In the second part of sharing my story, I’m looking back at the early 2010s – the time that eventually nudged me towards giving writing a try. Yet, the path to that was far from simple…

Prelude: She’s gone (2010-2013)

The post describing the early concepts in 2000s ended up with a mention of putting these ideas aside due to one-sided love. As I (and the whole class) ended our high-school times, the people I was sharing much of my life with for 8 years were about to leave it. Many of them forever. Including her, because I feared my own feelings probably more than rejection.

There’s a saying in my language, along the lines you don’t know what you have until you lose it. It’s a spot on, despite the fact I’ve never actually had anything in this regard. In my darker days, her smile was enough for me to let some light in. And now, this smile was gone. Almost.

I’ve began dreaming about her in weird regularity: late May, early July, mid December, and early February. I knew I had to break the circle – or risk losing myself. But I had no idea how…

A weird therapy (2012)

This gets me to another saying: The best way to get rid of an addiction is to replace with a stronger one. But how? I’ve grown to despise alcohol and drugs way before I could ever get my hands on them – and thus forsake those methods. Hours spent playing World of WarCraft were not helping at all. I came to the conclusion that I needed a targetted therapy, something that’d hit the root of those dreams: my imagination.

But where to find something that would work? That was the question. And thus, I’ve remembered the hints of a story I’ve put aside some five years ago. In a weird irony, the story I’ve put aside because I struggled with my feelings was to be the way out for me.

And so, I tried to remember as much as I could about something I’ve pretty much forsaken. At least this way was completely free…

The Emmental cheese (2013)

You know, the Swiss cheese typical for a lot of holes in it. That’s exactly the state in which I’ve re-discovered the story concept. It seemed impossible to salvage, let alone to turn into a cohesive story concept.

But it was better than misery, broken heart, and what-ifs. And so I went for it, and stuck with it. Slowly, this story was becoming more dominant in my thoughts than she was.

At first, my ‘work’ was mostly done in the evenings, just before falling asleep – the moments when I’d be the most likely tempted to think about her. Later, I’ve begun to think about the story even during hiking (especially if hiking alone).

An expanding universe (2014)

As my thoughts went on, the concept grew. Where once were merely three characters, it went to ten, then twenty… The MC changed a lot, from a rebel through a diplomat to a champion of an Order that changed as well. I’ve abandoned the orphan concept, finding its plotholes unsalvageable. I’ve abandoned the idea of MC marrying the princess at the end, though his personal arc was far from developed at this point. I’ve came with at least some basic timeframe – the story was to happen over ~20 years during which the MC would change from a talented youngster to a respected warrior. I’ve expanded the ‘demigod patrons’ concept into the Eternals (and I knew they were to be 8, even though I had a specific idea only for 4 at that point). I’ve decided which themes I wanted to use and which I wanted to avoid.

What now? (Early 2015)

Yet, it was inevitable I might reach another problem: What to do when I’ve done all I could when it came to the theoretical work on this story concept? The idea of actually writing it down was still alien to me and I was nowhere near getting into a relationship to make sure my thoughts don’t return where they were once my imagination has nowhere to go on.

If only I knew…

The dare (20.7.2015)

The day was just another July hell. As if 2009, 2012, and 2013 weren’t enough, 2015 set the temperature to cataclysmic (compared to what I remember from my childhood) with day temperatures often peaking above 35°C and nights being above 25°C. Definitely typical central Europe, right?

So, with my fingers sticky with sweat, I was preparing for just another World of Warcraft raid night. I’ve considered it a small personal victory to persuade our leader to swap from one 10-minute break half-way through the 3-hr gaming session to 5-minute break after one hour and 10-minute break after two hours so I could refilly my glass more often.

It was the second break when I returned with a now-full glass and got to chat with a fellow raider who was, in the previous break, mentioned to write erotica fan-fiction. And I had the ‘genius’ idea to ask whether he was writing it in his native language or English – and then ask how hard it is to write something in a second language.

Worse, I’ve mentioned I had some ideas of my own (though I had not mentioned what led me to working on those ideas in the past three years) – and he asked me the fateful question: Why don’t you try writing it?

Even worse, I asked myself the same…

The first, awful try (21.7.2015)

…and I actually went for it the next day and thus moved from ‘concept’ to ‘demo’ stage – something I’ll cover in the next post on this topic.