About Me — Jodie Eastwood

Writer

Who I am, who I want to be, and what matters to me has niggled me over the years.

It was often just a tickle, sometimes a shove and every once upon a time, a large ferocious bite. The once upon a time was the most noteworthy.

I fell upon this idea a decade ago and it stuck with me. Be-Do-Have. The order of the verbs critical. I have tried to live by it.

I was comfortable with defining myself as a daydreamer, a fantasist, awash with visions of made up realities, more fulfilling than the everyday. My imagination was home. An idealist trying to make sense of the What Ifs.

But the ever growing voices of characters I hadn’t yet met was the sign.

Today I am a writer who meets these characters and tells their stories.

At twenty I said “I want to write a book.”

When I revealed this longing to wayward friends the notion was laughed right out of a London pub, with some spit and guffawing, along the hustling streets, as my wine glass was re-filled.

Why I don’t know. I suppose I had frivolous ideas. They had heard about them, half filled, uncompleted. Dropping out of dance school and claiming myself an actress after graduating from drama school did nothing for my haphazard, fanciful, somewhat starry-eyed reputation.

I guffawed too, a dismissive, nervous titter embedded with the belief that I must have drank more than I should have.

Why I let others influence me, and why I had little trust in my intuition is one for the couch, the chaise longue of cyclical dissection.

Now I just say it. I am a writer. This time with undivided conviction.

Eleven years of London scrapes escaped and twenty years of life-altering adventures in Ho Chi Minh City, some of which produced a husband and raised a daughter, I’m now in Valencia, with my characters, as we build a life together on the page.

Accompanying me on this quest is my husband, Phung (an indigenous treasure I picked up in Vietnam for keeps), Phoenix, my rescued 15-year-old cat, writing notebooks and drafts, coffee, new friends and the Spanish language.

I’m grateful for Phung’s patience, his authentic Asiatic charm and talent for cooking.

For my darling daughter, Poppy and for the close friendships I’ve kept over the years even from a distance. A life without friends is colourless.

I tread lightly, one story at a time, in the spirit of being a writer into the realm of creative expectations. I hope you enjoy my story telling!