Don't Give Up

The first time I ever decided to write for pleasure and not because I had to was four or five years ago. What was it that made me decide to write? It was a book I had just read. This book was Eragon by Christopher Paolini and I loved it so much. I mean, there were dragons in there! That could be ridden! What could be more awesome than that?

I loved this story so much, loved the idea of riding dragons so much that I wished I could be in the book and that dragons were real and I had my own dragon that I could ride and talk to and how awesome it would be to have my own quest to save the world and everything. But since none of that was real and I didn't foresee any world saving quest coming my way I decided to do the next best thing.

I bought my very first journal for writing stories in and created a character and my own dragons and my own world.

Now, looking back on it, it wasn't very good, at all, but back then it was so awesome! It was so fun! I had a character, her name had changed many times, I think at first it was Esmeralda or something and by the end it had become Arza, my dragons were modeled after the Chinese dragons with manes and horns and everything. I drew a map, there were elves, and there was a country that was the dragons, there was an evil empire ruled by an evil dragon king and no one knew he was a dragon, a couple animal species that had human intelligence and speaking ability, and there was magic, of course.

Much of my first story was modeled heavily from Eragon, but even so there were some good original bits in it, though not many. And going back to read that stuff, it makes me cringe. Not just because of the story itself but the writing in general.

When I started writing I didn't even know I should put quotation marks around whatever my characters said. I didn't know where paragraphs should begin and end. And I'm pretty sure I didn't have a firm grasp on when to use a comma.

And even back then I knew I was doing something wrong. When I realized I didn't know how to start or end a paragraph, or even why a paragraph existed, really, I picked up some of my favorite books and reread them until I knew what a paragraph was. I realized I needed to put quotation marks around what my character say, I learned when to use a comma, I learned how to write by reading and it was probably the best thing I could have done to teach myself how to write. Picking up some book about grammar or something would have done little for me.

After awhile though, I started to come up with my own original ideas. It's funny that I can't recall what my first original idea might have been, I don't really remember when I started coming up with my own ideas. It seems like something I should remember. Perhaps I have it written down in one of my old journals somewhere.

So, in short, I was a terrible plagiarizing writer when I first started that didn't really have a clue how to write. But it was fun and I learned how to write by reading my favorite books. And now, I'm aiming to be an author.

So never be discouraged to write just because you're unsure how to write. Just do it anyway and you'll learn what you need to know. If you don't have original ideas at first, don't worry, they will come. You just have to pay a bit more attention to you're thoughts and daydreams.

Good Wednesday everyone!

My Very First Idea

I can't believe it's a measly 5 days before NaNo. I am sooo not prepared in the least, though hopefully that wont be too much a problem cause last year I had nothing but a vague idea. . . Anyway, I finally sat down today to redo my wipey-board outline to incorporate the new stuff and did that in probably 15 minutes. After this post (or maybe tomorrow) I'll start doing brief chapter by chapter outlines. I only have five more days so I better get going!

On a side note I finished my PC :D (*This is a writing blog!!!*) D:

I hope everyone else is doing good. (Actually, no I don't! I hope your suffering just as much as I am!! >=O) <.< >.> . . . Just kidding :D

Sometimes I wonder how I ever started writing. I mean, I used to hate it and I wasn't good at it either. I had a problem getting my thoughts on paper, seriously you should see some of the stuff I wrote for school >.< But then I read this book when I was about 12. Eragon by Christopher Paolini. I really liked how it was about a dragon rider and it was really awesome and I admit I started daydreaming about having my own dragon and having my own adventure, but isn't that how many ideas come about? So, miraculously, I started writing about this idea. I made this character named Esmerda, later changed to Arza, drew out a map. The country was called Alashia. Alashia consisted of Jokasee Swamp, The Lake of Fire (desert, with a valcano), Zera Plains, Eyrie Forest and Gright (in the north). There were also four separate countries the Phanle Mountains, Sirjang (Sirjang was the country of the water dragons), Tostite Jungle and Erthite which were both of the elves.

While I tried my best to make it all my own, of course there were many similarities between my first story idea and Eragon. There was the dragon riding thing, the elf thing, the tyrant king (Arza's brother was drafted into the army against his will and stuff), even the map is similar, especially with the placement of the mountains XD But the plot was very different besides involving dragon riding and magic. Arza had a grand destiny involving the dragons and I believe she was going to defeat the king (the memory of this story is fuzzy. Though I wrote many things down I didn't write everything). I think some kind of ancient sword was involved in the grand destiny making thing. And her dragon was gold, a sign of who she would become as there had only been 3 gold dragons in history, each of them and their 'magicians' (or riders, but hey I was trying to not copy Eragon :P) doing really grand things in history.

OH! I remember some stuff now! The king is actually a dragon named Zochi that is out to defeat all the other dragons. I had a whole back story for him and everything (even back then I was into the evil characters :D). He was an asonjee dragon, their natures inherently good but the 'evil' dragons, the sirzers and batine, got a hold of him at a young age and 'contaminated' him with black magic and everything to turn him against his own race. It worked but Zochi wasn't fond of any race of dragon other than himself, and he was an abomination so to speak. The reason the evil dragons did this was to get revenge on the asonjee's due to a battle, and the asonjee race is the most powerful of dragons. So that was a brief description of his back story.

So that was how I started writing and my very first idea! I'm much better at writing now and my ideas waaaaay more original :D I hope I didn't bore you with that story :P

Now I gotta try to get myself to outline some more. I wish you guys luck in your writing endevors!