In mid 2023, I found myself on the unlikeliest journey of my life—creative writing.
Backstory
To understand why creative writing was such a leap for me, we begin with my childhood.
For as long as I can remember, I excelled at math, and, as early as second grade, I earned the label of “math whiz.” Throughout school, I was never able to shake this title, nor did I particularly want to, since it felt good to be recognized for something.
On the other hand, I never found success in creative pursuits. I played a few instruments, but in a rote and mechanical way, unable to grasp the musicality of it. I failed horribly at drawing and art, and not for lack of trying. No one encouraged me to do anything creative either, except for a brief comment from my 6th-grade English teacher, who liked one of my poems. At some point, I accepted that I was incapable of being creative.
Now, I did read copiously and I particularly enjoyed science fiction and fantasy—but my relationship with it was always on the consumption side. It never occurred to me to write, especially because English was invariably my weakest subject.
As I continued to university and then my career, I focused on economics, finance, data, and programming. I built a career on the basis on my finance and economics expertise, project management abilities, data analysis skills, and a drive to deliver high-quality work for clients.
What Changed
When I left my career, I went soul-searching, trying a number of new activities from ice skating to game development. Although I initially embedded myself in the development side of games, I worked with friends on projects that required us to take on multiple roles, so I explored more artistic endeavors such as UI design. On one project, I ended up writing some lore as backstory for the game, and enjoyed the process, despite my terrible writing quality.
With my free time, I started reading a lot again, and rediscovered my interest in sci-fi, both in books and on TV. The ultimate catalyst that pushed me to write is a bit embarrassing to admit: I was watching a particularly uninspired sci-fi movie one day and thought, if a writer could get this junk produced, maybe I should try writing too.
New Beginning
So around June 2023, I started writing speculative fiction for the first time, with absolutely no foundation (think middle-school-level writing ability). I soon realized it was much tougher than I had imagined, and kicked myself for looking down on that sci-fi movie script. However, I discovered that it was fun and rewarding, so I stuck with it.
With no training, no idea of what makes good writing, and no one in the industry to learn from, I was incredibly lucky to get a few works published in these few short months, which allowed me the hope of taking this more seriously. In particular, I am grateful for the support of Radon Journal and their community. I have a long journey ahead of me before I can write like the many authors I admire, but now I have faith it might be attainable with years of hard work.
And so we go.