Dear Larch, have you talked much about your relationship with writing? When did you start writing for fun? Do you prefer prose or verse?
Hi garfbin! First of all, I love that this ask is addressed like a letter 😄 I feel so special!
So you asked about my relationship with writing...I’ve probably talked about this way too much already through various replies, but I’ll try to answer in single post. Warning: long read ahead! ⚠
I’d say my relationship with writing started in elementary school. I used to enter this story writing contest every year where you wrote the story and did illustrations to accompany it. To be honest, my main interest was in doing the drawings, which is probably be why I never won 😆. Shout out to my 5th grade teacher, Mr. Thomas, who fostered a creative learning environment and permanently altered my little brain in the best way.
In middle school I had a teacher who encouraged me to try writing as a hobby. I started writing poetry for fun, though nothing too serious. It took high school for me to gain a deeper interest in writing. My school had an excellent English program with really passionate teachers, and I took to literature like a fish in water. In junior year, my British Lit teacher encouraged me to join the school newspaper after being impressed with my semester research paper. Later that year she also slipped me a brochure for a summer school arts intensive.
That was the big game changer. The program was really competitive – I had to turn in a portfolio, get written recommendations, be nominated by my city etc. In the end I got to spend the summer living away from home, surrounded by artists, dancers, musicians, actors, animators, film students, and of course other writers. My instructors were working poets and novelists, and the classes were small and intimate like any other writing intensive. The school encouraged collaboration across disciplines, so I got to do some fun projects with a painter and a dancer :D The school also offered programming like film nights, lectures by famous artists & writers, retrospectives, student performances, and so on. Anyway, that skyrocketed my interest and my practice, and I ended up going a second year. It also didn’t hurt that my circle of friends were also creatives, so we often put on ‘shows’ with others at our sister school. (Yes, I read my poetry OUT LOUD in front of big groups of people. I suppose I had no fear back then.)
After university, everything kind of fell apart. I went through a prolonged, serious depression and I basically stopped writing all together. I still liked to read, but even that fell to wayside eventually. It wasn’t until I reached my mid 30s, after my kids were born, that I even picked up books again.
And as far as writing fiction? I had never done it! I had always written poetry. I tried to write a few short stories when I was in my late teens and early 20s, but they were AWFUL and I felt like I didn’t know wtf I was doing, so I gave up. It wasn’t until I discovered fanfiction (in my 40s!) that I even considered trying it again. I had actually played ME 1 & 2 at initial release, but never ended up playing 3 until LE came out. Then that was it, I was hooked. I had a brain worm that wouldn’t leave and I needed to write it or I was going to explode. Thanks Shakarian! So, here I am today, writing fanfiction and original fiction. I’m reading butt loads of books too, which has been so amazing both on a personal growth level and on a writing level.
As for what I prefer to write....that’s a hard one. I’ve always tended toward the poetic, even in my reading. (You wouldn’t necessarily guess it because I write for Mass Effect, but my taste tends towards literary fiction and experimental fiction.) I would still have to say verse, but only marginally. There’s a way you can capture an impression or mood or an atmosphere in verse that you can’t in prose. I like to think of poems like intimate portraits. But I do love writing prose too... it’s just a lot harder for me :)
Thanks for the ask and thanks for letting me ramble! And thanks if you read all the way to the end of this lol
