How was your first writing experience?

[blackcrowcrowd]

This thread is inspired by the "How did you feel at the end of your first story?" thread and my own experience in writing (or lack thereof)

When you first started writing, like actually writing the first few thousand words of your story, how was it for you? For me, for the past few months, I have been motivated to write my own story, but it always ends up as only an idea. The longest I've gotten is just mapping out the background and the gist of the plot, not the scenes itself. So how do you guys start writing?

 

[Th3Breadnought]

For me it was something like shock and euphoria.

I've wanted to write something since I was in middle school (turning 31 this year). My older brother has always been my hero and he poured countless hours into a dark urban fantasy he was writing called "The Demon Song". It was a big thing for me, 'I'm gonna read my brother's book..!' then he abandoned it. So as I got older, I began kicking around ideas (involving demons) and became inspired by a combination of the Persona Series, Supernatural, and SCP.

Sat down and began discovery writing one day, before I knew it my ideas were having ideas, I started making a bigger plan, editing and connecting dots. Worldbuilding. And what really made the difference was my wife was willing to be a soundboard while I wrote and she played her cozy games- made it more fun and engaging to build momentum.

Though I put my all into it, I'm writing for fun, not to get published or quit my job. But I felt like I broke free from my own head. Top 10 moment of my life (closer to 10 than 1, but it's in there).

 

[Escriba_Sombrio]

A mess.

The first thing i tried to write was a novel. So you can imagine how ended.

 

[Hans.Trondheim]

Contentment and feeling of accomplishment that didn't last for long.

 

[Cookiez_N_Potionz]

Pretty insightful

 

[ConansWitchBaby]

I put words of the week into it. I burned that shit years ago and vowed to beat the shit out of fourth grade me if I ever get to time travel.

 

[Dawnathon]

My first real writing was some fanfic I poured my heart and soul into, not sleeping at night for a few days and only taking brief naps before going back at it. And it sucked, completely awful in every way. Everyone had power levels in the ten-quadrillions, fights lasted for thousands of epochs. If there was any number, hexate it and then add some more 0s. People didn't even laugh at it on those forums. They were just disappointed.

 

[AliceMoonvale]

Absolute cringe.
First year of highschool, wrote about a bouncy ball that felt human emotions.
Heavily influenced by 'I have no mouth but I must scream'

 

[Lmae]

Fun in the beginning, then pain, then relief that I finished, a little disappointment and lastly informative.

 

[MC-Stories]

It felt like I was creating my own world....and it still does

 

[TinaMigarlo]

Contentment and feeling of accomplishment that didn't last for long.

yeah, this.
my first chapter of my first novel, and this was years ago.
25 pages of single spaced MW Word.
Cold open on what would be the antagonist, third person.
I liked reading it, it was... "hey, this reads like a chapter in a real novel!"
everyone else liked it, the same way.
(I got accused of copying it, LMAO, which is great praise)
Things went downhill quick though. All noob stuff.

but that first, great chapter? Yeah, that was a rush.
I guess like the first "anything", you never forget your first.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

My first serious attempt at writing was met with a feeling of frustration and fatigue, as I knew it was the foundation of a fantasy world I wanted to make use of (and still do make use of, despite blowing it up back in 2001) for gaming and fiction, but knowing my players would probably never read it (half never read the rules to the games themselves it seems)...

 

[blushiemagic]

The first time I tried writing was nearly a decade ago, with short horror stories. I was constantly stuck in head-empty-no-thoughts mode, and I never knew which words I was supposed to use to write the scenes in my head. Thankfully, almost a decade of no writing later, I have magically become much better at winging it.

 

[Cookiez_N_Potionz]

Confusing...but in a good way

 

[LeslieLevendale]

Starting a first novel feels a little like stepping out of your own front door and finding yourself in a landscape you’ve known all your life — familiar in outline, yet strangely new once you finally walk into it. There’s a quiet trembling to those first steps, a sense that you’re touching something fragile and enormous at the same time. You begin with equal parts hope and doubt, unsure whether the path will hold, whether you will hold. And even though you think you know the direction you’re heading, the ground has a way of shifting beneath you — you set off toward one destination and find yourself arriving somewhere entirely different, somewhere you didn’t even know you needed to go. It’s terrifying, exhilarating, and oddly tender — the moment you realise you’re not just writing a story, but allowing the journey to change you.

 

[Dashio_Sumeragi]

My first story didn´t even start as a serious attempt. No plan, no nothing. I was rewatching some old anime series like the Gunslinger Girls and started goofing around creating alt characters. The characters then started to form their own world, pesronalities, skills, origin, everything. And then "how would they behave in a normal world?" Made up a few scenes, for some reason I wrote them down and then when I looked at it... "If I rearrange them, they actually make sence!" So I did that and the school intro was born. I started to add problems to solve and a rough idea was born. Then I just went on autopilot and Black Fang was born. The first story is now done and working on a sequel.

 

[Joyager2]

I was so excited. It was all I wanted to do. Writing was the first thing I’d do in the morning and the last thing I’d do at night.

That wore off after a while, and I found that the way to actually get going was to put aside all the big ideas I had and focus on smaller ones that—while still exciting—I knew I could write poorly without being too upset about it. From there, it was a matter to building a routine. I wrote at least 3,000 words a week (working Monday, Wednesday, Thursday) no matter what, and didn’t stop to go back and edit. I just plowed through the first draft as well as I could until it was done. The end result wasn’t great, but it helped make a habit out of something that needed to be one and taught me a lot about what I needed to focus on in a first draft to avoid having to completely rewrite a story for the second draft (while still not getting in my own head about things being perfect the first time around). It was practice. One day, I’ll have enough practice to be able to tackle those bigger projects in a way that makes me happy.