How Faraway Poetry Began

Is this where I type? Oh, God, we’re ten seconds in, and I’m already lost. Okay, so, clearly, I’ve never written an article (blog post?) before. The last time I wrote anything of decent length and structure was when I sent an incoherent text to my ex detailing all of the reasons why “I’m not ready for this.” I did, however, tutor writing and grammar in college for a year before I dropped out to chase my dreams (more on that in future posts), so that’s kind of a plus…I guess.

If you don’t know who I am, I’m a writer/poet born and raised in California. I go by the pen name ‘Faraway.’ I post my writing primarily on Instagram (@farawaypoetry), and I’ve chosen to stay anonymous. “Why stay anonymous?” you might ask. Well, I’m 24 years old, in pretty great shape physically, not even very shy, and so forth. So the reason why? I want it to be all about the writing and what I’m trying to say, not me as a personality or a writer; although, I'm sure I'll come clean about who I am someday.

You see, I started my account and journey to where I am now seven months ago, and I hadn’t been the best or happiest person for a lot of my life. I grew up dirt poor, homeless at times, kicked and stepped on by the world around me, cheated on and abused in relationships, have a panic disorder, and many other types of not-so-fun things. Needless to say, I harbored a lot of negative energy within me. For years, I was bitter, depressed, angry, anxious, constantly on edge and mistrusting of everyone and everything but a few humans I grew up with.

Worst of all, I had the tendency to push everyone away. Loneliness is a cold that has a strange way of numbing nerve-endings: first I went cold; then I went numb.

But I’ll skip over all of that and the bad things I did and get to the point. I started Faraway as a way of letting things go. I wanted to forgive, to trust, to try again, to not be afraid to feel or let people get close to me, to change my mindsets and finally free myself of everything that I had voluntarily been dragging around. I focused my writing around those ideas, and, from day one, it took off beyond my wildest expectations.

I grew by at least one thousand followers a day. Sometimes, I’d even get over two thousand in a day. It was intense, euphoric, validating, and terrifying all at once. I had no idea that so many people would connect to the message I was presenting. Apparently, a lot of people felt the same way I did. All of a sudden, hundreds of thousand, and then millions, of eyes were on me a week. A journey of freeing and bettering myself through writing became something a lot bigger than that. Not only was I helping myself, but so many other people were being helped, too.

Hundreds, thousands, of Direct Messages have since poured in. It was and still is way too many for me to handle, but what people are saying is what matters the most. These words brighten their day, make them feel better about themselves and feel less alone, validate what they are feeling, give them hope, and so many other beautiful things. It’s such a lovely thing, to entangle both art and encouragement. However, there IS a slight catch: with that many eyes on you, there’s bound to be some angry ones. But I'll talk about that and how my writing peers reacted/react to my growth in a future post, as it's honestly quite interesting.

Now, I should probably throw this out there right now: I have so many blog post ideas, and to give you guys everything in this one post would be a waste - sorry 'bout it haha. A lot of the interesting things deserve their own dedicated posts. Some ideas I have are: how I grew on Instagram, what it's like and how to self-publish a book, what it's like to turn a publisher away (hint: it's terrifying, but I'm working on getting with a specific one at the moment), how to handle so many people watching you, relationship stories and advice, what it's like to date a poet, the story behind my book, book sales for an indie author, and SO much more!

As I'm crunched for time right now, this is going to be all for today. I want this to start some kind of dialogue between us, so you can message me on Instagram your thoughts or ideas about what to talk about on here. Maybe even submit some questions for me to answer! I'd love that. I truly do love hearing from my readers, so don't hesitate or be too shy! Also, what kinda person/indie author would I be if I didn't plug my book! 'Sad Birds Still Sing', my debut book of poetry, is available riiiiiight HERE!

p.s. I'll try to post one to three times a week.

See you all in the next post!

- Faraway