How Has Writing Changed for You Over the Years?

The topic is in the title! I know quite a few of you have been writing for anywhere from a year or two to over a decade, and no matter whether or not you've been working on something the whole time or have taken many long breaks, or whether you think you've improved a lot or not at all, I'm sure your relationship with writing has changed over that time, and I want to hear all about it.

This can be about any aspect of writing that you think has changed - what you like to write, when you write, how you write, why you write, any aspect of your process or relationship with writing! And for those of us who are newer to writing, how do you think/hope your writing and your relationship with writing will change for you over the years?

everything is different.

I started writing around age 10 or 11 to let some of the pressure off the ideas in my brain. Most of these involved self-inserts who were pretty awesome or did awesome stuff that 10- or 11-year-old me WISHED I could do. Or wished I could be. Or just plain old wished would happen to me.

Now that I'm 22, I've been writing for more than half my lifespan! I've changed a lot since then, but honestly, part of it is just that I'm a lot more serious about doing what I love. I love to write, but if it becomes less fun for me, I try to find a way around that so I don't burn out.

Sometimes it's really hard to do that, but it's worth the effort.

Shoot ya'll........... I'm embarrassed HaHahA. Okay, so as a wee kid I used to start stories and get like, a few pages in and stop and forget about it. Half of them were "a girl and her horse" stories and the other half, all of the main characters were like, basically anthro animals. That was back in like 4th-6th grade??? Heck, I wrote a play where my favorite stuffed animal (a horse named Freedom because she was a FREE SPIRIT) was the main character LOL.

IT WAS ALL SO CHEESY

And then in like, high-school I was just.............. boring as heck BAHAHAH ALL MY CHARACTERS were underdeveloped mary-sueish folks with no personality. And then when I started roleplaying wow I was.... just... weird. And thirsty tf

I think I've actually finally become a decent writer after all that. Like. I finally reached a benchmark where I feel like I can say I write and I think it's okay for people to read hahahahaha

So yeah ONWARDS from here

In some ways I've changed massively and in others barely at all. I think I started writing 'properly' when I was about nine; the first story a wrote was three-page piece for school about a girl called Bianca who went back in time and met herself. I've still got it somewhere - it's a complete mess, makes no sense, but it really lit a passion in me.

Just over ten years on, I know that I've improved a lot. As a young kid, I wrote a lot of fantasy and dragon stories, always picking up projects only to drop them almost immediately. In my teens, I had this tendency to write really dark, moody, depressing stuff - this is the era that embarrasses me most, because I could feel myself trying to be profound, and I cared more about flowery prose than telling a good story. I broke that habit after I read the blurb for an anthology called 'A Call in the Night', which made me realise how simple short stories could be. I could just take a small, specific concept and run with it. I didn't have to hit on hugely serious topics.

In the last few years, I've found my footing in magical realism, which is a genre I'm really happy with. I still can't resist writing about dragons, though, and I have massive problems with finishing projects, so maybe I've not changed quite as much as I think. But at the very least I know how to punctuate my dialogue now, and I know that three paragraphs is not an acceptable amount of description.

In lots of ways, my writing has matured with me. Not really in the topics it discusses - I was writing things way too mature for my age when I was just thirteen - but in the way those subjects are approached. After taking several years off from writing, I returned to it with a much more introspective and self-reflective manner. My writing since returning to it has evolved into a much more honest reflection of not only who I am and my journey as a person, but also the kind of stories I want to tell.

As far as skill goes, I think I've definitely become more skilled at immersing my reader in the story than I was at thirteen. My description is still a bit off - if there at all - but it's definitely a lot more showing and less info-dumping. My dialogue as well is a lot more natural, well-paced and less forced/stale.

I think probably the biggest and yet most intangible thing that has changed about my writing is the reason behind it. Back when I started writing in the third grade, and onwards to about sixth or seventh grade, writing was something I did for fun, as a hobby, and to avoid doing school work. Now, however...it's almost not even a choice. If I'm not writing, I'm thinking about writing, and if I'm not thinking about it, I'm planning for it. It's a constant cycle, a constant desire, a constant need. Almost like a compulsion. And I think, at least for me, that that shift in the driving force was what made my writing mature with me.

@Vervain and @soundofmind - oh definitely, when you've been writing that long I'd expect absolutely everything to be different! I know one thing that's changed for me as well is that I also now make time to write and try to push past blocks, rather than just doing it only when I felt like it.

@DarkPandemonium - psshhh, only three paragraphs of description? Gotta get your noob game on. (Though actually for me, my problem has always been not enough description, not too much lol.)

I've definitely become more skilled in a lot of ways. One of the biggest things is that writing, as in thinking up and assembling a story together and writing a scene, just feels a lot less scary than it used to. It used to be this great big unknown where I couldn't ever get the words to do what I wanted and never really knew where I was going. And it's still like that sometimes, especially when I'm trying something new, but now I at least have an idea of what the end products look like, as well as a much greater understanding of what makes a story work. I still have a long way to go, but I feel I've passed that first hurdle.

I still write primarily science fiction and fantasy. I don't think that's changing anytime soon. xD

I think I'm similar to @Cloudkid in that the biggest thing that has changed for me is the reason I write. I remember when I was 11-14, a lot of the time when I'd try to sit down and write, I'd do it because, well... that was how all the awesome stories I loved got made. I wanted to be that person who makes those stories. It felt like the next logical step. Essentially, I was writing because I wanted to be a writer.

But now? I write because I am a writer. It's just a part of me. If I go without writing for too long, it feels wrong. And realizing how comfortably I've settled into that role over the years of work makes me really happy, even if I never get published.

Dang it I forgot tag me tomorrow

@zaminami - Here's your tag.

I first started to write two years ago. I was extremely bad, like you would expect the average 6th grader to be. I made literally every mistake that you could, and focused on Photoshopping covers from Stock photos and different fonts and illustrations/ranting about how wonderful it was than anything else.

Then, I began to improve, little by little. I eventually graduated from terrible writing to slightly less terrible writing, with better grammar, more description, less tense changes, etc. I still focused on the other parts and stuff, so I wasn't exactly the best.

However, after joining on here, I got a reality check. Using everyone's advice, I quickly improved and now I don't have too many issues, except for tense change lmao. I am still not good at that.

I also only use Ariel and Vervanda fonts and don't focus on the covers, letting my artistic self do that when I don't have access to something like a computer (my handwriting sucks. No one can read it except for teachers ). I also have made myself goals for a chapter at least once a week for my fanfiction and I have learned much, like that I should write fanfiction first since it won't matter as much when it sucks.

I am also now using fanfiction as learning experiences with writing, to experiment here and there with mcs and things. I also am planning on a novel making fun of cliches, so I'm experimenting with that in my now novel.

I'm also experimenting with different color skins of LGBT characters of different backgronds, religions, etc. I am also writing a homophobic character turned bisexual, which I'm viewing as a fun writing exerience! I also am experimenting with people making fun of stereotypes; for example, I have a gay character who dresses as a stereotype just because he can and didn't know any other way to come out of the closet so it just stuck lmao (idk how else to put it. I'm really tired ) I really enjoy writing these and making fun of people putting stereotypes on through the guy. I'm introducing very controversal things in my work, probably offending the haters but I don't care

I don't really know what else to add here (it's 7:30, I just ate an entire thing of funnel cake, and am ready for bed but I'm writing instead). Uuuu yeah

I've been writing as long as I can remember so my writing has obviously changed a lot

In elementary school I purely wrote for fun. Creative writing time was my favorite time and I wrote amazing stories - my personal favorite being about a girl living in the Great Depression and she and her family were struggling for a week and then she befriended Shirley Temple and basically the Great Depression ended. #quality

I first remember trying to write novels in middle school, but I never finished them and they were all cliched messes that were really just versions of my favorite books at the time. I had one high-quality gem that was basically the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants except with a pair of flip-flops instead of pants.

I remember first wanting to be an author when I was in 8th grade because that's when Twilight came out. I got deep into Twilight fandom and connected with Stephenie Meyer on MySpace, and that was the first time I connected that real people write books and that I wanted to give people the same feelings Meyer gave me. I wrote a lot of fanfiction throughout high school and continued to dabble in bad novels of my own.

Another important thing to note was that up until I went to college, no one in my life knew I enjoyed writing. I experienced so much anxiety about what others thought of me that I was terrified of the idea (even close friends and family) of what people would think when they found that out and I was terrified that they would then want to read my work and I was terrified thinking about what they would think of it. So I continued to write "in secret" if you will.

I think my biggest writing change happened in college. So much changes when you go to college, and I had some of the highest highs of my life to date and some of my lowest lows of my life to date while I was in college. Writing became an escape during my low points and became a way for me to process my feelings. College was also when the "I want to be an agented, published author" fire really set in. I wrote multiple drafts of four novels while I was in college. My anxiety improved enough that I started letting people in my life read my work. I started doing lots of research about the publishing industry, and starting taking myself, my writing, and my dreams about writing seriously.

I'm now 26. Writing is still very fun for me. It's still an escape for me. I still want to be traditionally published and impact people with my work. I'm still a contemporary girl through-and-through and a hopeless romantic My ideas and my writing ability have obviously changed and matured over time, but I think the biggest change is my confidence and that I'm now able to take myself seriously. I also see myself now as a more "serious" writer rather than a purely for-fun writer.

Wrote this a couple days ago but then my internet went out for some reason and I didn't finish it. And yes I included examples because I am insane.

When I first started writing outside of school assignments, I was 14, wanted to be a fantasy author, and wrote some god-awful prose before I dived into poetry. I abandoned the fantasy author dreams a long time ago...turns out you need way more patience and persistence than I had to get past the first chapter, who knew!

work/niteowl/The-Hall-of-Mirrors-176-this was the first poem I ever wrote, and yeah it's pretty awful. But somehow this and my other early poems got me into thinking I was good at poetry. And also I started writing lyrics at some point, even though I couldn't make music for them (by that I mean I didn't know how to translate my years of piano playing to actually writing it, something I wouldn't try for years. I'm still not good at the music side of lyric-writing, but I'm really proud of myself when I do try).

Somewhere along the way, I found that I liked taking something small and making a bigger message out of it.

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Post-It Note
The Fall

These are some of my favorites from that style.

The Kiss I remember this piece mainly because it was my first featured work on the then-new Literary Spotlight (I think it had way more "likes" at the time, but maybe they got deleted when the site was later updated). This has a lot of the themes of early-niteowl poems (unrequited "love", basically my diary, literally from a dream I had), but at least it tries to do some interesting things with imagery and metaphor.

After high school, writing took a big backseat, as did YWS. Most of what I did write was personal and just crap. It was only when I got into grad school that I rejoined YWS and began writing seriously (ish) again. 2013 was probably my peak involvement in YWS and also when I got more experimental. I played with structure and rhyming poems for the first time (e.g. Deathbed Prayer), Ashes and Shards). I actually finished NaPo. I wrote awesome science poetry Ferrozine Woman.

The sheer size of the "Challenge Accepted" folder shows that I did a lot of works because of a contest or other challenge that was issued. I think this really helped me push myself to do different things like play with forms and stuff. Also I wrote some short stories for contests that were actually pretty decent, so maybe I'm not as averse to prose as I was for a long time.

So after all that rambling, how has my relationship with writing changed? I've gone through periods where I was obsessed with writing, where I had to do it the way I need to eat, sleep, and breathe. I've also gone through periods where I was just too busy/tired/depressed to care about writing. Overall, I think I do better when I write and I definitely feel like something's missing if I'm not writing.

Weird side note: I don't write with pen and paper as much anymore. I used to hand write a lot, even those terrible "novels" I started. These days I tend to type, either on a computer or on my phone. This is definitely more convenient and easier to read, but I do miss that connection I had with pen and paper writing. Maybe I need to do that some again.