My Writing Journey
Time and time again, I have turned to writing as a comfort activity, sometimes even a therapy. Writing takes my mind off of the world around me and lets me just escape for a little while; it allows me to leave this world and enter another - one that I create and control. As well as writing being a comfort to me, I just feel alive when I write - like all of the stories and imaginations in my head are coming to life (maybe I enjoy living vicariously through my characters). My writing is also something I'm proud of - something I go back to every day and feel good about.
My writing style has changed over the years, or I should say it's evolved. I have learned what I like and dislike in terms of my writing, and I have learned proper grammar as well as stylistic choices that make my writing better. I have taken writing classes - in fact, I have a college certificate in creative writing - but I am forever learning and my writing is ever-growing. It is a craft that can never be perfected, I don't think, because your preferences constantly change and you are always learning new ways to express yourself.
My love for writing started when I was young. My grandmother has told me that when I was young - probably around the age of seven - I would make little booklets of paper by stapling folded up pieces together. In these books, I would write short and silly stories that I cannot for the life of me remember today. When I was a pre-teen, I wrote short stories about talking animals and stuffed animals and dolls coming to life. One story that sticks out in my mind is a remake of the famous Indiana Jones, only in my version the main character was a rabbit named Bunnyana Jones and she had to fight zombie-bats in order to get a golden egg to save her village. Yeah... it was... something. But hey, it was fun to write and it makes me laugh reading it now. The stories I wrote as a kid were all fairly short - maybe a new pages at the most. As I grew, the length of my stories grew with me. Now, I aim to write full novel-length stories - maybe even book series.
It wasn't until I was twelve or thirteen that I began to write things other than short stories. In grade seven, there was a poetry slam competition at my school. My sister had competed in hers and I was determined to do the same. At that point in my life, I was just starting to get into animals rights and learn about my local animal shelter. I became very passionate about puppy mills and rescued dogs. So I wrote my spoken-word piece on puppy mills and what terrible places they were. This was one of the first times I wrote a long emotion-driven poem. While I did not win the poetry slam, I did learn poetry-writing skills and gained some confidence through sharing my writing with a few hundred students at my school.
The next year, with a newfound confidence in my writing abilities, I started writing fanfiction for my favourite show at the time: Star Trek Voyager. I decided that there needed to be more episodes of it and I was going to be the one to write them. For those who are not aware of what fanfiction is exactly, it is where a fan of a show, movie, book, or sometimes even real-life person creates stories based around the characters (or real people) from the fandom. Many of these stories follow the canon stories (meaning they are set in the universe in which the characters come from), but they expand upon certain aspects or create new stories that were not explored in the plot. Writing fanfiction was a really great way for me to delve into writing longer stories because the characters and world were already built - I just had to take those characters and write stories around them. Without having to focus on character development and world-building, I could solely focus on crafting stories and learning how to format and write creative stories.
In grade nine, at the age of fourteen, I started to write my first original story. That was also my first time delving into the wondrous world of world-building and character creation. It's about seven years later and I have not finished it nor even given it a name but I did write several chapters and developed the characters. My story was and is heavily inspired by Cassandra Clare's Mortal Instruments series. It involves a human girl who grew up on Earth who discovers she has magical powers and is whisked away from everything she knows to escape dangerous creatures who are after her for reasons that I will not say in case I ever do finish and publish this story (unlikely, but you never know). I may use this story as the basis for another story, or change it up a bit, but I feel confident that I'll develop at least some aspects from it. Even if nothing comes from it, it was the first time I felt really inspired and driven to write a story.
In high school, I really turned to writing to help me through some hard times. I wrote fanfiction for Tumblr, a social media site where you can share various content, and I gained a lot of confidence through sharing my writing that way. People enjoyed my writing; they complimented it and encouraged me to write more. I also began dabbling in poetry writing, which I began to use as a journal of sorts where I could just spew out my feelings and thoughts through free-verse poetry. As well as fanfiction and poetry, I started to write and develop my own original stories. I worked on the one I started in grade nine and started new fantasy stories, or at least thought up plots for some potential stories. Throughout my years in high school, mainly in grades ten and eleven, I wrote and completed a ninety-thousand-word fantasy story. I was, and still am, incredibly proud of myself for writing a story that length at such a young age. Though it has many plot holes and needs a lot of revisions (something I'll get to someday), I am still amazed at my past self for writing it. I'm also genuinely confused as to how I wrote a full-length story, but hopefully someday I'll do it again.
The year after I graduated high school I started a creative writing program through Algonquin College, which I completed the following spring. Taking this program helped me learn some of the more technical aspects of writing like grammar, form, character development, and how to critically analyze literature in a way that will help me in my own writing. Now in university, I've been required to write papers on various subjects. While these have all been for academic purposes, I've enjoyed the process of planning the essay or paper, doing the research, and then crafting it out. It has also helped me develop a confident tone for non-fiction writing and writing that is more professional than creative writing. Writing academically is also helpful in learning more about proper punctuation, spelling, grammar, and sentence structure. In addition, it helps to keep my writing skills sharp during the busy semesters when I do not always have time or energy to write creatively.
Nowadays, I have many fantasy stories and one sci-fi story in the works as well as many poems and personal essays written. I mainly focus on fantasy writing because of how exciting and fun world-building is. It's such an intricate process of creating a world and figuring out how it works. I also enjoy fantasy because you can do pretty much anything in your story. Magic? Sure. Dragons? You bet. Monsters and wonderous creatures? Of course. I have also always loved reading fantasy books - it's probably my favourite genre, so of course I'd want to try it out for myself. Every time I think of a new idea for a story, I feel that same excitement and eager energy I did back in grade nine when I worked on my first fantasy story. The fact that I have many WIPs (works-in-progress) means that there is likely a story I'll have inspiration for at any given moment. I enjoy jumping from WIP to WIP - it allows me to explore different subjects and made-up words and keeps my writing sharp as I have to adjust my tone depending on the character I'm writing for.
While it may seem that I have been writing so much for most of my life, the truth is that until recently, I was never solely focused on my writing. In high school, I enjoyed writing because it was an escape from my struggles, not necessarily because I was proud of what I wrote nor even because I enjoyed writing all the time. In fact, some of the time I wrote just to get validation through comments on my shared fanfictions. Over the past few years in university, I have enjoyed writing more than I did in high school, but it's been just a hobby that I've done only when I had free time. Now, I want writing to be my passion; my long-term goal. I want to focus on writing my stories and developing my craft.
The next step in my writing journey is to work on a university degree in English. My current degree is in anthropology and geography - two subjects that I find very interesting and aspects of which are helpful in my writing. However, after exploring various subjects and ideas for career paths, I have realized that I just want to focus on writing and working in the writing industry - whether that be a full-time author, or an editor, or some kind of mix of the two. I therefore wish to do a second degree after graduating and focus on literature and writing, all while continuing to work on my stories, poems, and essays, and figuring out how I can be a successful published author somewhere down the road.
My writing journey will never quite be over - it's a journey that I intend to be on for the rest of my life. It's a journey that's been pushed to the side for too many years - put on the back burner and forgotten time and time again. I strive to follow this journey and focus on its path, seeing where it will take me and how it will change me.
Thank you for now being a part of my writing journey.
Stay safe and be kind.
Comments