I have been writing for a very long time. I’ve likely talked about this before, but when I was still in primary school and my age was still single digits, I would go to our little writing club which I had with some other guys from my school. We would sit in one of our rooms and write stories on A4 paper. Yes, computers were a thing, I’m not that old, but I sure didn’t have my own computer yet. It would take until my early teens for me to have a computer in my room that had access to Microsoft Word. But my start was on paper, as I think it should be for everyone. I am not one of those people who is opposed to technological change – although I have my hills I’ll die on – but I do think there is something to writing your first story on a piece of paper in a barely legible handwriting. I wish I was of the proper mind to keep this story, but I threw most of that stuff away during one of my many depressive episodes. I don’t really have any of my old writing left, and that’s a real shame. Not that any of it was good, mind you, it was likely beyond terrible but I still love the ideas that were there.
One of my first stories that I remember writing was one about my class at school. One day during recess, many of my classmates disappeared mysteriously. Myself and some of the remaining kids would then try and figure out what happened. It turned out they all fell into a sinkhole below the swings on the playground. Tale as old as time, right? Well, we went after them, searching for them in all sorts of exotic locations. Deep jungles, ravines, and even the depths of an ancient pyramid. And after finding all of our friends in strange places, we were home just in time for the bell. Yeah I don’t think it would have been a bestseller. But the idea was cute and I still feel some pride that I came up with it at such a young age.
Now that I’m older, my writing process has changed considerably. As I mentioned in the previous paragraph, I have gone through many a dark period in my life. I am pleased to say that much of that is now behind me, and the medication that I’m taking for my anxiety is doing a splendid job. But during much of my early 20s, I abandoned the writing hobby completely. I used to feel inspired and write the wildest stories all the time, sometimes churning out pages and pages in a single day. Then that diminished and with the idea that “inspiration will come when it comes” it eventually died out.
It was by chance that it came back. Right before the pandemic hit, I was doing a minor at my university for creative writing. I had to pick something, and I knew I could write a page or two if I had to. One of the assignments we could pick was to write and upkeep our own blog. This was a great idea for me, I could write a blog and talk about anime, manga and even include some of my stories. People would want to read those after all, and despite the lack of proper writing, I still had ideas rolling around in my head. Although it is completely unrecognizable from what it once was, The Necromancer’s Daughter is one of my oldest stories that I’m still working on. In contrast, The Hesitant Hero is a much newer project. But a project it is, and I think that’s part of the core of what I’m trying to say.
The way I would write stories as a child was simple. I’d live my life and when an idea hit me, I’d sit down at my computer – or with a piece of paper in those early days – and just start writing until I got bored. With a child’s endless wonder, that would often take quite some time, and I could write for ages. That’s how I managed to write entire pages in a day’s time. I would then check my e-mail afterwards for I was subscribed to author Raymond E. Feist’s mailing list where many people would spend all day talking about his books. As I’m writing this, I just finished rereading his first book – Magician – and I’m planning to tackle the rest of his 30 books as well. It will take a while. But the point is that this random inspiration is very rare these days. I have ideas regularly, sure, you can’t write stories without ideas, but that textbook feeling of inspiration where something comes over you and you end up writing until the sun’s down is not very common. The last time I truly had this feeling was somewhere early 2024, when I wrote the first chapter’s of a story that still requires far too much brainstorming to be close to ever appearing on this blog. I wrote 4000 words in one sitting, only stopping when I remembered I had work the previous day. Now that I think about it, this happened before I started my anxiety medication. Let’s not think about that too much.
My system now is much more organized and I think it makes for much better writing. It’s more studied and more thought goes into the structure of the stories and the actual subject matter. It’s no more scenes that sound cool at 2 am when my brain’s barely functioning, but more tangible characters going through real struggles and trying to find themselves in a world that’s not always accepting of who they are. There’s a moral to my stories and although most of it isn’t exactly reinventing the wheel, I think it makes for a better story. I’m just sitting down each day and writing a little bit. No more waiting for that magical inspiration that hits once every three months, just putting in the hours every day to hone a craft. I suppose that’s part of what pisses myself and many other authors and artists off about AI so much. That entire first part, the years and years of finding who you are as an artist, is skipped in favor of putting a handful of words into a prompt and calling it art. Going back to Mr. Feist’s emailing list, I remember him saying something. That was the fun part about those mailing lists, the author would actually talk to the people. Get too big and that’s not feasible in 2026 of course, but this was an easier time. He said – and I doubt he’s the only author who’s said something like this – that the first million words you would write would be terrible. Only after putting in the hard work would you start seeing a real improvement. And after experiencing this for myself, I agree. I feel like in the last couple of years I’ve been looking back at what I wrote with much more confidence, thinking it’s actually pretty decent. There’s tons of room for improvement still and that’s exciting, but I’m rapidly finding what I enjoy about writing, what works for me and perhaps this will lead to eventually publishing my stories, a dream I’ve long held. I’m not asking for a bestseller position, I just want to hold my own books one day, a physical proof of the stories I want to share. So in 2026, let’s write another half a million words to add to the pile and finally finish that final draft of the first Hesitant Hero book. I’m optimistic about the future and excited to keep sharing my stories on this blog. Despite the average day barely seeing double digit visitors, it still brings me joy each time someone likes a post. Thanks for reading.
Opal Kaharis 