You know those things you come across that just snags you for the long haul? For me, that’s writing, and it has been since I was 13 or 14. For you, it might not be writing, but if you are here, it may very well be. If so, we will be very good friends, but stick around even if it’s something else that is your passion. If you haven’t found that spark yet then hopefully this post will help you get some ideas for if you run into it headfirst
Finding your passion takes a lot of luck in my brief experience with such a passion, and it may take you a long time to find it, but is absolutely worth it when you find it. If you are growing older, it may seem like you can’t find your passion, but it is still possible to find it. This is kind of reversing what I said about there being luck, and yes while that may be true, this is something you can try to find without relying on chance, but we’ll get to that a bit later.
Let’s get to the actual topic of the post now. When I was in high school, I had been getting a bit depressed (by a bit; I mean that it was pretty bad) I was lonely, and I did some things I shouldn’t have like a stupid teenager and it was really going after my mentality. So there’s this one thing I thought up. Years before I had made an account on Wattpad after watching someone online read something from there. I had done nothing with it, and the idea had suddenly popped back in my head. Looking at all the stories and thinking back to all the stories I had read, I thought it might be a good idea for me to try my hand at story writing during lunch one day. Oh boy was I bad. I’m still pretty bad and have lots to learn, but I’m getting better with each day that passes.
It hadn’t taken long for me to get hooked on the idea of writing my own stories, but at first it had been what is called fan fiction, which some people will probably say aren’t my own stories, but truly they were, just with already developed characters. It quickly became an escape and my favorite hobby. I would write day after day during lunch, publishing my rushed out chapters before the end of the day.
One day, an author came to visit my English class. Her name was Cinda Williams Chima and I credit her with truly moving my hobby into a passion and made me realize that to me, writing was more than an escape or a hobby. It was what I wanted to do with my life. I still need to somehow thank her for it. We had been reading her newest novel at the time in class. After that we had time outside with the authors and I did get to ask her a couple of questions. I forgot to get a book signed by her and I’m still hating myself for it. It wasn’t much, but the way she spoke about why and how she started writing as she spoke to us flipped a switch in my head.
I had been writing for about a year and it was at this point I pivoted towards original works. My fan fiction slowed down and eventually, I stopped entirely and moved onto my first idea for a fantasy novel, which is what I am still working on as of the writing of this article. From the day I pivoted, I’ve been working day after day outlining and writing and that’s where we are now.
Now while I haven’t read and written as much as I should have in the last few years, I have been progressing and it’s a nice feeling to be able to progress through my lovely passion. I’ve joined a couple of writing communities and made some great friends in the wider community.
Like I said earlier, there is a lot of luck in finding your passion, but if you gathered anything from my story, I hope you gather that if you try new things whenever it pops into your mind, it may be your new passion.
While this post may not have been something to really help find a passion, hopefully it helps and gives you an idea about how I got into writing.