A New Short Story

3/4/2025 - Creativity

I used to always write small fictional stories late at night, both as a hobby but also to help me fall asleep---as a strategy, it worked a lot better than scrolling social media. During the time when my writing activity peaked, it'd take one to three nights to finish a chapter, which would range from 2000 to 6000 words (this was why I was more scared of going over wordcount on the EE rather than meeting it, even before starting). I turned off the WiFi on my phone and relied on the built-in dictionary and thesaurus to help me write; I built lists of words I liked and their synonyms, and expanded playlists for different moods. That night, I barely wrote 200 words before blinking off into sleep. Success!

The next day, I was in orchestra, and there was some time after afterschool rehearsal where I was waiting for my parents to pick me up. As I was waiting in the orchestra room, I chatted with the two pianists, who were each composing their own original pieces. We described Colin's piece to be like the ending scene to an adventure anime---poignant, but hopeful. Meanwhile, Kian's song was inspired by the waves of the ocean, and was more romantic. We decided to play a game, where someone would narrate a story and Kian, who was on the piano at the time, would improvise some accompanying music inspired by the story. I used this chance to expand on my story from the last night, and I think what resulted was something timeless and beautiful. Someone was recording, but I didn't get a copy of the video.

LO5. Identify your own strengths and develop areas for personal growth.

After reading a few of my old works, I knew that my writing skills have decayed. Even though I knew more about English (thanks Mrs Dowling!), out of sheer lack of practice, I knew my current skills were worse. I wanted to re-learn my writing intuition though, and by practicing, even if only by writing 200 words, I began a journey back into writing.

I'm also really bad at making my own original plots, but in the orchestra classroom, when I was pushed to improvise a new story on the spot, I honestly think I did alright. All I had planned before was for the one scene, but the music guided me to expand on it and before I knew it, I had found the rest of the plot.