#musinga

Why I Even Started Writing in The First Place: A Mini Essay Exactly No One Asked For

By Me

I started writing early, and I mean EARLY: 9 years old, I was scribbling comics on scrap paper (I can't draw for shit, fyi). By 11 I'd upgraded to... ripping off movies.

My first "work" was an entire notebook of a fanfic/sequel/riff/thing set in the mansion from the Haunted Mansion (2003). What was it about? Well, name something stupid and it was probably in it. The writing itself had potential, but my lack of a single original idea sort of curtailed the whole thing.

By 12 I was writing whole rip off epics based on horror movies: The Ventriloquist (Dead Silence but stupider), Heaventon High (Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II if it was less gory and written by a 12 year old). You get it.

I mostly drifted in and out of this for awhile, telling people I was a "writer" while mostly just cramming my made up characters into premade things from videogames and movies. (A KH fanfic took up three whole ass notebooks, if you can believe it).

I didn't have access to the internet until I was 16, but when I finally got online, it opened up my creativity... somewhat for the worst. Some horrific NSFW fanfics might still be floating around online, but mercifully most have been deleted into datascape hell where they belong.

Tumblr introduced me to a small roleplay community, and I made a friend (no details here) who would roleplay with me a lot. We started with movies (ROTG and HTTYD, because it was 2014 and we were tumblr girlies TM) but it graduated to making original characters with complex backstories and carry overs.

I created a lot of good oc's with those rp's, and they created some characters I still love (even though they've since stopped rping and do their own things elsewhere). I also created some putrid shit and paper thin oc's with no features, but that happens.

Things happened as they do: I just started. Stories from artwork, stories from prompts. I kept at it, doing short pieces for friends, and family. At some point (probably 2018 or so) elements I use constantly now started creeping in, and my writing started to take a bit of shape. Eventually I dabbled in world building with Bal Moral, a sprawling universe based in Grimm fairy tales and Greek mythos that didn't get anywhere important.

Now I'm here, sharing my nonsense on tumblr and banging away at a novella I've got no plans to abandon, even if life's usual bullshit has made the time working on it stretch to three years.

Visions of being left behind, sometimes by her parents or other people she knows and sometimes by no one in particular.

But always the same, left behind in the shadows . Met with a try annoyed stares. Unwanted, undesired, just a nuiscence a pest.

And then the flames come trapping her like a cage and slowly closes in as her silent cries reach no one.

Only to wake surrounded by shadows, her pounding so hard she can nearly feel it in her ears. Gripping Candie- her plush rabbit tight- silently crying, shaking uncontrollably.