Writing Update #2 – Roots and Decisions (August 2025)

Welcome to writing update #2, and I’m so glad this is becoming a true series now! This update is an important one because its existence proves that I’m slowly but steadily forming some sort of a routine. Well, maybe it’s too early to call it that, but at least I’m moving in the right direction towards making writing an important part of my life again (after many years). With the risk of repeating myself, I need to express again how strange it is to believe this dream can be real.  It may sound like I’m a bit dramatic or like this isn’t a big deal, but it really is one of those feelings – imagine something you have been stretching and reaching out for can finally be within your grasp. It might be useful to give you some backstory before I provide a more concrete update on my present writing journey. In this way, you might be better able to imagine the relief and disbelief that I’m talking about. I promise it’s not a sob story.

My passion for writing has some long roots going all the way back to middle school, and even 2000 km away back to Bulgaria (where I’m from). Around the age of 13, I had to take some important exams to enter high school, one of which was in Bulgarian language and literature. Although it was really a “pain in the neck”, every Saturday I had to attend special courses preparing me for these exams. Back at that time, I wasn’t very interested in literature, writing essays, and studying those figures of speech, tropes, oxymorons, alliterations, and what have you. But the teacher from this course was so good at explaining the ideas behind every literary piece of work and analyzing every feeling and concept that I was inspired. An interest started forming in me – an interest towards creative ideas, expression, and writing. At the age of 13, I cannot be 100% sure what the trigger was. I have always been fond of fairytales and bedtime stories since I was a kid. I was a quick learner, having learned to read at 5.  Something had awakened in me unexpectedly. In the summer of that same year, after all exams were behind me, I wrote my first story (a love story). It feels very cringe reading it now, but for that time, it meant something, and it started it all.

My interest in writing only developed further. I started reading all kinds of genres (Shakespeare plays, classical literature, Austen books, fantasy, etc.) All this, until I formed my love for the crime and detective genre. By the time I was 18, I had written several smaller pieces (some more love and fantasy stories), but also developed a detective duo and completed first drafts of two detective novels. I had invented all the lore and crime cases, and those characters were my imaginary friends, evolving as I grew up. I used to sit at least once or twice a month on a Saturday, put my headphones on, and write a chapter or two. These were the carefree days, though, where the only responsibility I had was studying and getting good grades. Naturally, everything changed once I graduated from high school.

This writing habit was not enough to become a career that would sustain me and pay the bills. I needed to become a real adult with a stable job because reality is what it is. The trade-off was quite clear from the start – I went to study law in the Netherlands, and writing would remain just a hobby, or more of a rare luxury for when I have some time. I remember how I had promised myself that I would graduate from law school and then earn a lot of money to just be a writer one day. Of course, I had not factored in all the changes you go through during that time when you’re forming as an adult and facing real life without the safe shelter of childhood.

Long story short, I had tried to keep up with writing on the side of my studies, but by the time I graduated, there was nothing left of that original childhood habit. I was also a different person entirely, living in a completely different world (also considering the different country). Truth be told, I had given up on writing after my university graduation. I got a corporate job; there was no time for it, the vibe of my daily routine could not match it, and I could not reconnect with that writing teenage girl from Bulgaria. I had made peace with it; a sacrifice I had made at 19 to become what I am now (which is not bad at all, I must say). But the creativity and writing affinity (if I can call it that) just kept creeping up, lingering beyond the surface, showing up in my legal writing or even in trivial birthday card wishes, because nothing could subdue it.

We’re coming back to the present, bear with me. Earlier this year, 10 years after I had first created my detective duo, I had an enlightenment, some sort of awakening. It was during one of our late-night conversations with my husband about anything and everything, where the next day, you felt like you were hungover at work. I just realized that I would regret it terribly if I never gave a new chance at writing. Even if it never amounted to anything – like being a published author or making the New York Best Seller list – it would still be worth it. It would lead the path back to myself and my deepest desires while defining my tomorrow. I spent the next several months between February and June 2025 developing a writing revival project/plan (of which I cannot tell you much, but hopefully you will see it unfold gradually). I knew reviving my writing side wouldn’t be easy – especially not after years of disbelief and doubt. I would need to start it all from scratch, figure it out anew, as if I had never written before. Because I am simply a different person now, and I cannot go back to the past. This is exactly where the present writing update ties in because it sets the tone for something new and stems from all said above.

There wasn’t much progress in the past 3 weeks in terms of written content; in fact, not a single word was written. But something has been baking, and not only the above banana chocolate bread. I have had to make some tricky decisions (unfortunately cannot divulge details). These decisions felt almost impossible because there was just no perfect one. They all had trade-offs. But we came out on the other side, and hopefully it will be for the best. In practical terms, I have managed to carve out some additional writing time, which will be exclusively and only reserved for realizing this writing dream. I had never imagined that it would be so difficult. It felt like a struggle for a lost cause at some point. I was mad at myself – why couldn’t I just simply sit and write, even for 1 hour per day or just 15 minutes? But it doesn’t come so easily (especially to a repressed creative like yours truly). Things that are worth it are never easy, they say. But now it feels like such a relief – sinking into this idea that I can just kick off this “writing revival project”. I do realize it was mostly my own doubts holding me back from it, but every endeavor needs an investment of resources. For my writing, the most important resource is time, and I have just managed to procure some extra time. So let this be the first step to conquering this leviathan. I baked the banana chocolate bread in the picture to commemorate this moment – the discovery of my new writing persona.

Hopefully, the next writing update will have something more concrete in terms of progress, but I want to savor these moments of rediscovery, for they will never repeat themselves. How did you start writing? Have you encountered similar doubts or struggles with reality like the above-described? As always, feel free to let me know if you can relate (or not).

Until next time,

D.D.N.