My two year writing journey

Believe it or not, I only started writing 2 years ago.

On February 16th 2019, I started this blog with a welcome post. My first short story was on the 19th; and on March 8th, Continuous School started, which would then turn into a 200+ chapter web novel that’d end sometime around February 2020.

So, what’s changed over those two years? Have I gotten better?

Well, I looked back on some old posts of mine on this blog and I certainly believe I’ve improved. I knew that with Continuous School, there was a lot I can improve on, and if you read the full thing, you’ll probably see an improvement over time.

My reviews are some of the biggest things that have changed.

Personally, I think some of my reviews are shit. Some of my early reviews like 22/7 or Seven Deadly Sins season 3, don’t really get my point across well, which is a major thing for a review.

It can be hard to put your thoughts into text and have others understand perfectly what you mean, some things can get lost.

But, by around June 2020, I like to think that’s when I improved the most. At some point in March 2020, I ended up writing my first Novella, in two days, and that’s what got me into writing novels. This was the biggest improvement. My first Novella sucked. I look back on it and dislike most of it, I’d do so much different. It’s exactly the same as looking at old artwork, you see just how much you’ve improved.

I believe it’s great to look back on how far you’ve come. I think it’s great to see the change.

Now, I’m not saying I’m an amazing writer. I’m far from it. But I’d say I’m happier with how my writing has improved, which is all that matters.

The big question is how did I improve? Did I read a ton of books and blog posts about writing? Of course not.

I don’t really read, I struggle with it and often jump paragraphs a lot which makes it difficult for me to stay focused.

What I did, was I kept writing.

I did look at the occasional writing advice blog or paragraph from something famous as inspiration, but nothing super major, it was more just to get a vague understanding of things. I even disagreed with some things the writing blogs posted. I even looked back on a post I wrote about writing and disagreed with something I said.

I hate the idea of something creative having rules or things to follow. I believe that writing however you want, in whatever way with whatever style is perfectly fine. If you really wanted to, you could blame the reader for not understanding your work. It’s why people like the Mona Lisa and some people are just like “Ok, it’s a painting.” You can say the same for Shakespeare or anyone in a creative industry.

The only thing I’d say about writing is making it presentable, paragraphs are all I’d ask because large walls of text aren’t fun for me who struggles with reading. Plus, it helps make things easier to understand when people are talking. You can easily look at any book to get an idea of how to present things.

As for my lack of reading, do I wish I read more? Yes and no. I wish I read more to get an understanding of how others write, not for the story or whatever. I just wish to learn a bit from someone’s style. It’s like how every artist seems to have their own way to draw basic human anatomy, you just learn from little bits of it and see what works for you.

There are 7 billion people in the world, one person will like it and 6 billion may hate it. But you’ve still got that one stranger.

A lot of people seem to think they can change the minds of all 7 billion and will get them to like what they like or whatever (mainly with politics), but that is such an idealistic and naive way of thinking and I think it’s a big problem with the way ordinary people try to get political change.

But, I won’t discuss that here, as I try to be politics-free on this blog.

One of my novels, A hobbyist’s chance, has a few of my ideas of writing in it, mainly about the idea of there is no point in pleasing everyone with your writing because it’s impossible to do so, but, that is only a tiny part of the whole thing.

Over the two years, some things haven’t changed, mainly my ways of planning.

I still write large documents for plans, with spreadsheets for all the chapters, any random notes that need to be thrown together and whatnot. Oscar Pat 3 is the biggest example I can give of this. Currently, at the time of writing this, the novel is a few chapters in. But, the initial ideas document had a few pages that went like this:

“General Ideas”

“Neater Ideas (ideas I liked)”

“Neater Neater Ideas (The above one became too crowded with new ideas that needed to be sorted again)”

“Slightly neater ideas (Some more organisation but still a bunch of ideas flung about on the page in some sort of order)”

It’s always interesting to keep these notes, and I’ll always have them saved on my drive as they are my favourite thing to look back on. As just the notes can trigger a memory and remind me of what I was thinking at the time.

Writing notes and coming up with ideas is the hardest part and the most off-putting. But, I personally find the challenge fun. Although that is if you cared about things like continuity, if you didn’t, then you probably don’t need to plan, and should just go with wherever you mind takes you.

Something else that hasn’t changed is my characters. Whenever I read my own characters, they feel so much like me. There are some characters that follow my ideals and are similar to me or the way I perceive me, and some that aren’t, but even when I’m not trying they all feel the same.

This is probably because I’m always reading my stuff, and I’m sure if someone else read it, they wouldn’t notice or care.

That kinda brings me onto another topic I spoke about in the old post, about having someone check your work, but as I continued writing, I never cared for that as I personally started to write for myself and not others. 

Of course, I still share them online and stuff cause why not, but I’ve always said that writing was a way to help with my mental health and was primarily for me, it’s just that everyone else is just along for the ride.

I do enjoy writing, even if they are bad and people don’t like them, I never wanted to be a writer (and technically I’m not). But, I’d say I’m improving, or at least getting used to my weird writing style.

It’s easy to say the opinions of others don’t matter but obviously, no one is made of stone, so we try and take things constructively, but it is what we make it.

I can keep telling myself I don’t care about others hating it but I’d only be lying to myself.
It’s contradictory of me to say I don’t like reading other work and hate other’s inputs and then say that I want to improve. But someone had to start writing in some way at some point in history. Just by doing it, you’ll improve, and you’ll turn your writing into something that you’d be happy to read if it was by someone else. (does that make sense?)

Surely, someone who has never drawn anything can learn to paint the Mona Lisa with enough random scribbles. That’s what the Infinite Monkey Theorem is about.

So, what I’m trying to say is don’t listen to the haters, just go for it and have a blast. No one is perfect. Perfection is just a goal no one can reach, you’re with everyone else in trying.

Anyway, thanks for reading. Sorry for this mess of a post but as I kept writing, I kept thinking there was more I wanted to talk about.

Below are links to my socials and whatnot.

Once again, thanks for reading.

My links: https://linktr.ee/FabledByte

Arbitrary Echo: https://linktr.ee/ArbitraryEcho