Who Am I? My Writing Journey So Far

Who am I? I'm Jean ValJean!

Ok. Not quite. But it is true that my dad occasionally calls me Jean ValJean. And it is true that every time I count by even numbers I end up singing "24601!" And it is true that I've been listening to the Les Miserables soundtrack in somewhat excessive amounts recently.

But all of that is completely beside the point, because the point of this post is not to share my nerdy love (that will come later). The point of this particular post is to give a little bit of information on who I am as a writer. After all, if you want to follow someone on a journey, it's helpful to know where they've already been. Hopefully you'll all come along on my journey, so here's the road map of  where I'm at and how I set off on this mad adventure.

I honestly think that I became a writer because I didn't want to stop playing. When I was probably about ten, I loved acting out stories with the little action figures and toys my brothers and I owned. I had one particular story that I always came back to and kept building on. At some point I started  to realize that it wasn't totally cool to play with little "guys" (what we called our toys) anymore. But I was very fond of that story. I don't exactly know where I got the idea, but at some point I thought, "Why not write it down?" After all, I could continue my story, but writing it was a more valid way of doing so. And so my "pirate story" was begun. Over the course of the next few years, I ended up rewriting that story about three times. In the last rewrite, I struck on something that I could work with. I ended up hand-writing around 200 pages, making it very close to the end, but not quite finishing. I haven't worked on that story for a few years, but it's always in the back of my mind and in the back of my heart. It's what started me off - that first push out of the door. And I refuse to give up on it. One day I want to go back to the original concept and rework it. I'll finish my pirate story yet.

 When I was 13 and still working on my pirate story, my journey took an unexpected path. In short, I stumbled on the world of fanfiction. As a huge fan of The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia, I was constantly looking at websites that had to do with these books/movies. On these websites, I kept coming across stories that fans had written about the characters, sometimes adding new events or explaining what happened during the known events. Then I found fanfiction.net. And once I got interested, I got hooked. I started reading fanfiction for all the movies I liked and getting ideas for stories I could write. And then I wrote my first fanfic. It was about Susan Pevensie (the dreaded post-Last Battle "Susanfic"), and it was honestly pretty terrible. But I was proud of it. So for two years I read fanfiction constantly and wrote a handful of my own stories. Then when I was 15 I officially made a fanfiction.net profile and started putting my stories up on the internet. In the four, almost five, years since then I've continued to write fanficion at least semi-faithfully. I now have a grand total of 58 stories completed and uploaded, and I hope that number will only continue to grow.

Without fanfiction, I'm not sure I would have become a writer. I wouldn't have realized what a joy it is to have an idea and wrestle with words until that idea is translated into something that others can read and understand. I wouldn't have learned to work with and explore characters, to dig into new possibilities, to try different styles, and to use language to communicate what was in my head and my heart. Fanfiction was the springboard I needed.

Eventually, feeling more confident in my writing, I began exploring what would generally be considered more original writing. I started dabbling in poetry and toying around with story ideas that nothing came of. Then, in 2009, my first big opportunity came. Patrick Henry College was doing their annual "A Call to Pens" short story competition. So I wrote a short story about a soldier in the Civil War and submitted it to the competition. I don't think the judges were too impressed, and frankly, I don't blame them. I think I had been trying too hard, and something in the story was lacking because of it. The next year, "A Call to Pens" came around again, so I thought I'd give it another shot. I had a story idea right away, and started planning and writing, but once again, I could feel that something was missing. Another little seed of an idea popped in my mind, so I started to explore it. And I hit on something. I hit on a story that I could feel, one that was easy, challenging, pleasurable, and painful all at once. The story, about a nurse in Italy during World War II, was called "Grey and White." I submitted it, and I wasn't as nervous as I had been the year before. It's not that I thought I had any more of a chance among the hundreds of other stories. But I felt more satisfied with what I had written. And apparently, this time the judges felt it too. My story won second place. I got money for it - the first time I'd been paid for my words. And the money was great, but I honestly don't even remember how much it was. What I remember is how excited, how satisfied, I felt.

That was the beginning of 2011. That fall, I started attending Western Wyoming Community College, and after one semester I realized what a fantastic opportunity I had to study the calling I hope to pursue. Through my classes such as English, Poetry, Journaling, Prose, and others, along with the fantastic, encouraging teachers I've had, I've learned so much about writing and my love for it. At the end of this semester I will graduate from WWCC with an Associate of Arts in English and a Certificate in Creative Writing. And I want more. I'm hoping to transfer to another school where I can continue to study creative writing.

So that's where I'm at on the journey. There are still lots of decisions and opportunities. But I honestly believe that this is where God is taking me and what He has for me to do. So I'm going to keep going. And, for any and all who are interested, I'm going to keep you posted.