Wait! I Wrote That?

Legacy | A History of My Writing

Song: "Kids" - Ben Rector

        I never knew I was meant to be a writer. I never knew I would spend my coming-of-age years writing stories one after another. I never knew I would be a Featured author on Wattpad twelve years after turning ten. Thinking back to those early years, I now know the history behind my journey and how I became Viktoria Fyodorova.

My early days were slow because I only had a few friends. However, I always had an enormous imagination. It showed when I would have friends over, and we would play acting games together. Since I was a shy child, I spent a lot of time creating stories, starting with my stuffed animals and then moving into acting. As a little girl, people considered me "odd", because I always avoided crowds and played acting games off to the side. Nevertheless, I did not know these were early signs of who I would grow up to be.

In 3rd grade, I wrote my first short story, Lilly and the Three Puppies. It was based on one of my favorite Disney Princess games for the GameBoy Advanced, Royal Adventure, and was an assignment for my class. Our teacher wanted us to exercise and improve our writing abilities, so she asked us to write a short story.

Even after I wrote Lilly and the Three Puppies, I still had yet to feel the spark with writing. That changed a little later in the year when I started writing Pokémon comics. Pokémon was my past, present, and future during my childhood. A lot of games I played with my stuffed animals were Pokémon games. I never knew how far comic writing could go until I reached 4th grade.

I remember it perfectly. Mom picked me up from school one day and took me to a hairstylist so she could get her hair done. I sat in the lobby, with my legs waving back and forth under me, extremely bored. Finally fed up, I went to Mom and repeatedly annoyed her by tapping her shoulder.

"I'm bored," I complained in that soft, high-pitched, ten-year-old voice.

Mom pushed my hand away. "Why don't you write something in your school journal?"

I considered her words. I had nothing else to do, so why not? I went out to the parking lot and approached the gray minivan. With the sun's rays warming my back, I pulled out my school notebook. I took it into the barber shop and returned to the chair in the lobby. With my pencil and notebook, I started writing my first official story—a Pokémon fanfic called Mystery of Time and Space.

I don't know what happened that day. Something triggered my creative writing genes. Was it the plot I came up with? The characters? I don't know.

I continued Mystery of Time and Space through the rest of 4th grade and into early 5th grade. My 4th grade teacher, Mrs. Gower, was impressed to see me writing every day after the Barber Shop Incident. By the time I finished the story, it was ninety-six pages long. From that day forward, my writing career kicked off.

Dad got me my first notebook in 5th grade. With it, I started my first series, Maglin Arts High, which was ninety stories. 5th grade was when I began to read my stories to my dad. All my iconic characters were born, including John the Red-Crowned Crane, Prince Benjamin, and Anthony Mateo Brook (The Green Guardian). His original name was Jack.

Aside from Maglin Arts High, I wrote Star Wars and Pokémon fanfiction, including horrible crossovers, in that first notebook. It wasn't until 6th grade that I moved away from fanfiction and focused thoroughly on the Maglin Arts High series. They continued into 7th grade.

In that gap, I started creating PowerPoint presentations to keep up with each story and add playlists since I had just gotten my first iPod. I also designed my first Fantasy maps: one for Pinta Country (Maglin Arts High's location) and Loonier Country (the country where John the Red-Crowned Crane came from). Fun fact: Pinta Country was initially called Cantaloupe Kingdom, but I changed it in middle school.