That is to say, I’ve spent a lot of my adult life sort of secretly wishing I could write fiction, but based on exactly zero attempts to do so, fully assumed that I could not. I’ve loved stories since I was little and have written plenty about things that have happened in my own life, but I’ve never actually tried to make up a new one. As my reading tastes evolved, I became increasingly overwhelmed by the idea of creating characters out of thin air, building an entire plot, and somehow keeping track of all the reveals, tiny details, and occasionally an entire magic system. Fiction writers have occupied the very top tier of my “How on earth do people do this?” list for years.

Last week, I was listening to a podcast interview with an author I like. He said something that made my mind wander, and suddenly I had my first ever actual idea for a fiction story! I sat down at my laptop that night and just played around with it. Then I came back to it the next day, and the next. (Not the day after that though. That day was a total shitshow.) But now it’s today and I’m back at it again.

The thought that initially launched this frenzy of keyboard surfing has evolved so completely that the original idea is basically untouched, but maybe that’s exactly how fiction writing works. I can’t be sure because this is actually my first rodeo. For the last several days, I’ve played around with creating a fictional world and characters, and it has been strange and magical and unexpected and the most fun I can remember having that didn’t involve a plane ticket or snacks. One minute I’m drawing a map of a town I just made up like a cartographer with extremely limited talent and the next I’m writing things like “the forest knows” on index cards, as if future Nikki will have any idea what that was about.

While this absurd little writing exercise may never amount to more than a pile of mysterious notes, it feels like one of the most worthwhile ways to spend time that I can imagine. And it doesn’t even cost any money! I could kick my past self in the shins for not trying sooner. Maybe I avoided fiction because I wasn’t ready for it yet. Maybe I just needed to hear that interview on that particular day. Or maybe, more likely, I was afraid I wouldn’t be any good at it, and it felt safer not to try than to try and fail. Whatever it was, I’m having fun, and I don’t even care about the outcome. Maybe I finish a story, maybe one day I write a whole book. Maybe I don’t. I’m just excited to keep playing with this little spark of an idea. And I’m excited to see if any more sparks come after that.