First Post

I had an epiphany 2 weeks ago.

I want to write a book.

Growing up I loved reading, obviously. But I always had this romantic image of a writer sitting at a nice and clean home office with a magnificent and creativity inducing view. And those naturally gifted authors would pour their imagination and their hearts out onto the blank pages in front of them.

I wished I could do that, be like them. But you needed an idea for that. A story that builds up inside you and characters that develop in your head.

It was especially intriguing to me to think that these people could build something from nothing. They did not need any conditional external factors like an office, a boss, a company etc. No, they could simply take their own imagination, their thought, their idea and create a whole new world.

This seemed such a harmonious line of work to me – no stress with colleagues, no commute, no minimum working hours – just you and your ideas. Amazing!

But, unfortunately I had no idea whatsoever. I had no clue what I could write about. And anyways, you need some natural talent and writing skills – I did not think I had those.

Two weeks ago: Well, I can confidently say that I do have an idea for a story. Even two. I have nurtured these stories in my head for years and years but they were my own fantasies. I used them to escape when reality felt constricting and overwhelming to me. When life is harsh or you have just one of those days that you wish you could peel your skin off like an old jumper. And thus escape to a better, wonderful place, where you are all that you want to be. Those fantasies accompanied me a lot at night when I lie in bed, trying to get to sleep.

Now, regarding that second claim or assumption that I had: you need talent and skill in order to write. To be honest I have no clue if I have that. Not only that English is not my mother tongue and I have hardly ever tried to write freestyle and creatively just for fun, just for me; but I am also not very eloquent when it comes to arguing or explaining or retelling or any other verbal communication which requires some depth of language and its usage in terms of vocabulary, sentence structure, variety and rhetoric.

But, as I said I had an epiphany and my stories, I believe, are good. They just need to be told well. And then I started researching. I started to look for online writing courses, free to start with. I looked up interviews with my favorite authors – Ernest Cline, Patrick Rothfuss and Andy Weir. I started to just write. A short story to begin with. And I started a blog. And here we are!

I understand that writing takes time, it is a skill that must be honed and developed, especially when I basically start from 0. In order to run a marathon I have to start training: short runs, strength, explosive power and slowly slowly I will get better and develop my own running style until that day of the marathon. In theory this sounds logical, I just hope I will prove the hypothesis right!

A book is a very big project to tackle. Today, trying to write a short story, I check my word count and am impressed that I wrote about 700 words – that is quiet pathetic. But as I said, I am just at the beginning. Let’s see what I am capable of….