Behind the Scenes

My Writing Journey

Hey, guys! Ahsoka, here. Or 'Soka or Snips, or whatever you wanna call me. I think someone called me Ashla once too. Literally any of Ahsoka Tano's names, lol. 

Anyways, I had this idea of making a Behind the Scenes footage book, and a few of you liked this idea as well. I thought this would also be a good place to let you guys see the real me. I noticed that I don't have any books were I can vent or give you insight on who is behind the pen name, so expect some of that. 

I would like to start this off by telling you my writing journey. It's not that long, I promise.

My earliest memory of writing was when I was too young to even spell. I don't think I was in school yet because I only  knew how to spell words like "and," "the," "a," and "I." I had this notebook with a foam cover with a foam fish on it. Inside were lines to write on. One day I decided to write a book in it. So I tried. For the words I couldn't spell, I drew tiny pictures. It took up less than one page and it was a simple story that you would find in a My First Reader book. But three or four-year-old me was proud of it until I shoved it inside a desk drawer and forgot about it. 

Ever since I learned how, I loved reading and books. I remember how proud I was of myself when I finished my first chapter book, which was Magic Treehouse. 

When I started homeschooling in second grade, my mom taught me English as well as my other subjects. I hated English. We used an outdated English book and I didn't know what the exercises were teaching me. I remember my mom telling me it was time to do English and I suddenly burst into tears. I hated it that much. 

That was probably the moment when my mom decided to enroll me in an English homeschool class next year where I would meet with other homeschoolers and be taught by a teacher. It was like public school except it was one subject and meeting once a week. In fifth grade, I joined the class. I've had the same teacher for seven years now. She taught English to me in a way that I understood and enjoyed. It is now my favorite subject. Sadly, I won't have her as my teacher for the next and my last school year. 

While I didn't decide right away, I kept the option of becoming an author open after attending IEW, which is what the English class is called. It was probably around the time I started writing fanfiction when I chose to pursue writing as a career. 

It was probably late 2016 or early 2017 when I discovered fanfiction. Before I even knew it was a thing, I was suffering from dramatic ideas in my head that kept me awake. I was into The Clone Wars at the time and would imagine scenarios of Ahsoka Tano, my favorite character, getting hurt or taken or missing and her Master, Anakin Skywalker, freaking out about her. I would get so anxious about the intense story in my head, I would consciously dream about what would happen next, still awake and not fully asleep. 

But my mind was too fluid for those ideas to become solid. They floated around, mixing with other ideas, and changing. It was very frustrating that it was all stuck in my head. I don't exactly remember how I found fanfiction, but I know it was throw scrolling on Pinterest. It took me to Wattpad.

I remember feeling such relief that I wasn't the only person who had thought of "what if?" scenarios with my favorite characters from my favorite show. I quickly got my parents permission to download the app and immediately started writing He Returned for Me. Looking back on it, I hate the title and I can't read the story without cringing, but I was proud of it at the time and now it has over 37.6 thousand reads. It doesn't even have a proper cover.

Despite being able to edit my awful writing, I decided to leave it to see how far I've grown as a writer. Now I can write well enough to actually enjoy what I have written as a reader. I've expanded my palette from Star Wars and torturing Padawans to the fandoms and writing more emotion, depth, internal thoughts, character development, and leaving whump as a trial and not the plot. 

As well as writing fanfiction on Wattpad, I have expanded to writing my own original works. I took a summer creative writing class in 2018 where I was instructed on how to create a blog. I still update it to this day with original short stories, poems, book reviews, and essays. I also have begun writing my own books that I hope to publish one day (though I never really get past the plotting process and chapter one's first draft). 

So that's where I am now. I'm ver proud of how far I've grown in the past three years. I'm so thankful to my parents and teachers for investing in my talent and passion and I'm even more grateful to my Creator for giving me this skill.