A Ramble (On Writing)

Maybe it's because of the start of the festive season, maybe it's the progress in my graphic design career, or maybe it's the creative focus I have been trying to bring back to my life, but I feel like it's now finally time to talk about the elephant that's been in the room since 2011.

My writing. Or lack thereof.

Reading has always been an integral part of my life. It's been my preferred form of entertainment, over TV and video games, since I learned how to read on my own. It's been my escape during periods of turbulence in my life, and a way to spend a good happy day. But not only that! Since I was six, I wanted to be an author. As a kid, I would hear about an event in the news, get a random idea, or watch something on TV and write a story about it. I didn't have the attention span, or capability to write anything really long when I was in elementary school (obviously), but creative writing came easily and effortlessly.

Just as Gerard Way inspired me to pursue an artistic path, Stephen King was the author who inspired my writing. Misery was the first book of his I read. It rocked my twelve year old mind. After that, I knew that writing professionally was a dream I would never quite be able to give up.

In high school, I started to write. A lot. It was a mixture of original and fan fiction. I got a livejournal page, posted in some forums, and had a growing audience for my work. I loved fan fiction because it allowed me to write these stories and make friends doing so. I'd never write anything creepy - in fact, it was mostly original fiction. If you'd change the names in the stories, you wouldn't know they'd ever been fan fiction. I could access a community full of authors with original ideas themselves - the inspiration was endless.

Some of you know me from these stories, and for your continued interest in my life, I thank you. Your support and positive comments meant, and still mean, the world to me. They helped give me the confidence I needed to plow on, to really believe that I had what it took to be a published author someday. When I had a bad day, I would go back to my livejournal and read them. The fact that some of you still message me on here or Tumblr, asking for Wanderers of Ruin, just makes my day. Looking back, I'm amazed at myself that I managed to write a 200,000 word story before I turned 20!

However, obviously, something changed in 2011. I went quiet. I went through a very dark period in my life, one where I let bridges burn, both in my real life and social media. I came back to it with these deep feelings of shame. Here I'd let a passion of mine go. I was still in college for visual communications, but I'd completely stopped writing. I felt that I couldn't go back.
I deleted my livejournal.
I refused to log into twitter.
I deactivated myself on every forum and form of social media except for deviantart and facebook.

No explanation. No goodbye. Nothing to these people who had been so kind to me since 2007. I still feel a lot of shame about that, and now, three years later, I still apologize.

After this dark period, I've suffered from the worst creative writing block that I've ever had. It's a struggle to think of something to say. I don't even open up Microsoft word anymore except when I'm at work, since it reminds me of this great thing I used to do. I feel like the spark is still in there - the urge, the woman who can write novels, who can say a really great story. I still want to go back, edit Wanderers of Ruin, and try to get it published as a trilogy. I've tried, multiple times, but I stop because I feel that my lack of creating any new stories invalidates me as an author.

Don't get me wrong, life is going awesomely right now. I'm a bit better of a designer, I have more time than in the past to draw and paint, and my life is pretty on track for somebody my age. In almost every creative way I feel fulfilled. However, I haven't been able to let go of writing, just as I have never been able to let go of art. I feel like I need to write a new novel, take the scary leap and try to get it published, and see what happens. And I'm feeling a lot more optimistic about it than I have in the past few years. I'm starting to realize that I might need to take this inspiration for my novel from that dark period, maybe as a way to resolve that time in my life. It's scary, but I've used writing, and reading, and art as ways to understand and cope with the world around me. Maybe, because I haven't used it as a way to understand that time, it's almost gumming up my system? Either way, I'm almost ready to take the plunge. I've even got an idea in my head for the title. The most important thing now is to go ahead and write that first chapter, see where it takes me.

I've also thought about getting a proper blog again. I used to have a livejournal. Do people still use livejournal? What's the popular site nowadays? And would anybody be interested in reading it?

As always, I hope those who read this are having a good day