I wrote a book when I was 15. It sucked.

[@socman002]

I think, our first writing journies ever are still the best. No concern of marketing. No worries about audience feedback. Just good old-fashioned, delusional imagination, in a world where we have complete control and we are the boss.

[@Jed_Herne]

Absolutely

[@canaisyoung3601]

Why did you have to open old wounds? That was me from fifth grade to senior year of high school. Then I got to college and suffered creative burnout when I majored in TV and film writing (which is a different ballgame than novel writing, but I do want to expand my horizons). After two years of Job Corps and getting a steady, safety net job at UPS (as well as seeing how entertainment has changed for better and worse), I've decided to get back on the saddle and try to write like I did as a kid, only a bit more polished. I know I can do it.

[@Iso20227]

I’m already very attached to my first book “the Mage”. I haven’t published it yet, but I definitely plan to. I plan to write, learn, rewrite, learn, revise, learn, revise, publish. That’s my plan.

[@_zenith_139]

I too have a similar plan for a book of mine. I've been trying to write it since 2019 but I procrastinated way too much. Hopefully I can get it done before February 29, 2028.🙏

[@GleamDrawz]

@@_zenith_139 you can do it my friend, I believe in you.

[@matterhon-ua]

We believe in you! Although, maybe you need to rethink the name. "The Mage" seems kind of generic and it's got to already be taken, so watch out for that.

[@deckardcanine]

I like the rare occasions that pros talk about their early duds. It gives hope to amateurs.

[@m.j.johnsonbooks7856]

Sounds like Aeon Academy did let you discover your magic and get whisked into a world of wonder that you’ll have for the rest of your life.

[@Jed_Herne]

Absolutely

[@SkyeSummers-popforpop]

"as soon as you think you know everything about a subject, it's impossible for you to learn anything more." truer words have never been spoken

[@trilobite3120]

True for any subject.

[@SkyeSummers-popforpop]

@@trilobite3120 totally!

[@umwha6271]

All one take. Bravo.

[@Jed_Herne]

Cheers, thought I would try something different to push myself with this one

[@cameronmurray5973]

I'm 15 years old. I'm currently finishing up the first draft for the second full length novel I've ever wrote. The first one was completely devoid of plot or character development, I just wanted to build a cool world and make jokes. I think I've managed to do a better job this time, but I guess we'll find out in six months or so: I plan to submit it to publishers or something after I've finished editing it during the school holidays. I don't know why I'm writing this comment- maybe to manifest, maybe to beg for help from older, better writers. I appreciate your videos by the way man, they're teaching me a lot.

[@mindset4028]

Have you finished your novel?

[@FromKhaos26]

It's fun to look back on your previous writing, especially those written in your younger days. I recently found an old notebook where I had written an entire novel by longhand called "Skateboarding is Life". I started reading it and realized I had essentially copied the storyline of Tony Hawk Underground, a video game.

[@midnightbloomofeorzea7182]

My first book (though it was only a few chapters, never finished) was basically Kingdom Hearts without the Disney.

[@jsummer8974]

Bro wrote My Hero Academia when he was 15 and didn’t even know it smh 😔

[@poetofthestreets]

My first books sucked. I was just a teenager, what did I know about storytelling? This is where the seeds were sown, the tests were put forward. The essential phase for any writer. I would love to come back to those stories someday, when I’m much, much older.

[@alexmcgilvery3878]

I have a couple of books I wrote when I was 14. I keep them around to keep me humble. A few people read it, and reactions were....polite.

[@Fire.Turtle]

this video is honestly what i needed. i'm a young writer, and i've been working on my first novel for years. it's amazing, but i feel like i am constantly rewriting and second guessing my plot and editing over and over again. i really appreciate this video and i plan on using the tips you've given. thank you.

[@Jed_Herne]

Keep writing!

[@TomorrowWeLive]

Well at least you finished it lol. Teenage me never got past the (multiple) prologue(s) and first chapter...

[@acompletelynormalhuman6392]

13:38 if you decide you learned everything you can learn about a subject, then you are correct that is all you'll learn. but not all that could be known

[@ChimanaBendor]

I started a book when I was 11 and finished when I was 17. It also sucked :D threw in all genres I loved, what a mess

[@daydariftwalker]

I started my current book when I was 11 too! I wrote the first draft-literally made it up as I went along- over the course of a year and finally rewrote it completely last winter! I’m working on editing it now…

[@sarahsander785]

I started my first novel somewhere around fith grade, I think. It was about my guniea pigs going on a journey through space and time, visiting places like the American coast in the creataciaous, the great plains and Antarctica (this is where the story broke apart, I had no idea what they should do there *lol*). It was an attempt to capture the magic of "Around the World in 80 Days", my passion for dinosaurs and my newly forming interest in history. A bit later, probably around the age of thirteen I started writing somewhat of fanfiction about an action game called "Lionheart", which was too hard for me to finish. So I took the basic story, which was written out in the manual, combined it with my experiences in the game and what I thought would be the finale of it all. This story took on a life of it's own in the upcoming ten years, growing, leading me away from the source material, combining more and more influences and becoming somewhat original - yet not good. But I love it to this day and now, over twenty years later, I'm going to edit it into something that will work as an engaging story, not only for myself. I even did seek critique as a teenager, because I wanted the story to suceed even at an early age. The problem is, that lots of people I asked wanted to be nice - because I was young. Finding good critique partners can be pretty hard at a young age especially. Other than that, I fully agree with you on all parts. Oh, and I think I will never pick up the guinea pig story, but I kept the idea. Just in case.

[@oz_jones]

Sounds fun and interesting!

[@Aurora-nt3yk]

I started writing and finished my first book at 12/13. Now I'm sixteen and I've got I'd say 17 books (4 series in total) 6 of which... don't suck! I plan to continue my journey as a writer and focus on the joy, rewrite them over the time of my life and eventually, I'll be old enough to publish something... I will say... even my books from 14 STILL suck, but I cherish the stories behind them and plan on re-writing them. I write separate books on the computer, and get feedback from my whole family. It's a win-win.

[@AlokKumar-wv4bd]

How much did you make?

[@sethlowen2303]

I started writing my first book when I was ten. I finished it senior year of high school. It took forever to change and refine it before it was ready to publish, but it eventually became my first published novel.

[@beccamaroney3782]

Thanks so much Jed. I'm glad I'm not the only one who's guilty of perfectionism. I've been unwittingly sucking the joy out of things to achieve goals. I'm 19. I do tend to be the doubting type. What you said in the video, is what my mum has been essentially telling me all along. Speaking of writing, I'm thinking of doing a traditional-graphic hybrid, which has both writing and pictures.

[@aussiejed1]

Just replying to the video title (yet to watch): I wrote a book at 15 too! It drew heavily from The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant by Stephen R. Donaldson, which I'd been reading at the time. It also sucked. I'm very sad to not know where it is now. I wrote it on a typewriter (showing my age) and it disappeared some years ago, somewhere between leaving home and multiple house moves. I wish I had taken more care of it.

[@ctaylorcaldwell]

I loved Sky High! So nice to hear it get a mention. Great video as always. Really interesting to hear about your (very) early days as a writer.

[@Jed_Herne]

Its an awesome film

[@trilobite3120]

I feel like I am currently in this sort of situation with my current series. But the thing is I started out just creating a bunch of characters and vague ideas that I hoped to turn into a book or animated series. It came to a point where I did nothing but make far too many characters and do nothing with them, so I decided to finally actually work on the first book. I planned it to be my main series, my Wings of fire or Percy Jackson if you will, and I don't want to abandon or let this story go just because I started it prematurely, before I had the ability to do it properly. I don't want it to be just another stepping stone, and I already had a bunch of other mangled scraps of stories so I thought I had enough experience to finally make something big and notable.

[@daydariftwalker]

I’d try making an outline of your story first. I end up abandoning a lot of stories that I get tired of after 2-3 days so the traditional outlining method Doesnt work for me, but the method that does work is to write down everything that happens in the scene in prose form in chronological order. One scene could end up being a sentence long or 2 pages long it doesn’t matter I’ll rewrite it later. This lets me get the idea on page so I can look at it better. I also try looking at what each individual main character does throughout the story to see if they change or if they’re too passive. Hope this helps

[@trilobite3120]

@@daydariftwalker Thanks but it's not scene specific. It's how engaging the plot is, the characters wants and fears, their development and so forth. Outlining it would still help me think out problems.

[@BartimaeusAurelius]

A bit late here, my apologies. I started writing a story when I was a young teen and I just forgot about it and didn't get past the first chapter. It's been a long journey, I'm 31 now and I'm picking up the pen again and setting out to complete what I had started so many years ago. Not the same story but that's how a good story works, it never ends the way you expected it when you first started.

[@PatriotPups-PP51]

Thank you so much for the encouragement! I am sixteen, working on my first fantasy book. I listen to your videos while working on it!❤😊

[@81dnomyar]

Bro, me too! I wrote one when I was 13. My sister writes, and we did nanowrimo. I just wrote 2 hours a day in the morning, and it was fun! The book is not great 😂 I did get amazing grades in my English classes, though

[@TrentonBreske-dd2ln]

When I started my 3rd story ever, (the first was only 5 somewhat large pages, and the second was unfortunately lost to time) I had no idea what I was doing. I'm now in the twelth chapter, and I have comepletely redone or removed or added entire portions of a chapter. For me the experience is not to finish the first draft and finish but to make it one draft that I am constantely improving on until it is as good as it will ever get. The original plot was so broken and messy because I never intended to finish it until I started Chapter 11. That story is now unfathomably better than it once was, though there is still so much to improve. Writing this story has improved my skills beyond what I had ever expected.

[@tylersmith9942]

Oddly enough, when i was also 15 i wrote. But i only wrote 3 chapters of a book. Never picked that story back up and im not sure why. But here i am some 10+ years later and im working on my first actual fantasy novel!

[@Evanski01]

I am truly loving your raw honesty in your videos Jed. This video was incredibly inspirational, seeing your journey from start to now, knowing you started where we all do. The best part was also the great reminder as to why we do this in the first place. Our wonderful fantasy imagination that drew us in to begin with. Love your work man!

[@Jed_Herne]

Thanks dude!

[@annametsapelto3870]

Lots of relatable things there. I started my first fantasy novel at the age of 13. Back then I though it was quite original but it was in fact heavily influenced by the books by David Eddings. But I wrote the first draft by hand in nine notebooks over about one year and then the second draft with a computer. I realised that it would be a long series so I wrote it onwards but in between wrote also other stories. I got some feedback and sent the manuscript to some publishers (we don't use agents here) but did not get published, fortunately, because it was not good enough. In any case, in my teens I wrote a lot and starting from the age of 17 got into the local fandom and writing community. In my 20's I had a longer break from creative writing because writing my master's thesis and having four children took too much time (I blame also World of Warcraft to some extent). Then at 30 I took up the old manuscript again and totally rewrote it. However, it is not easy to get the first part of a series published so it got rejected. Now I'm finishing a standalone novel that I hope will be the first one I publish. I have written a lot by now and learned many good lessons. I may still return to t´he first one I wrote but time will tell. For now I have some newer stories to tell.

[@NathaniaDemecillo]

I also wrote a book (had it self published) at 15 :D I'm older now and this video got recommended to me. God bless you, Sir :)

[@josephpetrossi5138]

Have you ever thought about rewriting the Avon academy and officially publishing it?

[@Jed_Herne]

It has been somewhat of a long-held fantasy to come back to The Aeon Academy one day and do it justice. I still have such a deep emotional relationship with that book, so maybe eventually ... we'll see :)

[@fatimarizvi8401]

I had been making stories since I was a child. Now I am 17 and I have completed my first draft. I love it and I hope to publish it one day (after editing). I watch your videos for guidance and they are really helpful. Thank you❤

[@eugenemurphy6037]

Loved this Jed! Thanks for encouraging us to finish our first books!

[@Jed_Herne]

You're welcome Eugene

[@luisdall5575]

Thanks for sharing Jed. Keep writing!

[@veronikabuglyo5456]

(I am a Hungarian writer, I translated this comment with Google Translate, but I hope it is understandable) I wrote my first novel when I was 12 years old. Every time I got home from elementary school, I sat down to write and left studying for the evening. I really liked to write and back then I didn't think about the structure of the story, the plot, the authenticity of the characters, I just wrote because I enjoyed it. Now I know that it is not so easy, but I try to keep this love for writing within me. I really liked your video, it gave me motivation for further writing and development. Thank you. :))

[@lapridagaspar]

I am writing my first book right now. I don't plan un publishing, it's just for my own joy, although I'm not embarrassed of showing it to whoever wants to read it. What I found is that writing is more like reading than I thought, in the sense that every day as I sat to write, the story kind of writes itself and I am just there, typing the words while at the same time I feel like I am discovering them, like any other reader. I am a thrilled to write as I am to read. To see where the story goes, where the characters take me.

[@edsonvieiraa]

I wish I had written a book when I was 15... But it's never too late, right? 😅

[@HappyBooks-jj6cl]

I have been writing since I was 8 years old, I have always wanted to write but all my books were private or sucked too bad, now 8 years later I am on what I think might finally be my first non-private book that could be published

[@ryancoulter4797]

My first attempt was Julia aka Lifeguard. A road movie novel with multiple levels of flashbacks. Eventually expanding it into five novels. But the whole thing went nowhere and eventually switched to completing my first actually completed novel.

[@zigaudrey]

I wrote a little Mario and Sonic book for myself. It sucked too! And also A4 length stories. That's okay! It gives you a starting point and being young helps with creativity. I wish to write without having rule or premise in mind and feel the joy of writing. I am taking it seriously.

[@anjaneytripathi69]

the thing about not getting too attached is... this is my dream story. its been on my mind for like 3 years now. every single day. i have to get this thing right, even if its my first.

[@thecrownedchaos]

I love looking at my old Stories Right now I am replanning and rewriting my very first bigger writing project from over 13 years ago Its my „confort project“ that made me start loving to write I know that I will probably never publish this story. But rewriting it right now makes me happy. Sounds stupid but I missed the characters 😂

[@ernestkyere279]

I feel like I have the same challenge. I would like to have feedbacks on my book I am working on but most I know have no interest in writing nor reading novels. It’s quite of sad and tough

[@justin2308]

One of my first-ever original stories was called The Prairie Mermaid, and…yeah, no. It was a very poor attempt at combining two TV shows I watched as a teen- H2O and reruns of Little House on the Prairie- into one story. Among all of the bad aspects, the ones that still bother me to this day are: My shameless self-insert (brother of the love interest), it was a romance that made Twilight look good, and the fact that I couldn’t think of a better 19th century occupation for the FL’s dad than a GUNSMITH. The worst part: I almost wrote a sequel.

[@Jed_Herne]

Something is always better than nothing

[@Seiaeka]

I started writing something back when I was 13, but I started it as a comic. I discovered my love for writing when I was in my final year of high school when our teacher gave us our final assignment in english class; write two pages, double-spaced, about anything we want. I got 100% on that assignment when I submitted 16 pages of my story that was once a series of terrible disjoined comic pages and character drawings. The teacher returned it to me and said, "If you keep writing like this you could be the next JK Rowling." I had only just started reading HP the month before that when the 3rd book came out and my mum picked them up on a whim. I think that statement from my teacher changed my entire life. I have since dropped that story, but I keep it to remember where I came from. I have been writing something else since 2008 when I did my first NaNoWriMo. I think this is the final version and I hope to get it out to people soon. I'm really proud of where my writing is now and how far I've come in my journey.

[@tubby1366]

I wrote 2 when I was 12 and 13 it was alright at the time so I wouldn’t say that your story sucked you were just discovering what worked for you at the time I often think about rewriting those older stories I finished

[@thesmashbeyonder5127]

I'm 15 and still re-reading my fanfiction from 1 year ago. It makes me feel bittersweet. On the one hand, I enjoyed writing it, but on the other hand, that wasn't good enough. My dumb and idiotic delusions prevented it from unleashing its full potential making one of the worst things I've ever read, and I still make mistakes with writing to this day, even though I should be learning from my mistakes and achieve perfection. I've genuinely never regretted anything so much. It was such a waste of time, and like I said, the worst part is the fact that I'm still so flawed.

[@TreyStation64]

So your book was My Hero Academia, but the protagonist had Uraraka's powers. xD

[@Jed_Herne]

I've never read/watched those so don't quite get the reference, but I've heard good things

[@TreyStation64]

@@Jed_Herne lol it was a joke, but I've gone through something similar with my writing.

[@lisoak6504]

So you basically wrote" My hero academia", when you were 15.

[@nathanmoshenek3495]

Lol

[@Naq-fy4oq]

I am 15 and writing novel. Im still learning how to write a better story

[@Michaelgnizak]

The first novel I finished a complete draft of was a Star Wars novel.

[@rayzcom13]

wow your idea is almost similar as mine but have a lot different

[@husseinhassan6750]

Jed would you ever want to do Traditional publishing?

[@Jed_Herne]

I did with Siege of Treboulain - definite pros to it, and definite cons as well

[@Tora-no-shi]

People I know refuse to read my writing. I ask them and they say sure, but they never do it.

[@Ifartinmysleepacc2]

What triggered my love for writing was when so was 6… I told a story to my sister and it lasted 2 hours

[@Cristian_that_artist]

Did you attend college? And if so what degree did you pursue

[@Uhhhi-ih8bb]

Ooh hey im 15!

[@rolandbecks4022]

Great story, my first story was basicaly Alice in Wonderland, just used a boy., and some dragons..hahaha.

[@ajschlang4476]

How in god’s green earth do you only have 50k subs?

[@kmig42]

idk HOWWW?

[@anjaneytripathi69]

writing is pretty niche nowadays

[@ilovebeinagirl]

Nothing is wrong with the premise of "Aeon Academy"! I'm not sure if you know this but "Friday the 13th" was literally created as a knockoff of "Halloween" after its success. They made no bones about it; they just wanted to make some money, "Halloween" did well, and they just followed the exact format.

[@supermariocal8660]

Bro wrote My Hero Academia

[@John14.6OuO]

Very helpful Btw off topic but important👇 God LOVED YOU so MUCH that He sent His only son to die in YOUR PLACE so you won't have to die under Gods judgement but live forever IF you fully trust in Jesus, now that he's risen. Please repent from thinking wickedness 🙏🙏🙏

[@cookieskills5521]

I love finding other christians in Radom comment sections. keep it up I guess!

[@pjolex5896]

its Probably better than, 99% of the shit Hollywood writes nowadays

[@hannahl.4494]

Why aren't you wearing pants, my dude? 2020 zoom times are over^^

[@evilgenius97]

Im 99% sure no one around me is willing to read what i have. Art everyone likes, takes 3 seconds for them.