A few years ago, I shared ten technological facts about myself. Now, I’m going to share ten more facts—about my writing side this time. Like before, some facts are minor tidbits, while others are short anecdotes about my history.
1. My first story was called “Dogtopia.”
The first major story I wrote was called “Dogtopia.” It was about dogs who walked and talked like people. That’s all I remember about the plot. Thankfully.
“Dogtopia” was a fifth grade project. My English teacher thought it would be fun for us students to write something while she worked on her own novel. When we were done, she chose three of us to turn our stories into full multimedia presentations that we would unveil during the upcoming Open House event. I was one of the winners.
Me and two classmates spent about two weeks polishing and illustrating our stories (on Macs!) in a library backroom. It was grueling work, but we also had a lot of fun, joking around and goofing off.
Everything turned out great when my parents and I went to the event. The biggest surprise was that I received a “Silent Talking” Award for my story, complete with a tiny gold trophy with my name engraved on it. Sadly, I lost the floppy disc that held both the story and the illustrations at some point.
2. My biggest writing influence was Laurell K. Hamilton.
My desire to write ramped up in middle school when I discovered urban fantasy and paranormal romance books. Of all the authors I read back then, I admired and tried to emulate Laurell K. Hamilton’s writing style the most.
I loved LKH’s Anita Blake series. I loved the characters (especially Edward and Jason). I lived for the relationship drama. I enjoyed the supernatural and investigative elements. I even appreciated the random bits of life advice, like “Never ask someone to do something you’re not willing to do yourself” and “If you find a shirt you like, buy it in every color” (I’m paraphrasing). Every time a new book came out, I would stay up all night to read it.
Admittedly, I don’t love the series quite as much as I used to. I’m uncomfortable with some of the racial aspects in the books. These bad parts are rapidly overshadowing the good parts of the series for me. I’m kissing close to quitting it altogether. Even if it comes to that, it will probably always be my favorite series.
3. I’m a night owl.
I do most of my writing at night, usually somewhere between 9 PM and 3 AM. In fact, it’s 12:35 AM as I write this sentence.
I accidentally trained myself to become a night owl in college. I spent significant chunks of my day riding the bus to and from campus, so I would need a nap the second I got home in the evening. Then I would wake up around 9 PM and write essays and discussion posts late into the night.
Recently, I’ve been trying to train myself to write during the day. It’s been largely unsuccessful. I usually end up with a throbbing migraine for trying to force my brain to cooperate before it’s ready.
4. I tried to collaborate on a story. Once.
Although I always have the urge to write stories, I often lack the ideas to do so. During one such dry spell, a friend invited me to work on a story with her. She would provide the plot and characters; I would write the words. It sounded like a fun project.
That story was never written, at least not by me. My friend hated the chapters I wrote. Her complaints ran the gamut from “Why did you shorten the protagonist’s name that way?” to “You’re putting too much of your personality into my story.” We failed to find any middle ground, so we ended the collaboration. Our friendship didn’t last much longer either.
5. I primarily listen to J-Pop and K-Pop while I write.
One of the minor reasons why I like J-Pop and K-Pop so much is because they help me concentrate when I’m working. If I listen to music sung in English while I’m writing, I’ll start typing the words, analyzing the song’s meaning, or looking up forgotten lyrics.
I don’t have that problem with J-Pop and K-Pop music. The songs have words so I can sing along (unlike classical music or EDM), but I don’t know enough Japanese or Korean to get tripped up by the meaning of the lyrics. There’s usually not enough English in the songs to throw me off either. It’s like the foreign languages distract my brain, preventing me from overthinking.
6. I’m a plotter.
I like to plan out what I’m going to write. The exact way I plot depends on what I’m writing.
For nonfiction writing (like blog posts), I still use the classic essay structure: intro, three or more supporting body paragraphs, and a conclusion. I create a document with the headings for each section, but I compose the bulk of the arguments in my head before I type them in it. I save the intro and conclusion for last so I have a clearer idea of my points.
My fiction-writing process is similar. I create a notebook in Microsoft OneNote to hold my world-building notes and character profiles. Then I make a minimal outline of the story using the index cards feature in Scrivener. I plot the scenes in my head and type them out in Scrivener when I think they’re fully baked.
7. Writing helped me get through Discrete Math.
I’m horrible at high-level math. Don’t ask me about anything except Algebra. But Discrete Math…that was a different story. I was good at that type of math because it was a writing class in disguise.
At first, I struggled to keep up in Discrete Math. I felt like I was the only one who didn’t get it. Then came the proofs. Glorious proofs! Proofs only required me to write a concise logical statement to prove or disprove the simple given expression. I could do that in my sleep!
Suddenly, the tables turned. I was acing practically every test and quiz while everyone else was struggling. It was awesome being a math ace for once.
8. I prefer to write on printer paper.
Whenever I take notes from a book or whatever, I grab a sheet of white printer paper instead of notebook paper.
This, too, goes back to my college years. I hated typing on my laptop during class, but I also wanted digital notes as a backup. My solution was to write my notes on paper and scan them into Evernote later. The lines on the notebook paper interfered with the scanning process, especially if I had drawn a graph or a diagram, so I started using printer paper. The only downside is that I tend to write downhill on the page without the lines.
9. I’m not confident about my grammar.
My grammar insecurity began in seventh grade. My English teacher forced us to do endless grammar exercises from the textbook on our own rather than teach us herself. Worse, she would randomly collect our work and make us grade each others’ papers. Out loud. Oh, the shame of having someone read a wrong answer from your paper!
The entire experience gave me a complex. If I have the slightest question about whether my grammar is correct, I’ll rewrite the whole sentence. I also take every grammar-related quiz I come across online. I doubt I’ll ever overcome this problem.
10. I used to write (bad) poetry.
When I was at the height of my anime obsession, one of the ways I expressed my feelings for my favorite characters and series was to write poems about them.
Here’s a snippet of one I wrote in high school about Gundam Wing‘s Heero Yui and Relena Peacecraft called “The Order of Death”:
To my young assassin
Be that as it may
I’ve a job for you to do
Someone new to slay
A soul as pure as water
Here’s the place to start
Destroy her from the inside
Go straight for her heart.
I had forgotten about most of these bad poems until I started going through my old notebooks. I’m just going to forget them again.