Power Hobbies #2: Growing Up with Writing

I have been on vacation at the Bulgarian Black Sea the last few weeks so I took some break from social media and from my blog, but here I am again with a bunch of new ideas. Just before the break, I held a mini game on my Instagram in which I was interested to hear about everyone’s favorite hobbies. The game was inspired by my friend’s cooking skills and seeing how great she does it, I felt like I wanted to know more about people’s efforts and their interests. Thus, “Power Hobbies” is now a rubric in my blog where I will write about interesting people and hobbies. I’m thankful to those that participated in the game and shared with me. That is why I will reward the winner with an article.

Today’s article is about Faith Victor, our winner, with whom we share a common hobby: writing. Faith admits that she was always curious as a kid and always asking questions. Her curious nature introduced her to the world of books and ever since she learned to read, she fell in love with the written words on the empty page. I can totally relate here and I feel pretty good that I am not the only kid who liked to stay up late reading fairy-tales or other stories and feeling engulfed in the imaginary world. Inspired by reading and even before she knew what it meant to be a real author, Faith started publishing her writings in her own way. She would design a book cover, write the stories and staple them together just like with real books. Until she was fifteen, she did it on her own without participating in a writing community. Only later she got introduced by a friend to Wattpad where she started sharing her works but also discovering new books to read.

I can say from my own experience with writing that being part of a community is not for everyone. Here, Faith makes a point that it was mostly her doing her thing, which is very relevant. Writing can be a solitary activity, although this phrase has become a cliché. It of course depends on the reason for writing. For me, when I started, I wrote because I wanted to find comfort in my writings and design a world I would have liked to live in. With such a reason, you can imagine that I didn’t particularly like to collaborate with anyone or have a specific niche and theme. Now that I am older and I have some control to design my life as I like it, I am much more interested to collaborate and share things in public rather than keep it to myself.

Well, enough about me and my comparisons. I have a hard time stopping myself from philosophizing since I find so much in common between me and another person, like Faith, who likes writing as much (if not more) as I do. Faith shares that two stories that she found on Wattpad and which really inspired her to write her own stories were “The Ghost Files” by Apryl Baker and “The Last She” by H. J. Nelson. She wanted someone to feel the same way reading her story like she felt reading “The Ghost Files”. Her story was first titled “Lucia” and later renamed to “The Chattel”. She is currently working on this book and even though she had doubts at some point, like all writers, she kept going. Her advice for writers facing a writer’s block is “don’t look at the dough and call the cake bad”. I can certainly learn from that since I myself haven’t yet figured out my relationship with my own 2/3-finished story. So, thanks for the advice, Faith!

Faith would love to chat with other fellow writers about writing and books, so don’t hesitate to follow her on Instagram under @diary_of_a_writer and see what she is up to. For me, our little chat about writing and simply getting to know her and her views on writing was refreshing. It made me feel like I’m not alone in my thoughts. I hope you like what I wrote, Faith, and we’ll keep in touch! Keep going with your great hobby!

All the best,

D. D.