I'm really unsure about getting started when it comes to writing given that I haven't really written creatively for fun my entire life. Only really for School and university assignments. I just feel generally apprehensive about it but would like to actually make some creative profiles for my pets and make my stuff on subeta look spiffy and fun.

Art for me has always been drawings so I feel a bit lost when it comes to creative writing. I have also felt inclined to create a comic one day and have the basis of a story that I'm unable to do anything with given my general lack of experience. I brainstorm but that's all really. Look forward to hearing some advice if anyone has any to share.

I started NaNoWriMo last year, just writing very short vignettes in my created universe. It could be a sentence or a paragraph, just something to get an idea started.

I wrote about 17 of them before the 17th one took on a life of its own, and ever since then, I've added a little more to it each day.

Even a sentence is something,

Why not draw something and then write a sentence or two about what you think is happening. Maybe someone on a beach relaxing is really waiting for a sea monster to show up.

Ill try to take a look at that when I find some time. Taking a rest day because my fiance dragged in a sinus infection from a coworker and lovingly gifted it to me 😭

Hopefully my brain will be up for some creative thinking by this weekend at the latest.

By the way this sound eerily similar to something I was mentally drafting for my pet spoondrift 😳

I have a couple of tips as someone who wrote professionally for a while!

1. Much like art, your writing will improve if you understand the fundamentals. Instead of anatomy, it's grammar. Instead of lighting, it's adverbs. Most of us understand language structure in a conversational sense, but speaking a language and making it easy to parse on a visual level are different skills. It helps to set aside time to read a little each day. There are a lot of free resources online where you can read classic novellas and short stories. It might sound a bit boring, but immersing yourself can help develop your understanding of how the written word should flow.

2. Don't be self-conscious. The truth is, everything EVERYONE writes is bad to start with. Nobody has a good first draft. If you're inexperienced, that just means you'll need to perfect a couple more drafts than everyone else. :) There are a lot of writing subreddits and similar forums where you can get feedback on your work from unbiased third parties. Of course, every critique isn't valid, but getting hit with a criticism shotgun can help when you're still trying to find your style.

3. Starting in someone else's universe is a good way to build up the mental muscle to create your own. If you're hurting for ideas, you could always write fanfiction or do what Saturnine suggested and use a image you've drawn as the prompt for a paragraph or two. There are also a lot of free writing prompt calendars and apps that will give you a starting spot for daily practice. These are usually short, one-sentence things like "write a new ending for the last movie you watched" or "write what you would do if you went to NYC with $5000".

Sorry for the wall o' text, but I hope it was helpful! Good luck!

Coming in late, but I agree with AnaSolidor about reading! It helps you build your vocabulary, and helps you internalize sentence structure, and to work out what you do and do not like about certain kinds of writing!

I think it's important to start writing in a similar way to how you start drawing, tbh. You don't necessarily jump into painting a massive canvas, you have to start small - with sketches and warm-ups! I would try to set aside fifteen minutes a day, and maybe just write about something that happened to you that day, in 2-3 sentences, from a third-person perspective, for example:

.

It looks silly, but if you start with a warm-up like that, just talking about your own day without the pressure of making it a narrative, you start to loosen up a little because there's no stakes! You can start to see things like: man, those sentences are kinda stumpy! Or maybe you realize you could've added a little more detail about how early it was, or maybe how bright it was, when you got out of bed! I think of it as like the circles you might draw to warm-up your muscles and loosen your arm before you draw.

Once you've gotten used to that, I would start looking up prompt lists - there's some really great writing prompts over on tumblr! You can find something as small as a single-word prompt, or something bigger like a story prompt. Just start with a few sentences at first, and gradually work your way up. Maybe you even decide instead of doing a new prompt daily, you add a few sentences to the prompt the day before! The key here is to begin building a habit of thinking about writing daily.

Another thing I like to do, even with 20+ years of fiction-writing experience, is to jot down notes while I'm reading a book. If I like a new word the author used that I haven't seen before, or a particular character description, or the way a sentence sounds in my head or out loud - I write it down. Eventually I find those words and those sentence structures creeping into my own writing, and it really helps you develop a sense of style and aesthetic in your writing!

OH and one last tip, before I conclude my own wall of text - read your writing out loud, if you can. It's a great way to see if a sentence or a paragraph sounds good or sounds how you want it. If I'm stuck on a bit of writing I'll go back a little bit and start reading out loud, and often I've got a weird sentence somewhere gumming up the works.

If you ever want to share your writing or get specific feedback or tips, feel free to shoot me a message! I LOVE to write and to talk about writing, and would absolutely enjoy seeing what you come up with!

EDIT:

I wanted to add too, that if your goal is to be able to write/storyboard comics one day, I would use your morning three-sentence warm-up to start practicing that skill as well! You can translate your morning sentences into a little three-panel comic. I made one to show how you can pair them, but please understand. lmao I'm a writer and not any kind of visual art person. I left space to write the sentence next to the panel, so you can start tracking how you're storyboarding your ideas/writing.

Maybe doing the two warm-ups together can link your writing brain and your drawing brain in a way that feels comfortable and teaches you how to mesh them? This is just me taking a guess here lol my partner draws but I -- well you see the stick figures up above!