It was the summer, I was bored and my mum suggested I wrote a story. I was still a child, not yet in the George McFly phase (read : not insecure yet and not scared to have anyone read what I was doing), so she helped me out a little bit - gave me advice on grammar related questions, gave her opinion on character names when I could not make up my mind. It was nothing incredible and if I re-read it today, chances are I'd cringe at how innocent and vanilla it was. And yet, it still qualifies as a very important thing I have written because it was the first one and what launched my love of making things with words.

When I was thirteen, a friend of mine received Jacqueline Wilson's Girls in Tears for Christmas (or her birthday, I can't remember which one it was, and she was born four days before Christmas anyways). She read it, loved it, and lent it to all of us so we could read it and love it too. I fell in love with the adventures of Ellie, Nadine and Magda, and my mum bought me the whole series for my birthday, along with Caroline Pitcher's The 11 O'Clock Chocolate Cake.
It's fair to say :
a) I have read those five books over and over for months.
b) These novels have changed my life.
During that summer, I had just one thought in my mind - I am going to write my own story. I aimed at writing a friendship just as perfect as the one lived by Ellie, Magda and Nadine, or the one shared by Emma, Aster and Lizzie.


When I was seventeen, my household finally got itself this wonderful little thing called the Internet. It was the heyday of Skyrock blogs (French people will know what I'm talking about, and to anyone who has no clue what I'm on about, Skyrock is a rap themed radio station and a blogging platform which has peaked in 2007), and I quickly went from publishing vapid posts about "that day out at the local mall with my best mates" to writing about what I liked, what I didn't like, what made me happy, what broke my heart, what made me angry. I'm not saying it was good, and to be fair it was probably quite cringeworthy, but it was my first try at writing something that was not fiction. Another big step in my writing story.


Now, I am twenty-five. 
I am an adult. I write about what passionates me and I still want to write fiction based on a friendship like the ones of Ellie, Nadine and Magda and Emma, Aster and Lizzie. I now also write in a language that is not my native language. I could still write in French if I wanted, but English comes more naturally to me. I have learned to expand my writing - learnt new words, new techniques, new styles. I read a lot, too. I suppose it helps.


The year is 2016 and it is the golden age of blogging, vlogging and everything in between. People become famous and rich because they have started blogs. It interests me, of course. If I had the chance to make writing my living, I would take it and never let it go. Along with music, it is the only thing I am 100% passionate about, and it has been the case for over fifteen years.
I have read all sorts of blog posts about promoting your blog, making it better, having more people reading your content, making your posts more attractive. I thought I would find advice on some technical things the technology wizard I am not didn't know about. The truth is, I didn't feel there was anything in those posts for me.


This blog, it is not my brand. I do not aim at being rich and famous. I would not turn it down if it happened, but it's not the aim of The Endless Novel. I started this adventure because I love writing more than anything else in the world, and because for the first time since I was an eleven year old child asking her mother for advice, I felt brave enough to share my words and my vision of the world with other people. To me, this blog is all about the writing. Of course, I write about things, and the subjects about which I write are just as important as the words. Ultimately, I think that my aim through what I do is making other people feel the way I feel, is sharing stories and moments.


Reading those blog posts about "enhancing my content", I felt like I was the only one. I do not demean anyone who wants to write about fashion, and beauty, and lifestyle ("lifestyle blogging" being a concept I have trouble coming to terms with, is it just some sort of umbrella under which you can shove everything and anything or does it actually mean something more specific?), but most of these blogs, they are hardly about the writing, aren't they? These posts all mention words like enhancing and brand and content and it is terrifying, if I'm honest.
I don't aim at being rich and famous but also, I want people to read what I write. Now I'm over my George McFly phase, I want to share my words with the world and I want people to read what I write. And these posts, they make me feel like I'm doing something wrong, or not enough. I do not have a brand, is that a problem? Is that okay to be honest and true to myself and to expose my feelings like I do? Am I doing something wrong? Isn't enhancing my content working to make my posts memorable? Am I supposed to ask people what I should write about?


If the blogging universe wasn't enough to make me doubt and plant questions in my overwhelmed mind, I keep seeing music journalists and publications like Noisey saying that the review is dead. No one reads gig reviews anymore, they say. Albums reviews are useless, they claim. Not that I'm a music journalist. Not that I write album reviews. But hey, more questions for yours truly, Queen Worrier. Am I writing about things no one cares about with the hope that someone will read it for no valid reason?


I love writing, pretty much always have, probably always will. I am not even questioning if I am any "good" at it. It is a part of me as important as one of my vital organs, my mind is screaming with ideas all the bloody time, I just cannot stop myself from writing. Yet, there is a thing that drastically changes the day you share those words with the world. They have yet to find their place somewhere else. They are not just a part of you anymore, they are a part of something else. But what, here is the question. I am, as always, incredibly confused.