Robin Darker, London Independent Story Prize 2024 Anthology Finalist, 'A First Date'

London Independent Story Prize 2024 Anthology Finalist, 'A First Date' Robin Darker

- Can you please tell us about you and your daily life?

My name is Robin Darker (he/they) and I’m a 26-year-old creative writing student at York St. John University. When I’m not studying or working, you’ll find me curled up with my cross-stitch, playing indie games, or trawling through charity shops for early 00’s movies!

- When and how did you get into writing?

I’ve always been big into reading, but I had discounted writing as a pursuit as a kid because it seemed unrealistic. Then a few years ago, I got really into indie video games, and during lockdown I started streaming them on Twitch. I realised that those immersive stories that focus on people and their feelings really moved me, and I wanted to create my own. That led to taking part in game jams online (events where you create a game in a limited time span, usually with themes/restrictions), and even winning 1st place for narrative in Rainbow Game Jam one year! After that, some intense personal life events saw me turning to poetry to process what was happening and I found that I enjoyed that too. Now I attempt to create both prose and poetry in my creative writing degree – something I never thought I’d be able to do, but here I am doing it!

- How often do you write? Do you have a writing routine? And what inspires you to write?

 Well, naturally I don my tweed suit and stare pensively out of the window – just kidding! At least, I am about the suit. I find myself writing the most when I’m in transit: on the train to university, walking to an event, or in a taxi to my partner’s place. I’ll have a phrase or a word bouncing around in my head and I’ll jot it down in the note app on my phone. Then, either a flurry of words will follow it, or I’ll come back to the note later and it’ll spark an idea. If I’m writing to a specific deadline or for an event, I find listening to heavy video game music helps keep me focused on the task at hand (the soundtrack for BPM: Bullets Per Minute is my go-to!).

I find a lot of my inspiration comes from how I’m responding to things in my life; I often joke that I’m a ‘little guy with a lot of big feelings’. In part, I’m expressing the sometimes-delight and sometimes-horror of actually being able to feel nowadays. I’ve dealt with depression since I was 12 and spent a good few years being numb, so I’m very excited and invested in feeling everything I can as fully as I can, and I think that comes through in my writing. I also want people to feel something – anything - when they read my work. If they do, then I’ve done a good job, I think.

- How does it feel to have your work recognised?

This is the first competition that I’ve been a finalist in, and it’s incredibly validating! Obviously, as writers we should try to self-validate our efforts because everything we do inherently has value, but there’s something incredibly gleeful about being able to point at this experience and say ‘Yeah, I did this and it got somewhere’. It can help when the motivation is lacking or on those bone-tired days.

- What's the best and most challenging thing about writing poetry? 

The best thing about writing poetry, for me, is playing with your words and watching them develop on the page into a depiction of the formless feelings and whirrings of your brain. You get to breathe life into them!

The most challenging thing about poetry is reconciling that you’re unlikely to create a perfect replica of how those words and feelings appear in your head. I’m always reminded of Jane Eyre talking about her paintings with Mr Rochester: ‘I had imagined something which I was quite powerless to realise.’  Writing poetry is definitely about falling in love with the process, but once you do, it can absolutely be ‘one of the keenest pleasures [you] have ever known’. I promise!

-  How did you develop the idea for your LISP-selected story? Is there a story behind your story? And, how long have you been working on it?

The writing of my poem ‘A First Date’ was begun, as you might imagine, after my first date with my now-partner! I had come out of my first relationship a few months earlier (an 8-year ordeal) and was dipping my toe into the concept of dating when I met them via a rather notorious dating app. I was incredibly nervous about meeting someone new and manoeuvring through the social dance of dating (that I had avoided until that point), as well as still grieving my previous relationship. But meeting Elle in person…I will spend my entire life trying to accurately describe what it felt like. It ached, like your mouth after eating too much ice cream; it was sweet and warm, and it was almost painful, but in the best way. Like how I imagine the plants that are kept in cupboards feel in those science experiments you do as a kid when they’re brought out into the light again. That’s the sentiment I was trying to express in the poem.

- Can you please give us a few tips about writing Poetry?

You know those little monologues you have in your head when something happens or when you’re thinking about something over and over? Write that down! Your unfiltered thoughts can be weird and misshapen but they’re an excellent place to gather ideas and concepts from. I’d also recommend being very interested in different things, and life itself if you can. There are beautiful and terrifying things everywhere, and if you observe them for long enough, they almost write themselves.

- Lastly, do you recommend the writers submit to LISP?

I appreciate the inherent bias that I have, but I do recommend that you submit to LISP. The process is simple before and after, and you never know what could happen. Every experience is valuable!