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.
I always excelled at math, and, as early as third 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 I tolerated math well enough and it felt good to shine in some area.
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. Except for a brief comment from my 6th-grade English teacher, who liked one of my poems, no one encouraged me to do anything creative either. At some point, I accepted that I was incapable of being creative.
Now I did read copiously throughout my schooling, 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 programming, economics, and finance. I built a successful 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—nothing that leaned creative.
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 programming 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: 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 found writing 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.