Carrie Hope Fletcher

When I was around 12, I found Carrie Fletcher (Its Way Past My Bedtime) on YouTube. It was about 11pm and I had been watching Danisnotonfire when I saw a video he made with Carrie. I instantly knew who she was because a friend of mine had said she watched her channel. At first I thought I'll just watch one video but I think we all know that on YouTube that sentence is laughed at  frequently. Needless to say, I was awake till stupidly late watching all of Carrie's videos. I've always found I could relate to her in one way or the other. Back then I think it was because we both have curly hair, and my brother is also in a band (not a famous one, obviously. And to be honest I've never actually heard them before so they could be terrible but that isn't the point). Now I've come to find many more reasons that I find Carrie Fletcher so inspirational.

First I must say that I have nearly  finished Carrie's book, All I Know Now, and I will be reviewing it soon so I won't say too much on how I've absolutely loved it. Just note that I did and expect to see a very happy book review in the next week or so. 
 For me, writing a book has always been the one big dream I had. Even when I was younger and I had all these other job ideas I'd think I can work at Tesco and write books in my spare time or I'll be a doctor who writes about crime in the hospital. Now I don't want to be a doctor and I don't know why I used to dream of working in Tesco but writing is something that always stayed the same no matter what. I've had many doubts about if my writing skills or the stories I come up  with are good enough but it's the one thing that has never altered because of my worried mind. So when Carrie wrote a book, I knew I'd read it whatever it was. I knew she read a lot of books and had talked about writing one before. This was something I was almost proud of as she'd achieved something that had once been just a dream to her as it still is to me. (I know this is the way for most writers but seeing Carrie publish this book felt special to me.)


The first time I saw Les Miserables was when I was 10 at a theatre in Manchester. I knew even before going in that I was going to be completely in love with the show. Three days before my dad had given me the CD so I could listen to the songs first. At the time I knew nothing about the musical and had previously never even heard the name. If I'm being honest, I had a little bit of a hipster complex when it came to this. For so long it felt like my thing that no one else knew about (10 year old Erin only saw a very small part of the world), so you can imagine that I felt a little mad when the film came out and everyone was jumping on the bandwagon but I'm over that now. This isn't really the point of what I'm trying to say.
 Ever since I first saw Les Mis I found Eponine to be the perfect character. By that I mean for me she was perfect, I don't mean everything that happens to her that definitely wouldn't be considered a good life. The song she sings, On My Own, was probably my favourite and I found her whole character to be relatable. From then I knew I wanted to play Eponine whether it was in stupid sing-alongs in the car  or on a West End stage. This is why I was so unbelievably happy (probably an overreaction) when Carrie announced she be playing Eponine in the West End production of Les Mis. 

Not only is it her achievements in her career that I admire, but it's also her YouTube channel. Even as her channel grows and more people begin to release just how amazing she is, Carrie's videos don't seem to change. I still feel like I have a friend talking to me, giving me advice, and making me laugh. On YouTube it's become difficult to find that kind of relationship a creator has with their viewers as so much has changed and I'm happy that for me I still have someone to subscribe to that is that way. Of course there are others that I see this way and I'm sure I'll write about them too one day. 

There are so many things to love about Carrie Hope Fletcher and I can't write about them all at the moment as it would take days and I have Game of Thrones to watch. Carrie is an inspiration to so many people and has helped through their tough times, me included of course. I know the Hopefuls are an amazing community and they thank Carrie every day for all that she does and I guess I should too. So thank you. Sometimes I wish I could meet her and tell her that as I know she'd never read this but then I'd struggle because I want to be her best friend and something tells me that you can't just decide that for yourself when it comes to the people you look up to. 
 That's all for now, hopeful to see you next time (see what I did there, hopeful. It's supposed to be funny. Nevermind) Bye