"Shoot for the moon, for even if you miss you will land among the stars."

So, here we are. I have contemplated posting up these pages for almost a year now. The temptation was always there - to lay myself bare and deal with the consequences and criticisms later. Yet for all the time I spent fantasising over the idea, I couldn't quite bring myself to do it.

I am not a professional writer, nor have I ever claimed to be. I write for fun, I write for escapism, but most of all I write for me. I am both blessed and cursed by my inability to block out the thoughts, paranoia and dreams which clutter my already overstuffed brain until night after night I end up right where I am now, frantically typing into the familiar and unblinking page before me.

Luckily my confidence has since found its voice, which is why this page is here now. A creative writing course I initially took for fun taught me more than I could ever have hoped for - not through anything the teacher said, nor even from the devastatingly articulate work of my fellow students. Miraculously, I simply realised by myself the point I'd been missing all along.

As I sat in that dusty classroom, the sun would flow through the cracked window and over my crumpled pages - pages I would clutter with my scribbles before clutching them protectively in my lap. I would listen to whoever's turn it was to read next as they nervously stood up, cleared their throat and proceeded to steamroll through the passage they'd clearly toiled for hours on the night before. I'd watch as the poignant and impacting storyline got lost in the anxious narration and I realised just how much we're all simply trying to be heard. Some people do it through music; some people do it through belligerence. I realised that regardless of how my voice took shape, it deserved to be heard as much as anyone else's. I realised my story deserved to be told and my pages deserved to be written as much as those of the old man sitting beside me, turning up desperately night after night in the hope of one day becoming an acclaimed author.

Thankfully, I have no such illusions. Just a limited webspace and a few pages begging to be filled. Which is why now, today, I'm putting my writing online. Most of the stories came from tasks in my writing course, some stemmed from diary entries and some from those pesky recesses of my mind that refuse to sleep at night.

I guess at the end of the day it doesn't really matter why I'm posting these online. It doesn't really matter if you're even still reading. I guess, like you, I'm just looking for my voice to be heard.