Where to Begin...
Well, first of all, before anyone reads on, please know I'm not trying to make this sounds at all like I'm professional, that I deserve anything at all, or have the right to tell you how to write. This is something for me personally and the only reason I'm sharing this part of my life with you is because you, my faithful readers, are now a part of my life. I also don't really have much of an issue at all sharing this with anyone so I figured, why not? Maybe it could help someone, maybe it would be interesting... I don't know and I honestly don't care because this is something I will look back on and recognize as my start towards my ultimate dream - to write for a living and enjoy doing it.
Unlike my stories, this is real so don't get excited for anything spectacular happening. This is just the story of my writing and how I began up to where I am now. It will cover some of my thought processes, ideas, and, if you haven't read a story of mine and were planning to, this might not be for you to read because spoilers are probably a guarantee (considering I will be revisiting everything I wrote and my thoughts throughout the story). So don't say I didn't warn you.
Since this is about how I started writing and how I got certain ideas, we can start with this: Writing in Reverse. As I'm writing this right now, I can say that I honestly came up with the name of this journal out of nowhere no more than an hour ago. Besides that, I picked this title because that's what's happening, I guess you could say. I'm going back and writing about the beginning and how I got to where I am now.
I like photography because it can take you back to the past, hold memories in pictures, and I'm writing this to remind myself later on of how I changed and became a better person, how I started on my path towards my goal of one day becoming a writer.
***
It started with an idea for a story that came out of nowhere. I was in my history class in eighth grade. At the time I had no respect for the subject because the teacher was an air head and didn't know what she was teaching. I guess I can have her to thank for my first idea because it came about from simply zoning out.
There was no drive in me to write, to do anything involving story telling.... I was very different from how I am now and that idea was something that would later change me. At the time, I thought nothing besides, 'wow, that's a good idea' and I didn't want to forget it; it was huge and complex and unique. It involved the idea of reincarnation and twisting time; it was unique to any supernatural story I read in the past. So I wrote it down on a piece of paper, not knowing what to do with it. Writing wasn't something that snapped into my head. It ended up in the back of my closet where it would remain untouched and not thought about for over a year.
At that time, I was several years into my depression and I didn't see an end to it. I was miserable and still didn't know how to deal with it after so many years. I had friends that didn't try to communicate, relate to me, or even hold there end in a conversation. They didn't feel comfortable with anything! They were nice, don't get me wrong. That just didn't help me and were in their own little worlds of being perfect students with no ounce of fun or freedom - which I sadly reflected. That's why later I would find writing helpful: it was fun and an escape to things that I missed out on, where I could live on through the characters.
At the end of that school year, I did my first ballsy move I ever made. I was quiet, the dork in glasses, polite, good in school, I was overweight and stayed away from people. People then liked to automatically assume I was a goody two-shoes and a lot of people still do see me that way - some innocent kid that wouldn't dare say a cuss word. I was sick of it and sick of my shitty friends at the time. I wanted to do something reckless and act on it for the first time.
We were signing yearbooks on the last day of school and because I would be in high school the next year, I figured why not give a goodbye to my teacher crush in a way so he wouldn't forget me? I walked up to my teacher that I had a crush on and whispered in his ear that I had a crush on him. After that, I heard him chuckle but before I gave him a chance (or myself) to really respond, I just walked away, satisfied it was off my chest. I didn't expect anything from him accept my own humiliation. I just needed to say something for the sake of doing something I never did before. I smiled with a stupid blush I could feel in my cheeks and though I felt pathetic for the seemingly immature action, it actually would come to help me in the future. It was another step out of my shell and it opened my eyes a bit to just being more carefree. Little did I know at the time that that crush would be an inspiration for story of mine in the future.
***
April 4th, 2010. More than a year later. It was the day I found that folded up piece of paper in my closet, packed away. I opened it and I as I reread it, the whole thing came back to me. The idea that I found too great for me to come up with.... My grandpa died exactly four months before this date so I was still dealing with that somehow. I didn't realize how much this piece of paper was about to help me.
Instead of shoving it back in my closet, I typed it out on a word document and saved it to make sure I would have it in case I lost it. After I typed it out, I remember it was only a half of a page. I reread the idea and changed something I didn't like and made it a little better in my opinion. It was now at three quarters of a page but it was still an idea and that's what I figured it would stay as. Nothing more than an idea.
It didn't. About a week later, I went on the computer and recalled that I had that saved as a document and opened it for whatever reason. And as I did, something just didn't make sense to me and that was everything that surrounded the story. I had a story idea but where was everything else around it? Background, validation that the things happening could actually occur....
I continued to add a few more things and included some things that happened to get to where my idea came in. After that, I saved it and exited, satisfied with the new additions to the idea. Then, a few more characters came in the picture a few days later. I went back on the computer, bothered still by this idea and knew there was something wrong and that was that there needed to be more because something just wasn't right. So day by day after that, I added a little more and before I knew it, I was stuck on writing mode.
There was absolutely no organization. All I knew was that I needed to get all of these ideas out of my head. I didn't even really write anything in an acceptable format for anybody. I just wrote out what was happening and what led to the next thing, not bothering with detail. Just laying everything out. It was ultimately a very messy and long overview of what this idea was becoming and that was a story.
School still in progress, I told my mom that I was doing homework every time I was on the computer for the fact that I was constantly on it. I couldn't stop thinking about it; I was constantly wondering how I could make it better, what a good twist could be.... I became obsessed with this story I came up with and loved it, the challenge, how it felt to come up with ideas. That's all it was still - just ideas in an overview. With no organization - it was literally all just one big paragraph of me slapping ideas down that led to the next. After school, that was my first priority until it was time to go to bed. 6 hours straight of 'homework' because 'I needed to study for exams that were coming up soon'. Even still, my parents assume I'm still typing school papers obsessively for school because they don't like me on the computer for so long like this.
At school at the same time, I was getting to know my future best friend - someone that would also help me change and become a better, happier person. She was different - and down to Earth unlike my other friends. Her name was Destiny. She also wasn't like any other typical teenage girl that would annoy the hell out of me. She had a realistic mind, wasn't obsessed with texting a boyfriend, and was mature enough to talk about things with me besides gossip and irrelevant shit that revolved around ourselves. She also had a sense of humor that was just so... different. I wasn't sure what to think of her at first but I realized that she was starting to change me, make me happier and more carefree. We had gym class together and when we use to do laps, she use to help me come up with names for any future characters I might want. She was the first person I told about my writing to and I explained the entire thing to her one day; she really said it was a good idea - but hard to follow. It was hard for me to follow myself, it was so complex. I had to draw out maps and a time line to get things straight sometimes. Either way, she still supported me with it and I continued to obsess over coming up with this perfect story.
Eventually, my mother could tell I was changing. She just didn't realize in what way. She said that she was concerned and saw that I seemed distracted and I finally told her that I was writing a story and that I was distracted because it took all of my mind's attention. But I told her that it was helping me a lot and I loved it (even if I was still working on the overview). So she understood.
During this time, everything was coming together so well. I came up with the characters and their personalities - which was fun. The main character is a girl by the name of Violet Richardson. I chose the name Violet because that was the color of her eyes and it was also a mysterious condition she had. I came up with Richardson from walking down the halls of school, thinking about new ideas for this story, and passing by a door that said it was Mr. Richard's room. Another main character is a boy by the name of Jamie Louis. I got Jamie from someone I met last summer and just happen to think of it when trying to come up with his name. I picked Louis because I just really liked how it sounded. I asked my younger brother to just pick some random girls name for my next character, which I told him was for 'no reason,' and he said Katie - which was how Katie Paige was born. Another main character is a girl named Zella - which I found from a baby name book. Besides Characters, I was studying some demonology and learning about angels and the more I learned, the more I had to the story because it was all about the supernatural and paranormal. Other than that, most of the other characters came from this long list of names I thought of or made up.
Of course, all this was planning of the story and coming up with it, the characters.... I didn't start to really experience problems until later on, the more I continued with the overview and the more I discovered writing wasn't as easy as telling a story. It actually turned out to be one of the most challenging things I needed to concur and I needed to figure out a way to do just that.