Every writer, professional or not, takes a journey to get where they are, and are constantly growing.
The important thing to remember with writing is that it is a constant journey to become better, and when writing a book it is the journey that is important, not the final result. This journey shapes your writing style and who you are as a writer.
The Significance
Now why exactly is the journey important? Why can’t you just automatically have your style as soon as you are born, and never deter? Well, the answer to this question lies in growth. Sure, you might be especially adept at writing at a young age, but if you never take that journey, you can’t grow and evolve your writing based on what genre you take a liking to, or the mood you aspire to portray in your works. Maybe your interests change, and with them, your writing.
The journey also helps to teach valuable lessons that can be used outside of writing, such as patience and perseverance.
A way to really streamline your journey is by setting goals along the way. Maybe your goal is to get a novel published. Or maybe your goal isn’t even to get it published, but to finish a novel. Set goals for yourself throughout your lifetime, it can help you make the most of your writing journey.
A lot of us wish we could be the characters in our own books or someone else’s. But in reality, you are living the book. Maybe not physically, but mentally, emotionally. We writers are unique in that we have the ability to create a whole world, or even multiple worlds without ever leaving our homes, through the power of imagination. And when you are writing the story, you are going on an adventure just as strenuous and yet thrilling as their hero or heroine.
Think of it this way. You are reading a really good series. You finish the last book, and you are sad that there aren’t more books in that series. That is because you wish to continue the journey. In reading, to, it is the journey that counts, and not the destination. The only difference between reading and writing journeys is that the journey through a particular book or series does, inevitably, come to an end, whereas writing never ends.
The beautiful thing about writing is that you write for yourself primarily. Who cares if the plot is cheesy and there are tons of plot holes if you are only writing for yourself? Now, if you are trying to write a quality book or if you are trying to improve your writing, you do want to avoid those types of things, but once in a while, it is fun to indulge in some writing with no requirements.
My Journey
My journey started in first grade, when we had to write any fictional story. I lived in Massachusetts at the time. I wrote two stories during that unit, and I remember both of them quite clearly.
The first one was about a panda. I was obsessed with peaches at the time, so I named her Peaches. The conflict in this extremely short story was that she lost her celery, which was her favorite treat. She looks everywhere for it, and in the end, she finds it at the foot of her bed. This was actually based on a real problem I had. I loved reading, always have, and would frequently lose my books at the foot of my bed when I was done reading at night.
The second story was about my brother, whom I will call Daniel. The story was entitled “Daniel’s Problem”. This was also based on real life, but of course, the Daniel in the story wasn’t entirely like my brother. In the story, Daniel’s mom tells him to clean up his room, as it is very messy.
Now, I must preface the rest of the story by saying that my brother in real life would never do what happened next. He only complained, but for the sake of storytelling, my first grade self decided to make Daniel in the story do something different.
So, Daniel is told to clean up his room. Daniel doesn’t want to, because he thinks it is boring and a waste of time. So, he stuffs everything under his bed, and what would show under his bed, into his closet and closed the doors.
When Daniel’s mom comes up to his room, she tells him he did a good job, but then she goes over to his closet. Daniel tells her not to open it, but she does anyway. Things spill out of the closet, and Daniels mom reprimands him for lying and not cleaning his room. He cleans his room the right way, and learns his lesson about integrity and lying.
This is where I began to love writing. The next year, I moved away from Massachusetts and was the new kid. About halfway through the year, we had a non-fictional writing unit. This kid in my class, who I will call Sam, decided to start a sort of writing club. He dubbed it ‘Sam Publishing Company’. He asked me to write a story about a dog. I asked a friend for ideas, and she said a shark attack. I wrote a story about a dog who saved her family from a shark attack and got it ‘published’ by Sam. I continued this saga through second and part of third grade.
In third grade, there was a new girl, who I’m gonna call Bella, and we became really close. We both loved writing, so we decided to write a story together. We wondered what would happen if our school came to life, and we made up two heroines, one for each of us. My character was named Lily, and hers was named Maggie. I wrote, and she illustrated and occasionally wrote a little bit. We, together, wrote the first book, which we presented to our class at the end of the year. In fifth grade, we had a bit of nostalgia for old times, and wrote the second and third books during reading time.
I didn’t write that much in fourth grade, but in fifth grade, I started a novel with my friends, which is currently around 80,000 words long and that we are hoping to publish.
This is my journey throughout elementary school, and it continued throughout the more recent years of my life, and will continue for the rest of my life, as it will yours.
If you want to learn more about diving deeper into your writing adventure, check out these websites, or search up some others on your own! Thanks for reading!