If you wondered how I got to writing, this is the story. To be honest, I still wonder how it all could happen because it often feels like me becoming a writer makes no sense at all. Anyway, the story of how I got to writing began back in 2002 – when I had no idea where it could lead.

The first ideas came from dreams I had back around 2002 – and the few of them that had some fantasy theme and I managed to remember them. A few of them formed the base and I explored these ideas in my daydreaming – without giving these thoughts any purpose or goal.

What I had by mid-2000s were snippets of scenes and three major characters simply labeled ‘the Hero’, ‘the Princess’, and ‘the King’ – of which the first one was named in… 2015.

Also, given that mid-2000s were the time I was in my mid-teens, some of the thoughts took naughty spins. In the time my daydreaming made at least a shred of sense, I’ve built a base of backstory – which involved the MC being an orphan because orphans were a thing back then (Harry Potter movies being mid-way through the series and Eragon making its way to the world).

Then, as it happens to teens, I fell in love – which was one-sided. This had a side effect of me putting all these ideas to ice for… well, I guessed forever, back then.

And while I’ve last seen her in late May 2010, it took me a lot of time to get over it, despite the fact all I had during the past three years being dreams and nothing else. I failed to let this go and thus dreamed about her in a strange cycle: late May, early July, early January, and early February – roughly coinciding with the beginning and the end of exam month on the university.

I’ve tried to walk this off (literally, by going on a hike every two weeks at least), hoping that it’d help me forget – but it did not and I knew I had to find another way.

And so I returned to those forgotten dreams. Instead of her, I began thinking about the bits of a story I once had and tried to make it into a story concept that would make at least a bit of sense. This started in summer 2012 – after the second ‘dream cycle’.

I’ve soon realized the sheer amount of plotholes and unsalvageable concepts but I did not let this idea go and started coming up with ideas to solve at least some of them. In early 2015, the concept had a rough storyline from the beginning to the end and grew from three to some 20 characters.

And I was becoming afraid: what would keep my mind occupied once I had the story figured out? I did not really think about writing – the only attempt I had was back in 2007 when I used a random scene from the concept for a school essay, with results that were… not that bad but not good either. The idea of actually writing it down seemed far too insane for me…

That was until the fateful day. 20.7.2015. A day when I used a break in a World of Warcraft raid night for some silly chat with one of my fellow raiders who was mentioned to write erotica fanfiction. Having nothing to do, I asked him if it was difficult to write in a second language (he was writing in English while being from Sweden) – and after his answer, I admitted I had some ideas myself.

And he asked me the question that changed everything: Why don’t you try writing it?

And so, the next day, 21.7.2015, I wrote a demo chapter – a scene I had played in my head several times over – and sent it to him. He encouraged me to go on and the demo grew to 5 chapters in two weeks and, eventually, to 28k words by mid-September.

Then, I took a month to think about what the hell did I get myself into – and had to admit making this stuff up was fun.

And thus, I put the demo away and started writing from the start – on 23.10.2015. For the next 15 months, my clueless meddling produced a massive pile of words (a rough drafts of the first two books to be at total ~470k words).

It was only in 2017, when I started this blog and started actually learning about writing. I guess that could be said as the beginning of me becoming a serious writer – at that point, I knew I’d like to finish what I began. Even though the first book entered beta stage in 2018 – after three years – I knew giving up would be harder than it was to start.

Since then, I’ve forged some connections, maybe even friendships, with other writers. I went through times of being stuck, about times feeling hope, about times feeling joy from giving my dream a try. I’m thankful to everyone who gave me a nudge when I was stuck, or who shares their experience to guide others like me. And I try to find a way to eventually do the same.

And so I am here…