was younger, there was an art to story-telling that always seemed to draw me in.
Building this website will serve as a foundation from which I will hopefully draw back the curtain on my experiences as well as provide a landing page for opportunities in relation to my writing and public speaking. I will be sharing Flash Fiction, Blog Posts, Reports and Reviews where, along with my social channels, you can see the development of my manuscript, the characters, the storylines and the adventure that follows.
So if you want to follow this journey then please sign up to the mailing list and make sure to follow my journey across Instagram and X to stay up to date!
Nick with his Team England teammates after securing a Bronze medal at the 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games
