Writer Part II

I wish I still had the first two stories that I wrote. Unfortunately, they have been lost in the annals of time. They are probably slowly returning to dust in some landfill, piled under years and years of items that other people considered junk to be tossed away. In my darkest days, I feel like those mostly forgotten pieces of paper are just rotting away under years and years of junk that I have piled upon myself. Not today. Today I dive deep, remember some of what was lost, and attempt to dig myself out and be reborn.

I remember clearly some of the actions around writing my first story in high school. It was not the first story I ever wrote, but the circumstances around this story were the first catalyst that fueled my desire to become a writer. It was the 1990s, and I was in my tenth-grade English class writing lab. I do not remember the assignment, but I remember my subject character, a mother. We were supposed to write a short story about this person from their point of view.

My story was going to be about a mother who was anxiously waiting for her son to come home. In it, I wanted the son to come home late and for the mother to not know where he was, what he was doing, or why he was late. Mind you, this was before cell phones were commonplace, so she could not reach out and ask him where he was. All she could do was wait.

The story of her wait became a dump of her thoughts going round and round about where he could be or what he could be doing. I remember feeling her fears as I wrote about them, leading her to dark places where she would never see her son again. Right or not, she felt that her son was starting to hang out with kids who were not good influences, and his being late was another reason to justify this belief. It was not the first time he had come home late, and she had confronted him about this. He promised he would not be late this time, yet here she was, waiting on him and his broken promise.

The mother in my story had no name, nor did the son. I only referred to them by their pronouns. Doing so made the story more personal because their names were less critical than their thoughts and actions. This could be any person waiting on any child at any time, allowing the reader to experience the mother’s emotions as if they were their own.

Aside from the emotions I felt with the mother whose thoughts I wrote about, one of the things I remember most about writing this story was the ease at which it came to me. We would be in the computer lab for two days and had that entire time to write our stories. The story came to me so quickly and smoothly that I wrote it before the first day was done. I was so surprised by how quickly I finished that I read the story several times and made a few edits before I got up the courage to tell my English teacher I was done.

My English teacher and I could have gotten along better. I hated English; she was a straightforward teacher whose personality clashed with mine. I know I was not a model student. My friends and I acted out when we had the chance, making things difficult for her. I only sometimes followed the rules of assignments and got my work done on time. Ms. Brenner, if you are reading this, I am sorry for that.

I knew if I told her that I was done with my assignment a full day before we were supposed to be done, there was no way she would believe me. Sure enough, she did not. I was told, in a very matter-of-fact way, that I could not possibly be done and to get back to my computer to finish my assignment. Not surprised, I went back to my computer with no idea what to do. I read my story several more times and made minor changes, but mostly just stared at my screen.

Thankfully the teacher’s assistant approached me to check on my progress. He had witnessed me telling the teacher I was done and being rebuked. After reading through my story, he agreed that it was finished. He had me print it off and promised to give it to my teacher for review.

True to his word, he showed the teacher my work, and she also agreed that the piece was complete. She enjoyed my story so much that she took time at the beginning of our next session to apologize to me in front of the entire class. At that moment, I began to feel like writing was something I could do and enjoy doing. I loved the feeling of being recognized and having people enjoy the work that I created.

Because of my newfound love of writing, I signed up for a creative writing class during my senior year of high school. It has been so long ago that I cannot tell you anything I was taught or learned there. I’m sure there were many things that I now know that came from that class, but I cannot definitively pin them down.

Like my first story, I cannot remember the assignment when I began to write my second. With this story, I pulled from my deep love of fantasy. I also drew from my deep love of reading fantasy novels. While in elementary school, I checked out The Narnia Tales books on multiple occasions. They were so often in my possession that I never returned Prince Caspian. Several years ago, I found it in some boxes in storage, complete with the checkout card still inside, my name being the last (and most prolific) name on the list. Unfortunately, that school no longer exists, and the statute of limitations has passed, so that book now belongs to me.

I loved those stories so much that I wanted to write a multi-part set of novels myself. A trilogy like The Lord of the Rings, or more, like The Narnia Tales. It started with Kern, the king of Gerdane, leading his army out to battle against an orc horde. In my story’s world, orcs had been banished to a realm and held captive by a magical barrier. However, scouts discovered that the orcs had escaped the barrier realm and ravaged the countryside.

The first chapter of my book started with Kern leading his army out to battle against the orc horde. Unknown to him, I decided that he would be betrayed by one of his advisers and that he and his army were marching into a trap set up with the orc horde. In the ensuing battle, the entire army of Gerdane is defeated. I had given Kern a sentient falcon as a companion, and the last thing we see in the chapter is the falcon flying away to warn the capital city and turning to see the king surrounded by orcs, battling for his life and being slain.

I wanted my first chapter to be very exciting and shocking to capture my reader’s attention and make them want to read the rest of the story to find out what happened. So, I made the second chapter of my book start in stark contrast to the battle scene of the first chapter. It centered around an elf named Yeorn, who lived in an enchanted forest of living trees. I made him come across a badly wounded soldier who, after being nursed back to health by Yeorn, found that he had lost all memory of who he was and where he came from.

The soldier I had created was from Gerdane, which was apparent by his uniform, so I had Yeorn and the unknown soldier travel to Gerdane to see if they could figure out who he was. As they approached Gerdane, they saw that it had been sacked and was now occupied by the orcs. This discovery would begin a journey I hoped to write about them making their way around the mountains that protected Gerdane to travel to the secluded, yet powerful, elf nation of Anleria to enlist their help.

That was all the further I made it through writing that story, though. I had outlined other parts, including friends they would make along the way, a love interest for the soldier, other cities the travelers would come across, and what would ultimately happen when they reached Anleria.

I can still vividly remember the drawing I created for my world. The was a sideways L-shaped mountain range with the nation of Gerdane tucked into the corner of it. To the southeast of Gerdane was the enchanted forest. North of the forest and south of the mountains was where the army of Gerdane was massacred. To the far east was the barrier realm where the orcs were trapped, and north of the mountains was the nation of Anleria.

I had also created a small coastal nation of Lenhard to the southwest of the mountain range. In my outline, my travelers would visit Lenhard but be turned away. They would also visit a small nation that resided in the mountains on the eastern side before making their way around to Anleria.

In contrast to my relationship with my tenth-grade English teacher, I adored and got along splendidly with my creative writing teacher, Mrs. Klein. I was very proud of my story. It was my ‘greatest work.’ She, on the other hand, was not as impressed. Reading over my first three chapters, Mrs. Klein did not announce to the class how great a writer I was or how she had misjudged what I could do, much to my dismay.

Instead, she gave me some much-needed criticism of my work. It was a little disheartening then, but it was exactly what I needed to hear. She felt like my characters were a little flat. The battle, in the beginning, was exciting, but it also lacked some substance. I had hinted at a backstory for Yeorn, but she felt it needed improvement. While she liked that I wanted to write an entire novel, she encouraged me to write some small stories first.

She also gave me some questions to think about:

Was Yeorn the main character, or was it the soldier with amnesia?

Who was the bad guy?

What was Yeorn’s backstory?

What was Gerdane as a nation?

What was Anleria as a nation?

Initially, her criticism hit me hard. I was not expecting my ‘greatest work’ to be so negatively received. Writing short stories felt boring. Who cares what the character’s backstory was if the main story was exciting? The bad guys were the orcs, wasn’t that obvious?

Looking back, I know I was being arrogant and had a lot to learn, but at the time, as determined as I was, it was devastating. It almost made me want to stop altogether. Thankfully, I took what she told me to heart and began writing a short story for Yeorn that took place many years before my novel and explained why he resided in the magical forest and where the forest came from.

Then life happened.

I graduated from high school, and as a college student, I pursued my first love of music as a music major. I also stoked my second love of computers. Then, I met the love of my life and decided to marry. Unable to afford my college education, I dropped out and began a career in software development. A year later, my son was born.

With every new chapter written in my life, I continually put my love for writing on the back shelf. The fantasy story I began in high school stayed in my mind, but the paper on which I wrote it remained hidden in piles of other documents that made up my high school career. Eventually, that pile of my life was discarded and lost as I charged forward in my professional career.

My love for making up stories continued with ideas of science fiction, fantasy, and other genre stories created and hashed around in my head. However, those stories never made it to paper, and some were pushed aside to be filled with code, TV shows, and the memories of my life. My family and job always prioritized my life. Occasionally I would work towards writing by downloading a creative writing class or looking up websites about science fiction and fantasy story writing. Still, it would never go any further than that.

While I have not put my stories to paper, many of them have stayed strong with me throughout my life. Sometimes I go to bed thinking of them and wake up knowing I dreamed about my fictional worlds. Over the last two years, the passion I once had for writing has been creeping back into the foreground of my life.

It has been great to see that passion return, but it brings up things I have struggled with in my life. I suffer from anxiety, depression, and a lack of motivation. I go to a therapist and take medicine for it. I am not ashamed of what I suffer from or sorry that I have sought help. Through my therapy, I have seen how my anxiety, depression, and lack of motivation caused troubles in my past. Seeing this has allowed me to return my passions, like writing, to the foreground.

Even so, those demons have tried to push my passions back into dark holes. I’m not trained, so why even try? Yes, I have looked up websites and watched hours of YouTube videos, but that does not make me a writer. I am not fooling anyone except myself. I purchased a subscription to Vocal and bought the program Scrivener, but that does not make me a writer either.

So I started to journal. It only took two days for anxiety and depression to beat me again. I decided to try and enter writing contests. Staring at blank screens for hours, depression and anxiety won those skirmishes, and I never wrote a word. One time I got as far as writing up character sketches and a little bit of an outline. At first, I was excited, but it did not take long for my demons to point out that I had not written a single line of the story.

Deep down, I know that depression and anxiety are wrong. I have not published anything yet, but I am still a writer. I may not have done much, but I have written stories. My stories mean something to me, and I will share them with the world someday. Inside of me is still a writer who can finish his story in half the time he was given to write. Inside of me is also a writer who will need hours of editing and will come out flat with some of his ideas, but that does not make me any less of a writer.

The more I face my demons, the more I can combat them. I am not alone in this struggle either. My friends, family, and therapist are all there for me.

I will finish the story about Gerdane, Anleria, and my intrepid travelers. The original first chapter will be updated to be a prologue. I will take the time to find my protagonist and antagonist (one or many) in the story. Backstories, including the novella about Yeorn and his enchanted forest, will be written. I may even weave in a story about a scared mother waiting for her son to come home.

More stories will also be written. Some will be about magicians and magical battles. Others will be about spaceships and journeys to distant stars. I will weave my love for mysteries into them and attempt to stretch my abilities into subject matters that I need to become more familiar with.

This story you just read is the first story I have written in many years. How I have evolved as a writer from when I was in high school is yet to be seen. I am beginning a new chapter in my life. A chapter where I dig out the rotting junk that I have piled on myself for years and reclaim the writer deep inside me that was lost.

I call it Writer Part II, and I look forward to the journey.