My imagination has been brilliantly creative probably since birth. One of my parents' favorite story from my toddlerhood is how I entertained myself while in timeout. Apparently, I did not realize that it was a punishment. I took off my shoes and socks, placed the socks on my hands, and held conversations with my new sock friends. I was thoroughly entertained as well as my parents despite their choice of discipline failing.
Playing secret agent in the living room, traveling through portals with ancient keys at my grandmother’s house, and creating soap operas with my stuffed animals and toys continued to feed my imagination throughout the years. Eventually, the stories found their way onto paper. The inspiration for one story I wrote in fifth grade came from anthropomorphic characters based on a How-To-Draw book. I actually never followed the directions of how to draw them. I just traced the characters and then gave them personalities based on their appearances.
Prior to entering high school, I didn’t share my writing often, usually only cringey poems dedicated to crushes. While my family always encouraged me to express myself, they thoroughly admitted not being very creative in a literary sense. I didn’t have a safe place to share my work or experiences with other writers. Thankfully, I found two places where I could express myself and further develop my writing skills and creativity: the Fine Lines Writing Club and various online role-playing forums.
Fine Lines was my high school’s creative writing club and it introduced me to some of my closest friends during those tumultuous years. It also validated my talent as a writer. The host teacher encouraged me to enter a writing contest. A poem of mine was printed in the school’s creative writing magazine. During readings, my fellow student writers commended my unique stringing of words and vivid descriptions. I enjoyed writing, but I finally had the confidence to declare myself a good writer.
The text-based role-playing community provided me the fanciful and fantastic worlds of others to play around in. I could be a half-fairy/half-human with healing powers, a former child solider from 1987 transported to a mysterious land where time stood still, a huggy, redheaded mathematics student who can transform into a Canadian Eskimo Dog, a nerdy, pale, and square engineer and his birth-bonded guardian, a big-boned mahogany-skinned woman with bright golden hair and eyes and a loud personality to match. The possibilities were limitless. With role-playing, I took chances with different types of backgrounds and personalities, learning how to research to build more relatable and believable characters.
I graduated from high school and thus Fine Lines. Free time became more scarce and so, I had to give up role-playing as well. I found different ways to keep writing, creating new characters, stories, and even what-if scenarios between my former role-playing characters. One of those what-ifs actually turned into my first novel, Element Unknown.
I don't have major aspirations with my writing. It is more of an outlet for my emotions and imagination. Though, it would be cool if one of my novels gained popularity and had its own fandom. It would be awesome if the world was so engaging that others made a role-playing forum after it. But a published novel with a solid positive rating is definitely something to be proud of.
What's your favorite type of writing to read: poetry, novels, short stories, plays? If you write, what's your favorite to write? Let me know! Until next time.
