#please feel free to reblog this and 1. critique these hilarious poems and 2. tell me YOUR writing story!!!

[jamesunderwater]

Tell me about your writing history! Is this your first fandom? Had you ever written anything else before? Maybe embarrassing poetry or a diary?

Wow this ask had me pulling out my old hard drive to look at the oldest writings I could find I actually went into my old boxes and found the one remaining notebook from pre-college, as well. So this turned into a VERY fun adventure xD Thank you for sending this, Anna!

So my journey into writing is really intertwined with my love for HP. I'd definitely say it was my first fandom, and it's absolutely been my most long-lasting one. I was very into Supernatural in middle school as well (it had just come out), but nothing captured me like HP, and eventually, the Marauders. I remember writing a story when I was like 9 for this monthly contest we had in school, and I specifically said to myself, "I'm going to write this in the style that JKR uses," and because of that, I was SURE I was going to win the contest. I even remember using "he said, matter-of-factly" in the story, because I'd looked up what that meant when reading HP (about Hermione, of course) and thought it was just next-level writing. I did actually win the contest that month, too! xD So I would say I really started getting into writing and enjoying it because the Harry Potter books made me fall so in love with reading.

So jump ahead to early middle school, around 11 years old, I'm on fucking Neopets, and I discover a roleplaying forum. And a thread seeking someone to play James at the Yule Ball......and thus, my Highest Self was born. 😆 It felt like I'd discovered a whole new world where I could really be myself and do the things I loved with other people who loved it, too. So I started roleplaying (on myspace lmao), mostly as Sirius or James and eventually also Dean Winchester. I discovered ff.net and hpff, and wrote some stories, but mostly I really loved interacting with other writers through rping.

Most of what I wrote outside of rp was either poetry or short stories, and most of it was really dark, cause my life in general was really dark. In college I took a poetry writing course and a fiction writing course and fucking loved them both, but I didn't end up going any further in those courses. I roleplayed off and on throughout my 20s, wrote poetry off and on, little fics and drabbles here and there. Came up with ideas for books I never wrote. So really, what I'm doing right now with Dead to Me is the most "serious" I've been about a multi-chapter story before, unless you count the ongoing stories I technically wrote as a roleplayer. Like, I know I'm actually going to finish this one, whereas so often in the past I just let things fall away (thank you, adhd).

As for old writing/embarrassing stuff - the oldest fandom thing I found was actually a short wolfstar fic I wrote in 2011 that made me smile so much! I might post it. 😊 Which is so funny because I don't even remember writing it. I did easily find some embarrassing poetry, though. I picked one out from my hard drive from 2011 before I found my old notebook from high school, so congrats, you get two embarrassing poems for the price of one. Under the cut, cause geez, I've already talked a lot xD

From my first year in college...feast your eyes on a gross poem about my first real boyfriend, who was (shocker) an absolute asshole:

It’s your back, the way your skin crawls across it like caterpillars stretching tight while you blanket over me.

It’s your hair, those thick tendrils of brown leaves falling over me like autumn when it starts and it feels like the sky is falling.

It’s your laugh, that low baritone. That tuba in the brass section that gets all the attention and earns glares from the girls in football stands that can’t hear over them, but I become a puddle to that sound.

You are a warm blanket in an ice locker – relief.

Watching you live is like videotaping a child’s first years. Their first giggles that grace the world, first few steps and words and birthdays, bed time stories and grandparents’ laps. All in all, true happiness.

You are all the reasons in the world to smile, and so I am.

Andddd from my first year in high school, please enjoy this poem about having your heartbroken by someone on the internet:

You were like a magnet I, a piece of metal could do nothing but give into gravity and fall into your hesitant arms

I couldn't trust you to catch me

When I came crawling back you made me swear never to leave again I made the vow sealed myself in an envelope that never made it to Ohio

You refused to open me up I just begged and pleaded for your love

In the end the magnet will pull away and leave me a useless piece of rust Too drained to give up Too defeated to get up

When you left, so did all my hope

You wonder why I take the lead You wonder why I always leave the first time

Real talk, I actually MUCH prefer the second poem. Maybe it's because I still remember lines from it to this day, or because the idea of writing a lovey poem to an asshole is more cringey than writing a heartbreak poem in general, but.... I don't hate those last two lines 😆