Origins : How it all began

I remember the first time I wrote. I was fed up with my current living situation, felt alone and overwhelmed. I had no one to talk to, no one who could understand what it was like to live the way I was living. My circumstances left me no choice but to keep my life secret as if I had done something wrong when I was the one suffering. I needed to talk to someone or at least express myself in some way. I spent two days on my very old computer typing away my feelings, talking about my life to no one in particular, and crying my eyes out as I told no one about what was going on. It may sound a bit useless to some people but by the end of this I felt much better and I continued to write out what I felt in journals, pieces of paper, my computer. All of which made me feel better and made me grow and later when I was out of that situation I went back to read about my pain, this helped me grieve and move on from the bad parts of my life. Back then I wrote for myself, much like I still do. Except, back then writing was something I was yet to be passionate about.

Writing was an escape but I never thought I could share my writing with anyone or create characters and tell stories. That was until my teenage self found a website where I could post stories and create. My first works weren't that great. I put no thought in it. The dialogue was horrible, as was the grammar, and I used 'as' a bit too much. One read, or two made me happy and slowly I reached 100. My first milestone as I like to call it. 200, 300, 400, 500. That was the most I was able to get with those stories and I was over the moon. Back then of course, I wasn't creating characters but writing silly fan fiction which made no sense to anyone but me.

Having the internet at hand you have access to many parts of the world and I fell in love with Asian dramas, mangas, even now I can't get enough of it all. I found a website which like the one I would upload my stories in is no longer available, where you could upload fan fiction specifically for Asian Dramas. It was the first time I was really excited.

I wrote every single day without thought and wrote about anything but I loved spending time doing it. I spent the next few years like this.

My first real character was made much later on. My writing had improved just a tad and I'd opened several accounts on other sites (Which are still active). I added a side story to main character in a Drama named Boys over Flowers. I loved that manga, watched the Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and Taiwanese version of the drama and I'd fallen in love with the characters. My favorite version was the Korean version of the drama of course, so I wrote stories using their names. I wanted to give the secondary lead guy a happy ending so I did. This is where things changed.

I would upload once a week, if I could though there would be times I could not post, overall it took a year to finish writing what I wanted but it made me happy to write and I did just that. I received feedback and my views were reads than ever 17,000. I could not be more proud of myself. Unfortunately, it was at this time that the bad aspects of my life were catching up to me.

We ended up escaping from the abusive environment we were in but just because something is gone does not mean it goes away. I was very depressed. I could not get up from bed, I didn't cry. Time passed in a blink of an eye. I spent days not getting up from bed; mind you I was on break from school which did not help. I would lay in bed all day, not get up and just stare at the ceiling with no perception of time. I would simply look up and it was like my mind was a blank. The only reason I knew time was going on was because my mother would leave work and come back later at night. My mother at first would not say a word, even when she was worried. But she hoped I'd get better. I would eat when she would get home but I'd lock myself away soon after under covers and would not sleep most nights. Finally, she'd had enough after I had a panic attack due to stress and had to be sent to the hospital where I talked to a psychiatrist there.

When we got home nothing changed for me. I didn't say much to the woman who referred me to counselors and psychologists I could call. The very next day I was back in bed wrapped in my bedsheets and laying in my bed with a blank expression. I'd never shown my mother any of my writing but she knew that I did write a lot. Something that I'd stopped doing for a full year now at that point. I'd deleted all my online accounts and all my stories from my computer. I wasn't happy. My mother yelled at me. She didn't know what to do and told me that things needed to change or she'd send me back to where we once were. With a drunk, drug addictive father which we once lived with. The man was violent, and angry, not to mention the blow to my self esteem I'd taken for years. My morale was on the floor by the time we'd left. Having my mother say that and knowing she herself had experience his abuse first hand plus more it broke me down.

I cried for the next few days when no one was home and having my mother tell me that the wakeup call that I needed to get me back on my feet. I'd deleted everything I had online and wasn't ready to write again for others to see. So I wrote for myself once again. I spent two months just writing what I felt and writing about nothing until I felt better again. I wanted to feel better and by the time I was done I did feel better. The last step for me was taking my old journals and reading them. They were written in a time of pain and when I was done I'd cried my eyes out but I felt as if I could move on from the past and I did.

Getting back to writing online made me smile. I'd had a dream. A dream about a girl walking to her locker. Shy, timid, brown hair, brown eyes and a boy. A boy who was in love with her but could not express his feelings the right way. When I woke up I could not get the scene out of my head and soon their names came to me. Lyric Mason, Parker Archer. Then, their world, their friends, enemies. The name of my story Fixing the Soul.

Lyric was much like me, abused, lonely, scared of the world. Through her I was able to get past my own past a grow up with her. Lyric was the soft side of me. The one that was afraid. Parker Archer was who I wanted to be sure of himself, though sometimes makes bad choices, overall, he is a good person. Something which we can see later on. Is he perfect? No. Does he make mistakes? Yes. But both characters are trying to grow and learn from they mistakes, their past and in the end they shape up to being good people, which I hope I can be. With these characters and many more I ended up writing my first real story. I had other stories and created characters before but this story felt different.

I'd put in much more time and effort into this than anything else I'd ever written. I posted my story online in a new website and by this time my writing had changed once more. My views had increased so much and I'd acquired new readers. But I could not seem to let go of fan fiction writing. I love playing with other characters and I wanted to return to my old websites to give my old readers a sign of life. So I gave a link to my new story and changed names to fit the BOF characters using secondary as the main leads.

I received a good response and I was happy. Seeing the views and I'd spent a lot of time working on my original characters I became a bit ambitious and my dreams which I'd wanted to become a social worker naturally changed to wanting to become a writer. I stopped my story online and finished my book first. Changing the name to Bloom. Expanding the book to a series named the Kingdom of Archer and it is what I now have today.

It makes me happy to talk about how it all got started and this book and these characters are a part of me and what helped me grow. Of course I have not stopped writing online and I still write fan fiction. I don't see anything wrong with that simply because it's a hobby and something I love to do. But I do create my own characters now and I want to write my own book, plots, stories. If I ever do get published by a company I look forward to reading stories based on my own characters.

Challenge

What inspired you to begin writing?

I want to know what inspired you to write, no matter what the reason is.

RyanJCG

85 reads

Pike’s Vampire

I cannot remember the initial catalyst that drove me to put pen to paper, it was too long ago. Now in my thirty-fourth year, I think back to being seven. I spent much of my time writing crude stories about tree eating dragons and electricity wielding super heroes. While growing up, I consumed fiction en masse, feeding my story hungry mind.

Although there is one significant event I do remember. During my mid teens, I discovered a book by Christopher Pike called The Last Vampire. I had never read anything so engaging. The book was part of a series that I powered through, desperate to find out more about the charismatic protagonist. I marveled at Pike's ability to evoke emotion using nothing but words. He is still one of my heroes.

Pike showed me just how powerful storytelling could be. I always loved writing. But after reading his books, I knew I wanted to be a writer. I remember thinking this is the most elegant form of alchemy, fusing ink and paper to create such an impact.

I have created many characters since then. Robots, aliens, various creatures of the night. But I don't know how enthusiastic I would have been if not for that one book by a man named Pike.