What Kind of Writer Am I? And What Kind of Writer Are You?

Hello again, Readers!

It has been quite a while, but I'm back! College applications called me away, but thankfully the long season of writing personal essays, punching in information, and pondering potential schools has come to an end. Expect to see a lot more of me around here from now on!

Now, I have introduced myself as a writer, but that begs the question- what do I even write? A simple question with a complicated answer! The short answer is that I write what I read. As a reader, I am very interested in dystopian young adult novels (The Hunger Games, Divergent, and Legend to name a few). Of course, I have an equal amount of love for fantasy- I mean, hello, Harry Potter?! Both of these worlds of literature bring me laughter, tears, and adventure in each book I pick up.

As you might have guessed, my equal love for both genres presents me with a problem. What the heck do I write? To explain where I'm at now, allow me to give you a bit of a history lesson!

When I began my journey, I was but ten years old and entering the fifth grade (and now I'm 17, in my senior year, and applying to college- where has the time gone?). I had just recently adopted my mom's old computer and was suddenly struck with a subject for a story... phoenixes! Sounds pretty fantastical, right? I could see a whole society and culture develop in my head and a perfect title for the story even presented itself. So I forged on ahead, not knowing the wonders of an outline and lost my momentum and inspiration about twenty pages in.

My next idea presented itself in the form of a title- one that I will not share for the fact that this was the embarrassing product of my grand eleven year old mind (you will understand if you have come up with one yourself)- and I instantly set to work crafting a story befitting my ingenious title. I came up with a legend that would pull my Percy-Jackson-esque protagonist down a road of mystery and lead to the discovery of his place in the madness. The core of this legend was pretty fantastic, but the way I intended it to twist it into the real world promised conflict between dystopian technology and elements of something close to magic. However, shortly after I started on this one it fizzled out.

(I will not bore you with details of my dozen other short-lived literary escapades at this time, but some of them are quite developed and might be fun to share at some point! I will say that this journey of starting and stopping and starting to write again has produced one or two that I am sure to return to when I feel the time is right.)

My last idea was truly dystopian. It was set in a futuristic, "perfect" society and featured rebellion and technology. I was extremely inspired when developing the characters and the relationships between them, but I was at a loss when it came to creating a true outline. After cursing my lack of ingenuity, I made the split second decision to take my story in a complete 180- I would put my characters into a fantasy storyline! I was extremely proud of how they had come to me and couldn't bring myself to abandon them yet. On top of that, I was instantly hit with an idea for the new story and one that promised to have all of the qualities of a classic fantasy. I am currently working on building upon my initial idea and I already have a pretty great outline and map drawn up! I am excited to see how far it goes and I will keep you all updated on how it goes.

My writing time has been few and far between recently due to a lot of time commitments, but I see an opening schedule in my future! I know that any other teenage writers reading this can relate and I feel your pain. Feeling a rush of ideas and not being able to tear yourself away from schoolwork to use them is incredibly hard. I recommend having a notebook or document to jot down key words and short descriptions to jog your memory for later. Veronica Roth wrote Divergent as a senior in college, and look where her books have gone! No matter what your commitments or schedule may be, anything is possible.

I tell you of my journey thus far to show you that no one is perfect. You won't know your unique writing style or what genre you do best right away(I still don't know!) and that's okay. What is important is that you keep writing. There is no way you will ever know if you don't try, so I encourage you to keep doing what you love. Don't worry about how many dead end books you have behind you or how lost you may feel right now. You will become the author you are meant to be as long as keep working to get there!

Well Readers, I hope you enjoyed learning a little bit more about who I am today as a writer and thought about who you are becoming as a writer as well. I will see you soon with another post!