Ever since I could pick up a pen, writing has been a big hobby of mine – and I mean writing anything and everything. I started writing book reviews when I was 9, all of which you can read here; I’ve been creating posts about authors and thoughts on their books on my Facebook page since 2020; I started writing stories on my mum’s laptop when I was barely 5 (you can actually read one of my first ever stories, the thrilling tale of Horrid Henry and the Comfy Black Chair, here on this blog).
I think that being home educated, and therefore being exposed to so much fascinating literature on so many different topics, has only fed my love of writing. From a young age, my mum has always encouraged me to do lots of reading, which has proven immensely helpful in enriching my vocabulary and helping me hone my own writing style (which is still evolving all the time).
But sadly, in recent months, probably due to GCSEs taking up so much of my time, I’ve been writing my stories less and less. I’ve still been analysing and summarising all the books I read, and writing the odd political or philosophical essay/review occasionally, but creative writing used to be such a good use of my free time and I’ve been neglecting it recently.
At the start of last year, I wrote a similar post to this one, detailing how I got to where I was then with my English and where I planned on going next with my then-current story – complete with cheesy quote and ramblings about what university I wanted to go to. (Every time I read a blog post that’s over a year old, I cringe at how terribly written it seems to me. Probably I’ll be doing the same with this post next year!)
But truth be told, I didn’t get anywhere with Nocturne. It wasn’t very well planned and I got bored of it very quickly. Since then, I’ve been planning a sort of Hannibal-Lecter-style novel, definitely something a bit different, but also something easier to get right! After a lot of consideration I have decided to post the prologue to it on this blog 🥴 You can read it here.
Over the next few months before I go to sixth form and inevitably become even more bogged down in studying, I want to get my stories underway and spend more of my free time writing. Every single January, my number one new year’s resolution is always “publish a book this year”, and I’ve never done it. I’m really hoping that with a bit more commitment to my creative writing hobby I can make that goal – publishing my own book – more realistic by the time I leave for university.
I hope you enjoyed reading about my writing plan, and the prologue for the story I’m currently working on. Hopefully you’ll be able to find more updates on that soon 🙂