my writing at age 12 vs now

So I actually started hardcore writing at age 11. But for the writing I'm referencing I'm going to use age 12 because 1) it looks better in a title and 2) that was when I really got into the swing of writing. At the time I knew absolutely nothing about writing, or editing, or plot structure, or... rules, basically. And I'm not going to deny that having no rules was incredibly freeing, but now that I've learned the rules I realize how much better it might have been for me if I knew anything about writing.

There are a lot of significant changes that have happened in my writing in the 9ish years since I started so I thought why not make a fun post about it? If you want to grab this as a tag sorta thing, go for it. Let's see everyone's writing glow-ups!

age 12: wrote so much at once that I had to limit myself to 3 WIPs at a time

now: can really only handle one main WIP, sometimes might do a short story on the side

age 12: wrote like crazy, wrote a ton constantly, had projects fully finished in like 3 months

now: has learned that editing is a thing you have to do to declare a project 'finished', but with the help of NaNoWriMo a first draft can be finished in 30 days

age 12: 'I will pronounce this scarcely touched first draft done, what is editing we die like men'

now: 'I am in the middle of my 85737584th draft and it sucks'

age 12; plz read my stories but also don't

now: plz read my books but also don't

age 12: wrote everything longhand and then line-edited while typing it into the computer

now: typing at 83 wpm has made me so used to typing at the speed of my brain waves that writing longhand only works for things like worldbuilding and lists

age 12: drew terrible character art and colored it in with crayons *cringe*

now: (insert pictures of my paintings and other drawings)

my character art/concept art these days be like this ^

age 12: I will write a romance into this although I know absolutely nothing about falling in love

now: I am a giant Ball of Nope when it comes to characters holding hands, let's become an advocate for platonic relationships.

age 12: Characters With Angst™

now: Funny Characters With Angst™

age 12: carried notebooks everywhere, had a thoroughly equipped pencil case, used pencils until they were 0.1 inches long

now: where did my pencil go now?? The Pencil Elves have struck againnnnnn

age 12: knew nothing about story structure, foreshadowed things that didn't end up happening, hopped between heads like frogs on lilypads

now: Follows the rules but sometimes wishes rules weren't a thing

age 12: terrible handwriting, no one is capable of deciphering the Strange Runes

now: has slightly less terrible handwriting, a chosen few are capable of deciphering the Runes

age 12: tried to make up unique languages

now: knows better than to force her 1.5 brain cells to create a new language

                                            

So yeah. Now that it's written out, my writing style has changed a lot more than I thought! I thought maybe it would be a short list, or that the only big difference is that I no longer write longhand. But a lot has changed! Maybe I have improved, even if it's only a little bit. XD

What are the big changes that have happened since you started writing? Have you ever tried writing a story longhand? Let's talk in the comments!