Anon, this is a really sweet sentiment and I appreciate it a lot.😊💕 This is also a loaded question. I feel like though I cannot claim natural talent. Honestly, I feel like very few writers can, even professional ones,even critically acclaimed ones. If you look up writing advice from your favorite authors they will tell you it takes a lot of hard work, persistence and time. They will tell you that you have to literally write and keep writing even when it sucks and you feel bad and the writing is bad and you just are not inspired. I feel like honestly while there are those who may have a natural talent for telling stories or coming up with interesting concepts but there isn’t anyone who writes who just one day decided to pick up a pen and just do it and it was perfect and amazing the first go round. Writing takes practice, patience with yourself, persistence and revision (and I don’t always do the revision piece with fanfic especially just because of time constraints so no one sees my best work right now except my professors and my fellow grad students).
I have been writing on an off since I was in grade school and I have given up more than once but something keeps bringing me back to it. While I am in grad school and learning a lot now, throughout the years I learned most of what I knew about the craft through reading and reading a lot and reading often. Not just books about wriiting or on how to write but books that I liked just for fun. Reading and rereading authors I admired and trying to pinpoint what I liked about their writing. Not being afraid to read different genres and even reading stuff I don’t like too much just to see what how I thought it could be better constructed. Reading is key to writing and don’t believe anyone who tells you otherwise.
I took some creative writing classes as electives in undergrad but I honestly didn’t take many before grad school. I went to school in undegrad for Psychology but once I got in the field I realized it was not for me and I kept coming back to writing my true passion. The most frustrating thing that I find about writing fanfic is that writing my own original work never comes as easy. I am not by any means saying writing fanfic isn’t hard at times but its not the same thing as writing original work because the world and characters are already constructed, we just come up with different ways in which they can inhabit the world they are already in or different worlds in which characters that are already developed can inhabit which is a lot easier than building a world and characters of your own, which is part of the reason I applied to grad school in the first place.
I have learned honestly the most though, through my relationship with other writers, not just in school but on this site. I have also learned through feedback from readers, though sometimes its not very constructive and sometimes it can be disheartening, for those who care enough to comment and those who read I am always extremely appreciative because not only do they help me keep going but they help me keep going, they inspire me, help me come up with ideas, a lot of the fellow writers and readers here have brainstormed with me more than once, I also just feel like having the feedback helps me to know what works and what doesn’t at times. Though, there’s a line between listening to others and just telling the story you want to tell.
I got a lot of advice from professors and still and now that I am in school but honestly anon if you want to write I suggest that a) you write, like a lot, a little each day is fine but practice the craft and don’t be afraid to be bad because everyone was bad at some point and I being my own worse critic will tell you I am still bad and I look back at some of my old stuff and still don’t know what the fuck I was thinking 😂b) read, read a lot, read shit you love, shit you hate, shit you may have never picked up, read the books you’ve read five times and the ones your friend keeps telling you to read but you haven’t found the time to yet, just read damn it, c) get feedback on your work because it does help and I can tell you right now that you will go through rejection and a lot of it, and you will get comments that are discouraging but it does help in the long run and with those comments also comes the good so don’t let it stop you and lastly d) look to other authors, though when it comes to advice take the bits that work for you and form your own routine and your own way of doing things because everyone is different and no one has all the answers. Hope this answers your questions! Also some books on writing that you should read are:
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King
Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
Light the Dark: Writers on Creativity, Inspiration, and the Artistic Process Edited by Joe Fassler
I would recommend some of my favorite books just to read for fun but that’s a long ass list and I ain’t got the time but some authors I love are Octavia Butler, Neil Gaiman, Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Maya Angelou, Jane Austen, Zora Neale Hurston,
Margaret Atwood,
Gabriel García Márquez, Tomi Adeyemi, Leigh Bardugo, Justina Ireland, Daniel José Older,
Ursula K. Le Guin,
Walter Dean Myers and
Sharon Draper. Just to name a few. I could go on but I will spare you. 😂😂😂
“What are you thinking? How are you feeling? What have we done to each other? What will we do?”
“We weren’t ourselves when we fell in love, and when we became ourselves – surprise! – we were poison. We complete each other in the nastiest, ugliest possible way.”
“I’m the cunt you married. The only time you liked yourself was when you were trying to be someone this cunt might like. I’m not a quitter, I’m that cunt. I killed for you; who else can say that? You think you’d be happy with a nice Midwestern girl? No way, baby! I’m it.”
POC of TVD 