Under Pressure

I’m not one for New Year’s resolutions, but in January 2026, I wrote a list of things I wanted to accomplish. There was no start date and no deadline. If I did none of them, no biggie. One of those things was “start writing more.” Writing has always been part of my life. As a teenager, I wrote a lot of fan fiction. Most of those stories lived in notebooks until (I’m going to age myself here) platforms like YahooGroups and LiveJournal became popular and sharing beyond the pages of the notebook that had the Backstreet Boys’ Millennium album cover on the front was as easy as hitting “post.” I had an independent study course in high school where I sat at a computer for 75 minutes and wrote what I recall being more glorified fan fiction. Was it any good? I couldn’t begin to tell you.