Creative Writing

I've always been a big reader of fiction. It feels natural that I would want to write stories as well. And I do want to.

My feeling at the start of 2026

I title this section like this because I feel my explanation here may change over the years.

I feel I'll always want to write creatively. And yet, it doesn't come easily to me. At least not yet. I have to work hard to come up with ideas, think through plot, and actually sit down and write the content of the story. I'm pretty sure this is normal. I just need to do it more, and I often don't. It's been the most important, and also most challenging, creative area for me that I've been wanting to pay more effort to in the last few years.

I made good progress in 2025. Actually outlined a story plot and started writing some of it ^[1]. Started developing a couple other ideas as well, that I'm excited about.

Essentially, I made enough progress that I could stop having the dreadful feeling that I am not putting any effort into this important area.

Hope to continue making more progress in 2026.

Okay but why creative writing

• It's fun to think through ideas and plots and what characters might go through.
• A way to share ideas, wisdom, experiences, with other people.

I'm sure I will expand the above list. I feel it to my core that creative writing is essential to me.

Ancient history (of my writing)

I'm pretty sure I had some school assignment when I was really young, maybe in kindergarten (or maybe earlier?), where I spoke a tiny story and my mom wrote what I said and I drew a picture for it.

At early elementary school age, I wrote a small collection of (very simplistic!) mini stories. Each story was only a couple pages long (again, very simplistic!). I wrote in big messy handwriting on lined paper and drew pictures related to the story with crayons or colored pencils. I even bound the pages in a piece of cardboard, to make it feel like a book. I think I've lost the original copy of this, though I think I have a document somewhere where I eventually typed up some of the stories.

Later elementary school age, I did another simplistic bound story, called "Eight and One". This is one of my punched-in-the-gut losses. I don't know where the original is, if it still exists in this universe. Those stories were special to me. I would pay a demon some good money to retrieve it for me (but perhaps not sell my soul).