When did you start writing seriously?

I'm still not as serious about it as I should be.

I've always had characters living in my head with me, but I didn't start writing seriously (by that I mean with the plan for it to be publishable) until I turned 29. I realized that in one year I'd be 30 & all I'd have to show for 30 years of taking up space on the planet was a fairly well-adjusted kid and a head full of people who wouldn't let me sleep at night.

I keep at it because I love it. It's what I do. Everything else (except the kid) could disappear & I wouldn't care as long as I could write. Even the publication is secondary to the writing and studying the craft now (which is good for what remains of my sanity, because I haven't added any new sales in a while).

I started writing for fun when I was eight, just a few short stories and plays that I never really put a whole lot of effort into. When I was fourteen, I started trying to submit stuff to publishers. It's been seven years now, and I basically haven't progressed past the level I was at back in 9th grade.

The very first rejection letter I got was personalized (written in pink gel pen, no less!), so in a way my responses from publishers have kind of fallen off.

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I guess i've been writing seriously for about half a year now, although before my various health problems I had written for various places and done lots of reviews etc.. its only recently however when I finally decided to take the plunge and write for a living have I really began focusing on it.

I was 14 when I had what I thought was my first realidea for a short story. OK, it was a complete rip-off of James Herbert and Stephen King but I didn't mind. About four years later, I started writing properly and came out with a bunch of linked short stories. Two years later, I was finished with them and started on my first book.

I started writing more seriously around the age of 12, but it was still more of a game. Only recently have I actually gotten the motivation to consider it as a career option (not neccessarily a high-paying career, but I'd definately enjoy it)

I've always been serious about writing. I was writing Peanuts gags in the 1960s. I started getting paid for writing in 1989.

I was twelve. It was a time-travel novel, and I researched the locale exhaustively. Given my age and experience level, it wasn't bad. I think my mother still has it somewhere.

After that, I continued writing off and on for years, but it's only within about the last eight that I've gotten really serious about getting my books published.

I started writing at 3, but don't consider it "serious" until I sat down and began writing my first novel. So: August, 2002. I was motivated by turning 39, and realizing that if I really wanted a career in fiction, I needed to get going.

Still not making a living at it, but I've got two books in print, with the expectation that more will follow.

Serious

I was twenty-five and needed money. Hadn't tried writing before that, and hadn't thought about being a writer. Just seemed like a good way to make money, so I tried it.

I had my first story published in my elementary school yearbook. I was 5. I've always written (a terrible novel at age 9) and had to keep the fact that I LOVED writing essays secret from my schoolmates or they probably would've lynched me.

I'm a professional writer in the high tech industry, so I write every day. But I started writing fiction seriously about 3 years ago. Nothing published yet, but I won 2nd place in a crime short fiction contest last May.

I've always written, but only started to treat it seriously in the past few years. All those people in my head... all the enthusiastic response to the not serious stories I wrote... Finally, I decided to sit down and be serious about it. I like what's coming out, but maintaining a regular schedule for longer than a few weeks at a time is still a challenge. Am I only half serious then or doing what I can do, when I can do it? I hope it's the latter.

Age 4. My first was "When Grose Got Married." She didn't have anyone to marry, and was sad. Her Daddy said "I'll marry you." They got married and she was happy. Electra complex is OKAY at age 4, by the way.

I've been serious about writing ever since I realized I could string a few sentences together and make a story out of them. My mom taught me to use Word5 when I was in kindergarten so that I could type my stories. Incidently, writing is the reason I type the way I do: my hunt-and-peck got faster and faster, I didn't have to look at the keyboard anymore....and to this day, I type with my left middle finger, my right thumb on the space bar, and my right index and middle fingers. And my right pinky for punctuation keys and stuff. No joke. But I type 75 WPM (that's my tested speed; I'm slower when I'm being tested, so I don't know my actual speed). Go figure!

Also, looking back I've definitely been serious about writing, because whenever someone asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I always said: "A marine biologist...or a writer." "A psychologist...or a writer." "A professional photographer (which I am) and/or a writer." etc. It's ALWAYS been there, but everyone always told me you couldn't make a living as a writer. Eventually, I will do it full time.

As most writers, I've been writing since I could read. As for seriously writing, that would be almost seven years ago. One of my sisters encouraged me to submit my work. I did. And the rest is history.

I am pretty sure that I was 26, possibly 27.

Tri

I've been writing as long as I can remember. Even before I could make legible letters, I had stories in my head and I would write down my own hieroglyphics to tell the story. I wrote news and advertising copy right after college and during school I wrote stuff that was published but will never, ever go on any resume whatsoever. "Serious" writing, as in original novels to be published? About six months ago. I'd always written as if I planed on publishing, but never got the nerve to try until September 2006 when, at my husband's insistence, I finally submitted something.

Hmm.. i've always written here and there. Back in school I would because my teachers said to. I was always told I needed to put my shorts into a novel but of course being a teen I didn't listen. It wasn't until Oct 2005 at prompting of friends that I decided to hunker down and let the voices in my head come out. Since then it's been like a flood gate has been opened with so many ideas and not nearly enough time to write.

I haven't.

I was serious about something once. I didn't care for the feeling.

I was always writing stories when I was a kid but as I got older and had more schoolwork to do, my writing consisted mostly of essays and papers for school. In fact, I had a nice little side business in high school and college writing papers for anyone that had money...that kept my writing bug satisfied. After college, I was working so much and getting my life together that the voices in my head shut up for awhile. Then in 2003 we were on vacation in Colorado and I saw this house in the mountains and suddenly an entire story popped into my head. I couldn't get pen and paper fast enough. I handwrote it as we drove and finished it when I got home. It took me 2 months to write but another year before I had it typed because I got pregnant and using the computer made me sick to my stomach.

That was my first novel (which I'm still shopping around) and I've written 3 since then and have another two started plus some various short stories.

I tried my first novel when I was about in 6th or 7th grade. It was a sprawling, epic thing, definitely inspired by all the mini-series specials my mom recorded and I watched over and over (Lonesome Dove, The Thornbirds, Napoleon and Josephine, The Phantom of the Opera). Clearly, good story-telling needed to have a cast of thousands, span several hundred miles, and each character needed to be linked to the other.

I grew out of that, though some authors never really do.

But it was an awesome story. I firmly believe that, and I regret every single day it was lost.

I also finished my first novel (my second attempt at writing one) when I was in 6th or 7th grade. It was inspired by all the Harlequin romances I used to read--at that point, I probably read five or six a week. Yeah, there might be better literature out there for 12 year old girls, but I don't believe it. Anyway, it was called Love Conquers All, which I thought was a very appropriate title. It was about a woman, named Katie, who was going to South America to be a doctor for 2 years, leaving her sister and her fiance behind. When she got there, a man named Miguel (who clearly was insufferable from the very first second) insisted he was her guide, and they went off to the jungle, where there was lots of sexual tension, as only a 12 year old girl on a steady diet of romance novels could write. Oh, also, she was the target of government mercenaries for some reason, and he was really a secret agent protecting her (I mean, who didn't see that coming?). Miguel had a friend called Doc, though Doc was not really a doctor, and in hindsight, he was clearly supposed to be the lead love interest because, at least in my view, he was the interesting one. So they get out of the jungle alive, despite being targets of government mercenaries, and return to Salt Lake City--where it was set, natch. But Miguel doesn't come with her! He disappears, and the next time she sees him is on the news. It turns out he's an....






ACTOR!!!




I thought that was a marvelous plot twist. I'm still rather partial to it. So we have Katie the doctor, Phillip her fiance (but ex-fiance once she fall in love with Miguel), Miguel the guide/secret agent/action superstar, and Doc, who isn't a doctor at all. Miguel comes back in her life, and they get married. But oh no! Phillip shows up at the reception! He has a gun! He's crazy! He shoots Doc and kidnaps Katie. (Interesting--to me--note, originally he shoots Miguel and Doc rides off to rescue katie because he was the interesting character. Then I realized that it didn't make sense, because my hero should rescue her). Miguel gets injured in the rescue attempt, but he kills Phillip, and Doc calls the cops, who show up just in time (I guess Miguel as some sort of secret agent/action super-star immunity). Then they're both in the hospital, and they reaffirm their love for each other, and decide that love does, indeed, conquer all.

*sniff*

Another interesting note to make what you will of it---Miguel was named after a character on General Hospital, played by Ricky Martin. So, I may have had some soap opera influence there as well.


I'm sorry. I know this response was much more than the OP asked, but I hadn't thought about this story at all in years and years, and this thread sparked my memory.

I didn't really write, or write seriously, as a teenager, but then I started working on fanfic when I was around 19, and by the time I was 20, I was trying my hand at novels again.

I've written small stories and poems since first grade, made up stories since I could talk.

When I started considering being a writer for a living I was eleven. I had a story published and it made it real for me, so I started on my first novel. After fighting the crappy MS Works and bad floppy discs, I took two years off between fifteen and seventeen, then I started again. Finished the first draft at 18, then took those 280 hand written pages and used the first 60 to complete my first novel length work and found I had a series on my hands, started my second novel, finished them both when I turned 19, started submitting, stumbled across Publish America much to my dismay, finished three others since, decided to tinker with screenplays. I've completed about ten or so of those, and I'm still going.