Your Journey as a Writer

First off, what got you interested in writing? And how did you get to where you are today? Everyone's writing journeys are different.

I'll briefly start with explaining mine.

I can remember wanting to write from a very young age. Seeing fonts for I guess the first time in books, I remember, at six wanting to copy that book font I saw. By well...handwriting it. I guess, lol. I was a silly kid.

Obviously, at five or six years old, I wouldn't be writing a whole lot. I didn't really start trying to write outside of school/for fun until I was in third grade. I tried writing a book inside a marble notebook. As a kid, though, all my characters were named after people I knew irl at the time, except... the main character, I think her name was Amy. It was some silly book about the main character's family all becoming monsters, or something.

Sadly, this notebook got lost many years ago. So, even if I wanted to, I can't go find it anymore. Probably lost in a toy box, or something and then thrown out by my parents. What a shame.

From that point on, I definitely kept my interest in writing. I didn't really write much, though. Then, I got into Pokemon at around 2007, and started going online. Joined Serebii and learned of the world of Pokemon Fanfiction. I was inspired by someone named Harryheart (sorry to name drop you but you'll probably never read this) who wrote a Fanfiction known as Max's Pokemon Journey. 11 year old me wanted to write Pokemon Fanfiction, too.

So, I did. I wrote something called "The Pokemon Adventures of Allison Birch". Serebiiforums hated it, so I stopped posting it there. The fanfiction lived on a now dead forum known as Pokemon Nightmare. I recall a lot of people hating it there, too. In fact, I remember someone even rewriting an ENTIRE chapter for me because they hated it so much. Honestly, it was your typical bad Pokemon Anime re imagined fanfiction. Allison was hella marry sue. This was back in 2008, by the way. And probably partially in 2009. I don't have this one archived anywhere online.


Despite all the haters, though, I did keep trying to write. I believe that particular fanfiction got pretty far before I quit (or got banned or something lmfao). Even wrote some fanfictions I posted on Fanficiton.net of all places. None that I ever finished, of course. Some place called Ficwad, also.

I think I wrote various fanfictions throughout 2009 to 2011 on various websites, probably even here, if I'm being honest. Some notable ones that sit in my memory are a Pokemon Fanficiton about an Ice Age called "Cold Life". I think I got really far into this one but the website it was hosted on was getting shut down so I couldn't continue it. I had it archived on that other website I mentioned above (Pokemon Nightmare) but I was never able to repost the whole thing there. I recall that one being eh, though, people didn't like Cold Life, but some people did. Not many, though.

I also tried doing an rp with it on this said forum Cold Life was originally posted on. There were like three people. But in late 2009 my computer got taken away, so those people continued entirely without me. They outright said it was better without me writing in there! The assholes, wow.

I also tried writing my own original work about a moon baby around this time that started out as an idea for a video game. I never got far into writing that one. Definitely do not remember anything about it from beyond this small thought regarding it.

Then, I guess in late 2009/early 2010, I wanted to write Pokemon Mystery Dungeon fanfictions. I wrote multiple, actually. The one I got the farthest with was one called Team Pure Silver which is archived on my bad Ficwad account. I wrote forty whole chapters of this one! Forty is quite a lot, if I'm being honest. Sadly, rereading this one recently, it came to my attention it was mostly just dialogue and isn't very good.

I also remember writing a fanficiton about a Team Rocket Admin named Akari who left Team Rocket and is trying to become a normal Pokemon trainer. This one was pretty bad, though, I was in my "I use Japanese names without thinking about them!" phase so, all my characters had random ass Japanese names with no thought put into them. I didn't get extremely far with this fanfiction, either, but I had ideas for it.

From this point onward, a lot of what I did was mixed. I wrote original works and some fanfictions here and there.

In 2011, I got super into magical girl. I was still trying Pokemon fanfictions. But, for the first time, I wrote something that wasn't a Pokemon fanfic. I wrote an Sailor Moon oc fanfiction. I didn't get far with it, but I recall my descriptions were starting to be a thing. From here, I also quit a lot of fanfics I was writing, too, because reveiwers were a thing and I felt discouraged.

Then, in 2012, I wrote some original ideas. I wrote something along the lines of turning the internet into a world where people live. I only wrote two chapters, and I don't think I have it archived. Descriptions were starting to get a little better, though, but a lot of people said they couldn't imagine some of the stuff I wrote, so... I wasn't quite there yet, sadly. Despite that, I know I kept writing, and not just Pokemon. I wrote some My Little Pony Fanfictions as well that never really got far, but I tried it. I might have posted some of them here, but I don't remember. I feel like I was starting to improve a lot from this point onward.

However, I stopped writing Pokemon fanfiction around this time. I felt discouraged. It was just something I no longer enjoyed doing.

My magical girl phase at the time was in full swing, though, because I had recently watched a lot of dark magical girls. This was mostly the 2013 time frame when I was writing stuff like that. I wanted to make my very own. I attempted many, many times to make an original dark magical girl. Many times. Most were... well, involved cosmic horror or were just straight up edgy. I never finished or got far with any of my original magical girl ideas. Some didn't even leave the planning stages. There was only one that I actually wrote that made it to even chapter 1. I posted it on here and a dead Pokemon forum.

I also picked up poetry and wrote...quite a lot of it. With a lot of people saying some of it was good and some of it was bad. I don't know how much of my poetry is archived, but I definitely wrote a lot of it for many years. Some of these poems are on here, too, but barely any.

For awhile, mostly all I did was poetry until around the tail end of 2013 where I tried making an RP in a magic school called Standing Creation. A lot of people participated in this and it was my second of time being a game master for an RP. But, it died quickly and was very cliquey. But, I wanted to expand upon this rp and make a separate story still using the Standing Creation name.

At the time, I was a very depressed teenager, though, so I made it a horror novel. I took everything I was feeling at the time and wrote it into a novel. Around this time, I was still riding the Madoka Magica high, so I was inspired by that in many ways to do a story about "it's about magic, but it quickly becomes horrifying". I feel like when writing this, this story was what solidified my writing style to the way it was today. I wrote this novel starting in late 2013, and actually finished it. It was 26 chapters. I wanted to get it published, but I never ended up doing that. I finished it in July of 2014 before going into my last year of High School.

I was also in creative writing at that time, too, when I was writing this novel. So, every day, I got to write in school, also. People were impressed with my writing, I recall.

From there, after finishing this one, I remember writing some side stories for that original work. Some poems for awhile, too. I wrote a little in 2015, but not much.Tried writing more Standing Creation things after this, but I never got past the prelude or chapter one for anything other than the 26 chapter one I wrote and finished.

After writing my novel, I tried coming up with ideas for another novel that involves magic and horror a couple years later, but I never started it. I had ideas of the narration in my head, but that's it. Nothing ever came of it.

I had writers block for...awhile after that. 2016 was pretty much an empty year for writing. I went to some day program, and I suppose I had no time to actually write. I probably did here and there, though, but nothing seriously.

From this point onward, I barely wrote anything for maybe five years. 2017 to 2020, all I attempted was RP with my close friend of various idol series. None of them were serious attempts at writing, though, just stuff on Twitter. That's all I really did throughout 2017 to 2020.

I didn't really write much in 2021, but then well Genshin Impact happened. I got inspired by various people in Genshin Impact rp Twitter to make some Genshin Impact ocs and try my hand at writing my own "Genshin RP solos" (because this was the point in my life I hated the word fanficiton). In May of 2021, I wrote prose for the first time in a really long time. I also picked up poetry again, but only acrostic. I write a lot of acrostic right now. But, I didn't really like the direction that "rp solo" went into. Around this time, people making ocs on Picrew was also pretty common, so I tried my hand at making some.

There was one picrew I made that I felt particularly attached to and something about this particular one made me want to write a story for him. So, I made him a carrd (again inspired by genshin rp twitter, I guess) and wrote a simple information about him. I didn't think I'd want to actually write prose for him, but I did. I started prototyping stuff for this character throughout all of August until I finally made that Carrd for him in early September. From there, I actually began writing some prose for him. I've written about 5 parts so far, and plan to write a sixth one tomorrow or Monday. Reading through it, I know I've definitely improved and am a great writer now.

However, whenever I finish this, and whether I post it here, I don't know what'll be next. You never know, I might get writer's block again immediately after.

Also, I didn't mention this, but irl, I tried writing a lot of "manga" in marble notebooks. I only ever finished one, though. It was four books. Pretty bad, and embarrassing though. I wrote these mostly in middle school and haven't drawn comics since. They weren't very good, if I'm being honest and I have since buried them deep into a chest underneath my brother's bed. I refuse to go look and dig them out.

Anyway, I've basically gone from writing all the time to only writing if I feel inspired. I miss the days when I can write almost anything. I am writing a lot again now, though, and I'm happy I have some writing spark again. I mostly blame the fact that many of my older computers were slow or clunky and had keyboard problems. This one even has some keyboard problems, too, in fact, so I barely wrote anything during those times because my keyboards were just...bad, or my computer froze a lot. So, that killed motivation entirely. I guess being at work program did, too, hence why I didn't write much for awhile.

I will say that I fulfilled my goal of writing an original horror story involving magic, though, and I feel complete in that regard. I'm happy I was finally able to write a novel and finish it. I'm never going to get it published, though, because the idea of getting public recognition scares me, but I did toss it onto Wattpad a long time ago.

But, going from being a little kid who wanted to copy book fonts to actually writing on and off for years is still quite the journey. I definitely feel like I'm, at least, a decent writer now. I went from having literally no descriptions to a lot of body language in my writing, even in the dialogue. Writing as much as I did is what got me here, for sure. I have people who encouraged me and liked my writing to thank for this. Also, me, for not giving up, I guess? But maybe I'm bragging at this point.

Well, anyway, that's my writing journey. I hope people post in here and tell me theirs.

Palamon said:

From that point on, I definitely kept my interest in writing. I didn't really write much, though. Then, I got into Pokemon at around 2007, and started going online. Joined Serebii and learned of the world of Pokemon Fanfiction. I was inspired by someone named Harryheart (sorry to name drop you but you'll probably never read this) who wrote a Fanfiction known as Max's Pokemon Journey. 11 year old me wanted to write Pokemon Fanfiction, too.

Click to expand...

Gosh I actually recognized that title. I can't remember if I read it or not, but I think it was quite popular back then haha. Now Serebii fanfic forums changed so much.

Alright, so my writing journey is an interesting one. I first wanted to attempt writing when I was in elementary school but I actually didn't write. I would make cruddy book binders with blank paper, thinking I'll write a book but didn't haha.

My first real attempt at writing is in high school. I did a few short stories and novellas that have interesting premises but my skills aren't quite there yeah due to young age and inexperience. I think I mentioned the novellas before here, a historical fiction story set in medieval times and one a mystery/suspense.

I also did some screenplays too. I started with a couple The Simpsons fanfiction screenplays that I don't think I have anymore. I then attempted an original screenplay taking place in 1600s Japan after seeing my dad play Total War: Japan and then researching Japan history on my own.

At the last year of high school, I began writing Pokemon fanfiction after being inspired from several fics on Serebii forums. My first one was a fic that's basically a Pokemonized version of one of Ernest Hemingway's stories about a fisherman catching a large Whiscash. After writing a few shorter fics, I did another mulit-chaptered fic called Nothing, Everything that is basically the Pokemonized version of The Da Vinci Code (see a pattern here?). That one several people enjoyed it even though the pacing and characters don't hold up now but I finished it and it's an achievement.

After graduating college in 2010, I switched to focusing on writing Fullmetal Alchemist and Homestuck fanfiction for several years. The FMA fandom I enjoyed a lot at first, but then the fandom moved from Livejournal to Tumblr. There was one group of people that I shared my writing with but rarely they would look at my stuff while praising one another and almost pretend that I didn't exist. There were still some fun moments though, like my first attempts at a Big Bang, which is a collaboration between writers and artists on a project together. I also got to mod the FMA Fic Contest at LJ for a few years before it got discontinued due to the move from LJ to Tumblr I mentioned.

As for Homestuck I wrote several short pieces for the Homestuck Kink Meme on Dreamwidth and one some gift exchanges. The feedback I would get from them was either a hit or miss. I stopped writing for that fandom when I sorta lost interest in Homestuck.

In 2017 at another Pokemon multi-chapter fic called Foul Play, which is basically Nanu and Grimsley becoming best bros lol. I got inspired after playing Moon and I was like, "why didn't Nanu and Grimsley meet?!" and snowballed from there. Ironically a couple years later Pokemon Masters would give me the food I wanted haha. I'm actually still working on it now with only 5 chapters left. Hopefully next year will be the year I finally finish it because geez it's almost 5 years now help me.

2020 the pandemic happens. In May I finished my third Fire Emblem Three House run from the Pokemon Community Game Along, and that run inspired my first FE3H fic. I've been writing several short FE3H pieces in addition to Foul Play if I wasn't distracted by FE3H fanfic I would've finished Foul Play by now. The feedback for my FE3H fics also have been either a hit or miss (sometimes a piece would get feedback on FFnet but not on AO3 and vice versa). Lately I've been mixed about whether to continue to write FE3H for several reasons, but I have some plot bunnies that I would like to attempt someday.

Also around that time I actually started brainstorming an original story idea, which is basically modern-day Faust with a burnt-out millennial and a sassy devil. So far I only thought up the beginning, a couple plot points, and backstories on some characters. Still, it would be nice to try an original idea finally.

So yeah that's been my writing journey so far. Mainly fanfic writing, probably still have it in me to do more. I've been thinking of doing original too, so we'll see if I eventually get to that.

It's hard to really say much in specifics. I started writing crappy stories as a kid after finding out I really enjoyed it during school. I'd off-and-on try to write stories/books over the years. I never really shared any of it publicly outside of assignments/exams though. It wasn't until I started RPing here on PC that I started doing more public writing.

I've been doing that for a while now, have dabbled a little in FF&W as well too. Then, after getting sick, I started to really focus on improving my writing and doing something with the skill.

I've now published one picture book and have a finished novel ready to go once the editing process is over. I've just started outlining a second novel in the meantime and have some other projects in the works.

I remember back in elementary school when ygo was still one of the big things and everyone wanted to either bring their gameboys or their decks to school for recess I would write ygo fanfics. I know in second grade we had journals made out of composition notebooks that we wrote in every day, and I had an ongoing series of battles that I wrote 2-3 pages on every time we had the chance lol.

After that... I think 5th grade is the next time I really tried writing something. I had just finished final fantasy x and had also already read Percy Jacksons lightning thief two or three times over that summer and something in my head said 'oh yeah, these go together perfectly'. So for a few months I started my morning by typing up a few paragraphs of this monstrosity of a hero's quest to find the legendary 'Brotherhood' that was blessed by some Greek god and... it was a mess. I don't think it ever got to be anything substantial since I stopped after a few months ~~and found other things to be super invested in~~.

After that, I didn't really write at all until high school. We did little writing prompts in our homeroom classes twice a semester ~~which were just a cleverly disguised way to check students mental health without straight up testing people apparently?~~ and I always wrote a good bit for those, but never anything I was super passionate about. And then I was in a biology/literature double blocked class where I ended up writing a short story about some science concept that was essentially a more interesting episode of the magic school bus that my teacher at the time loved and tried encouraging me to write more. And then I didn't do anything substantial until after graduation.

I wrote a few pages for dnd character backstories here and there, but until I joined up on pc and got talked into joining the rpt I didn't really do anything. And then since then its been a back and forth battle between making outlines for novels ~~that will just sit and collect dust~~, writing short stories ~~that I'll never go back and edit into a compilation worth publishing~~, submitting some novellas ~~that i end up burnt out on halfway through bc prompts suck~~, and destroying other peoples' worldbuilding with my characters because rps are fun :)

I don't remember when I started writing, but when I was a kid I would narrate stories to myself in my head. Then when I was in middle school I would write down whatever idea came to my mind, usually in class when I was supposed to be paying attention. I started writing proper fanfiction sometime when I was in high school, although it wasn't great at first. At one point I wanted to be a novelist, but I couldn't come up with a decent plot that wasn't essentially just a fanfiction with the serial numbers filed off, so I never did write anything of my own, not helped by the fact that I have trouble finishing things.