On scraps of paper, inside library books, on the back of the bathroom doors I would scribble non-sensible meanderings, brooding shotgun staccatos, ironic, twisted, darkly playful spitballs of concept and word.
I received no recognition, no accolades, no praise or shiny objects to display on a mantlepiece. I received no mantlepieces, either, for my pieces of prose.
Not that I need any. The joy of writing is in the zing of the moment, the clash and clamour of syntax, the spontaneous friendships and rivalries between verbs and nouns, the thrill ride on the free flowing river of creative invention.
Being a moody/arty sort, a hard-to-categorise, passively disobedient kid, I often found myself alone, in silent solitude - skipping classes, missing PE, in detention - and the word clusters soon became my companions, my outlet, my youthful attempts to define soul and express the flavours of existence.