Trip to self love

Writing a story must have been on my mind since I was 12 or 13. Not that I did much with it, I think I only wrote for school projects and I wasn’t the most fanatic reader either. But sometimes I got so dragged into writing an essay for school, a love letter or reading a book that I felt amazed what stories did to me.

Lighted love for writing
Not until I was about 24 years of age I started writing a story for my girlfriend who was going abroad for a couple of months. I was occupied by the story day and night. It got so far that I didn’t study enough for the tests coming up and really needed to put it aside. The story was completely in my head, I even wrote the end already, but I never finished it. My girlfriend and I broke up. Though my love for writing was lit ever since.

Developing
From that time I kept note blocks, writing down a lot of story ideas, travel journals and notes on whatever made me laugh, cry or think. I followed a creative writing course, set up a website, wrote blogs, and had a very clear storyline in my head about a rhino that escaped in Paris in 2006 which developed continuously. Still it didn’t turn into a novel.

Passion
Then I met Shanti, who caught me with her passion and who was working on her first book and looking for some help. Meanwhile I had become a ships electrician and had quite some spare time whenever I was on leave. I was very happy to be just a cog in the machine that made Shanti publish in 2011 and it inspired me to start my own novel precisely that year. And still it was a road to nowhere, life changed once again and my inspiration disappeared. Until one year after.

Change
By the end of 2012 it didn’t feel right anymore to keep on doing what I did. I was earning more than enough money on the ships, had time to travel, visit friends all over the world, enjoy and laugh. But still I didn’t love my life. I didn’t love me. My comfort zone was being away from home all the time and I noticed the main thing I was away from was myself. First I decided to quit my job and give it a good thought. My mind was spinning and making a world trip and I felt guilty about it although I didn’t have a clue why.

Destination
Then, finally, I had the clearest moment while I was thinking about the rhino’s crazy escape and his jump into the Mediterranean Sea to arrive in Barcelona. The rhino, that was the trip I needed! In 2013 I decided I was going to stay at home and write that novel until the last full stop. And so it happened! A year later I published ‘Smoske’ and it was the best journey ever I could have made to self-love. It felt like I had arrived after being on the way for a long time. Writing should always be part of my life.

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Michiel Kamphuis (39) is a Dutchman who lives in Alpbach, Austria. In 2013 he published his first Dutch novel ‘Smoske, the Rhino’, with which he supported World Wildlife Fund for Nature to stop rhino killing. He dreams of writing more and to support charities with every book he would publish. Michiels story is a part of the LightWorks  series on ‘Self Love’.

De thema’s van LightWorks’ komende twee interactieve boeken zijn: ‘Self Love’ en ‘Natuurlijk Leiderschap’. Vond je deze blog over ‘self love’ inspirerend en ben je benieuwd naar het hele verhaal van Michiel? Dat is mogelijk. Vertel ons waarom en/ of wat van zijn verhaal jou inspireert en wellicht wordt Michiel één van de inspirerende mensen die met zijn verhaal in een van de twee interactieve boeken zal worden opgenomen.

Of wil je het verhaal over jouw pad van zelfliefde of natuurlijk leiderschap ook delen en daarmee anderen wellicht informeren, inspireren en/ of activeren? En wil je daarnaast kans maken dat we deze naast een publicatie op de website ook in één van de twee boeken opnemen? Dat kan, door contact met ons op te nemen. Stuur een mail naar info@light-works.nu en wij zenden je de richtlijnen toe. En volg ons ook op Facebook om up to date te blijven!