I have always liked the idea of being a writer, but I’ve never been good at coming up with ideas of what to write. Even as a child I struggled to imagine totally unique new ideas. Once, when I was in the third grade there was a writing contest to see who could write the best short stories and the top 5 all got printed in this self-published school magazine and sent out to all the students. I really wanted to win, but I couldn’t come up with a story of my own, so I condensed a book I had recently read into a short story and changed all the names. My teacher was amazed that a third grader could construct a cohesive narrative and I got published. It was such a strange combination of pride and shame.
Through the years of my education I would take creative writing classes as well as standard classes that required writing papers. Whenever there was a clear assignment, I could blow it out of the park. I clearly had a decent grasp of how to competently write, and excel for the purposes of a class. But when the assignment was open ended I struggled, and the blank page stared back at me. All of my greatest achievements in creative writing were essentially parodies. Sometimes the teacher would actually recognise the parody, but still praise the work which confused me. Maybe there’s a secret in that. Apparently there have been a number of successful novels that began life as fan fiction.
The two types of writing that I wish to be able to do are writing an actually funny sitcom, and mystery novels. They’re probably two of my favourite types of media to consume, so you’d think it wouldn’t be that difficult. Unfortunately, they’re also probably two of the most trope filled mediums. Also because I’ve consumed so much of both, it’s hard to be sure if an idea I have is even original or just an amalgamation of what I’ve seen and read.
I don’t really know if writing a blog will actually help me become a writer. It’s mainly stream of consciousness, not exactly anything requiring discipline and polish. That being said I hope I can try to make it a regular thing and that just getting more comfortable with writing will lead to something. Maybe I can try writing snippets based on some idea prompts from Reddit or something. I just don’t want to sit around wishing for something without taking any of the steps necessary to actually make it a reality.
