How long have you been taking your writing seriously?

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Drachen Jager

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It occurred to me today that I started to write my first novel in November 2009. I had always thought about being a writer when I was younger, but lost touch with the dream for many years before recovering it recently. So, two years ago I decided to take it seriously, get disciplined, sit down and actually write something.

Now, after two years of work, self-improvement, nail-biting over queries and fear of rejection, I have a great agent and my second novel is out on submission (the first is trunked, but I'll revive it in a year or so).

It's been a bumpy, soul-crushing experience, but somehow I still love it, and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

So, next week it's happy Write-a-versary for me! Two years old.

How about you?
 

DancingMaenid

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Depends on what you mean by serious, I guess. I'm not a professional and have no plans to be one, but I think I've taken my writing seriously to some degree since I started doing it. I've always wanted to learn and do it well, which is what serious means to me. And I'm feeling really serious right now because I have a new novel I'm working on that I love. I want it to turn out the best it can. :)
 

AutumnWrite

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Just over a year, 2 Sept 2010. Once I proved to myself I could stick with it long enough to get the entire first draft done.
 

Mclesh

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Seriously, I'd say since August of 2009 when I wrote my first short story. Really seriously when I began my first book in February of 2010. I've completed two books since then and have been querying both; have gotten very close to finding representation for both; have suffered crushing rejections with both. But I remain hopeful. (And am working on my third and fourth books.)
 

Filigree

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I'm with Shadow Ferret, I'm afraid. I've dabbled in writing since 1983, started writing-with-intent in 1987. Abandoned it, picked it back up several times, the last foray starting in June of 2009.

I can say that I've always liked my writing, even when I knew much of it sucked. I didn't start taking it seriously until May 18, 2011. That's when I knew other people were starting to take it seriously, and I'd better focus.
 

kaitie

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I was always serious in the sense that I always wrote intending to be published, even when I was twelve and thirteen. I rewrote my first novel something like ten times and researched markets endlessly. I never submitted that (did enter a couple of contests and submitted a few short stories, though), but I had definitely planned to.

On the other hand, I'd not say that I was grown-up enough to be professional about it until about five years ago. That's the point where I started really looking at criticism I'd been given and decided to truly study the craft and the industry to do better.

The beginning of that was just getting back into the swing of things (after years of being in college and grad school, which severely sapped writing time) and working on basics like dialogue and plot structure, etc. Experimenting with voices and tenses and so on. It's probably been three years now since I decided to put all of those skills into a novel that I considered query-ready.
 
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Yeah, professional's maybe a better way of putting it. I've written all my life, always wanted to be a writer, but I didn't put anything worth reading down on paper (or pixels) until NaNoWriMo three years ago.
 

quicklime

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I got the idea to start writing almost ten years ago.

I started working harder at it after a long break about a year and a half ago. I'm still a wonderful procrastinator.
 

gothicangel

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I've been writing since 2001, I tried subbing to agents, but honestly I now know the book was crap.

I think I only really got serious May this year. Since then, I've written two drafts of one book, and written 10,000 words of a second. Hopefully I'll have book 1 on sub by next summer.

I'm a lot more prolific now.
 

czig

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Mom always told me I should be a writer and couldn't understand what was holding me back, especially as I was always writing or telling stories and we had a few writers and journalists in the family tree.

Two months after she died in 2008, I sold my first magazine article. I didn't even have to try, as the editor already knew of my work from reading my blog and she was happy to have me on board. I've sold several more articles since then and joined the staff at another magazine.

I think Mom would be proud.
 

Reifier

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Since this long and arduous journey started--so about seven months ago. I actually don't know maybe it was more? Maybe less?

I never really thought about writing being a viable career choice otherwise, but I've always greatly enjoyed the creativity required ever since I was young. It was only when I just had to write my current story now, that I've taken it seriously--the closest I'd come to writing a story in my adult life was when I had to write essays for my political and sociological classes. *_*
 

Becky Black

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Since my first NaNo in 2006. :hooray:

Me too! Before that I was doing fanfic and while I was taking it seriously in the sense I was trying to write good stories, it was obviously only a hobby.

NaNoWriMo 2006 I did my first original novel and decided that I wanted to start working towards publication. I didn't abandon fic on the spot or anything, but I started doing more original stuff too and I started studying more on the whole writing malarky and making it a priority in my life. 2009 is when I started working on the first novel I went on to submit and sell.
 

akaria

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April 2010. I stopped fucking around with fanfic and realized I wanted to tell my own stories more than messing around with other peoples characters.

I mess around with fanfic, but still find my own stories more satisfying. Plus, with original fic no one bitches when you introduce an OC that has a more interesting character arc than canon. Listen people. It's not my fault the creator of XYZ fandom creates shitty female characters/POC/other minorities and I decide to "fix it".
 
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KTC

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I'll let you know when I start to take it seriously. I just love doing it so much that I can't turn it into a job. I just do it for fun...even though I could probably do it for a living if I wanted to. It pays for the vacations! (-:
 

seun

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Taking it seriously - pretty much all my life.

Treating it professionally - since May 1999. I started work on my first book with the goal of getting it published. About eighteen months later, I realised it was total crap and started a second book. Ditto on the crap.

Almost a decade later (and several books later), my first book is soon to be published.
 
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Tepelus

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I've always liked to write stories since I was a kid, and as a teen I made up my own comic books (which sucked) and wrote fanfic. I had even written a novel and the start of the sequels that follow. In 2007, I posted an excerpt of said novel on another writing site, and they basically told me in nicer terms, that is sucked. I tried asking the people on said site what I can do to improve, but, well, they were not helpful. So I found this site, explored it a while and decided this would be the place I could really learn to not make my story suck. I joined and have taken a serious interest since then to improve my writing, and I can see the difference. I'm not there yet, but I'm getting closer to being good enough to think about publishing. My biggest flaw though is I only write in the fall and winter, spring and summer I have too many other activities that the desire to write just drops. Come fall, I'm ready to write again.
 

KyraDune

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I started writing when I was nine, but I guess it became more than a way to pass the time when I was twelve and I sent what is technically my first novel to a publisher. Needless to say, I never heard back from them. I can only imagine what someone who read that must have thought.
 

Darkshore

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I really started taking it seriously in May, but I haven't really dove into it yet. I started out writing without a clue as to what I was doing. I've learned so much from AW, author interviews, books on writing, and just books in general. My current WIP an Urban Fantasy and the Epic Fantasy that I'm currently plotting are my first true blue tries at getting published.
 

LindaJeanne

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May 30, 2010.

All my life before that, I kept trying to write, but kept giving up on it for various reasons. (Fear of the blank page, and not realizing how common that was; being kinda weirded out by a lot of what my subconscious kept throwing at me; allowing life and other issues to get in the way, so I "didn't have time" and "didn't have the mental energy"; lack of confidence in my abilities). So, lots of stop-and-go.

May 30, 2010 is when I realized I had to stop making excuses, start taking my writing seriously, and seeing whether I could develop the skills to produce something I felt was truly worthwhile -- knowing that it would take a lot of time, effort, and practice before I'd know whether I could or not.

Creative work matters.
 
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