I'm strange.
I'm afraid that I'm one of those people who is an avid reader in love with language and literature (even if after years of teaching it I still can't say I get literary analysis) but quite incapable of writing a decent story.
I'm here to see if I can prove myself wrong.
I really haven't written anything for nearly a decade, so whatever I am, I'm definitely rusty as well. It's just been building over the years -- this completely irresistible desire to write. I have stories in my head every day, sometimes I can't fall asleep because something takes over and I disappear into a world of my creation. (My only wish is that I'd had the foresight to take notes of all the ideas I've had over the years.)
Back to the beginning.
I grew up a reader. I lived in the world of Jules Verne as an elementary school kid. As a seven year old my bible was The Mysterious Island and I read it cover to cover every few months inbetween all my other reading.
I read science fiction and fantasy. I disappeared into my head.
And then I started dreaming of writing my own stories.
I did, of course. I wrote short fantasy fairy-tales that I made my parents "publish" and gave them out to local libraries when I was ten years old. Children read them and liked them.
I kept on writing until late teens -- plotting vast fantasy worlds in notebooks, but never quite getting to the point of anything past short stories.
In my early twenties I discovered fictionpress and fanfiction.net (these really were the early days for both) and realised I could get people to read my stuff! :O
Also, I discovered that by writing fan fiction, I'd get a lot more readers and feedback. So this is where I let my original work go.
I've written a piece of completed novel-length fanfiction and oh so many short stories and vignettes. Then, as I said, I completely stopped writing for a decade. I can't even say what it was. Maybe I burnt out, maybe it was time for a break... who knows.
What I do know, is that for about a year now, the compulsion to write has become the thing that keeps me up at nights.
What I also know is that I am completely out of practice.
I'm not sure I have any native talent, but I do know that by writing nonstop through my early years I got decent at it. I recently read through my own novel-length fanfic and while the early chapters made me cringe, I could see the evolution in the quality of my writing as the story went on.
Even if I do say so myself, some of the later chapters even got... good.
What I also saw from a totally clinical point of view is that I have more weaknesses than strengths as a writer.
I'm not very good at action.
I find sentences difficult -- I prefer heavily punctuated paragraph long stream of consciousness to something more easy to follow. Or. I use super short sentences. <- Case in point.
I can't really say, but there seems to be a sort of childish quality to it even though I'm an adult.
On the other hand.
I'm good at atmosphere. Descriptions. Setting the scene. That sort of thing. With my early original writing, my favourites were always 1000-2000 word descriptive vignettes.
I think my style is actually quite distinctive as long as I manage to get back to it. The only question remaining is whether it'll actually lend itself well to anything that could be considered epic.
Only time will tell.
What I'm going to start with first is exercises. So this is what you're going to see around. Short stories probably, to get back into the groove. Only when I feel comfortable again, shall I start work on the novel that's been stuck in my head for years now.
P.S. Not a native speaker by any stretch of the word, so be ever so kind and point it out to me if I make any outright mistakes.
I'm afraid that I'm one of those people who is an avid reader in love with language and literature (even if after years of teaching it I still can't say I get literary analysis) but quite incapable of writing a decent story.
I'm here to see if I can prove myself wrong.
I really haven't written anything for nearly a decade, so whatever I am, I'm definitely rusty as well. It's just been building over the years -- this completely irresistible desire to write. I have stories in my head every day, sometimes I can't fall asleep because something takes over and I disappear into a world of my creation. (My only wish is that I'd had the foresight to take notes of all the ideas I've had over the years.)
Back to the beginning.
I grew up a reader. I lived in the world of Jules Verne as an elementary school kid. As a seven year old my bible was The Mysterious Island and I read it cover to cover every few months inbetween all my other reading.
I read science fiction and fantasy. I disappeared into my head.
And then I started dreaming of writing my own stories.
I did, of course. I wrote short fantasy fairy-tales that I made my parents "publish" and gave them out to local libraries when I was ten years old. Children read them and liked them.
I kept on writing until late teens -- plotting vast fantasy worlds in notebooks, but never quite getting to the point of anything past short stories.
In my early twenties I discovered fictionpress and fanfiction.net (these really were the early days for both) and realised I could get people to read my stuff! :O
Also, I discovered that by writing fan fiction, I'd get a lot more readers and feedback. So this is where I let my original work go.
I've written a piece of completed novel-length fanfiction and oh so many short stories and vignettes. Then, as I said, I completely stopped writing for a decade. I can't even say what it was. Maybe I burnt out, maybe it was time for a break... who knows.
What I do know, is that for about a year now, the compulsion to write has become the thing that keeps me up at nights.
What I also know is that I am completely out of practice.
I'm not sure I have any native talent, but I do know that by writing nonstop through my early years I got decent at it. I recently read through my own novel-length fanfic and while the early chapters made me cringe, I could see the evolution in the quality of my writing as the story went on.
Even if I do say so myself, some of the later chapters even got... good.
What I also saw from a totally clinical point of view is that I have more weaknesses than strengths as a writer.
I'm not very good at action.
I find sentences difficult -- I prefer heavily punctuated paragraph long stream of consciousness to something more easy to follow. Or. I use super short sentences. <- Case in point.
I can't really say, but there seems to be a sort of childish quality to it even though I'm an adult.
On the other hand.
I'm good at atmosphere. Descriptions. Setting the scene. That sort of thing. With my early original writing, my favourites were always 1000-2000 word descriptive vignettes.
I think my style is actually quite distinctive as long as I manage to get back to it. The only question remaining is whether it'll actually lend itself well to anything that could be considered epic.
Only time will tell.
What I'm going to start with first is exercises. So this is what you're going to see around. Short stories probably, to get back into the groove. Only when I feel comfortable again, shall I start work on the novel that's been stuck in my head for years now.
P.S. Not a native speaker by any stretch of the word, so be ever so kind and point it out to me if I make any outright mistakes.
Myth Weaver
