Why did you start writing novels/short stories/screenplays etc?

I began my WIP 2 Nano's ago because I had an event in my life consume me and I figured the best way to get passed it and move on was to write about it and turn it into something enjoyable. Unfortunately I've had yet another event consume me and take me away from finishing. WIP number 2 perhaps?

Because one day I ran out of books...

I had already had three nonfiction regional history books published by 2005. During a period of unemployment, I had an idea for a children's story, and I decided to write it. It never got published despite my best efforts, and my wife said, "You should write a novel." I said "Novel?" I had tried writing novels before but they were always aborted.

Then I wrote an article for a radio trade magazine I sometimes write for, and it sparked an idea for a story that would work in a full-length novel. So I did.

Now I'm nearly finished revising Draft 2.

allen

Because I was way, way too old to be playing with dolls.

I learned to tell my stories a different way. And, if I may add, a much better and more satisfying way, to me at least.

I started writing all of the above simply because I enjoyed, and still enjoy, reading. For me, writing was the natural outgrowth of an esurient reading habit. It falls very much in line with Stephen King's advice:

If you don't have the time to read, you don't have the time or the tools to write.

— ON WRITING: A MEMOIR OF THE CRAFT, Stephen King

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i've been writing in one form or another since i was very young. in other words, before drugs and alcohol became available as methods of escapism. i continue to write because it feeds my soul. (and because though the drugs and alcohol are available now, working on a chapter doesn't give me a hangover the next morning).

I started writing short stories because sometimes my sister or my friends weren't around to play pretend with me. I had so many stories in my head, and I had to get them out somehow. So I grabbed my trusty Care Bears spiral notebook and started writing them down. Yup, I was 7.

A few years later, I realized my characters' backgrounds were getting more and more complex, and naturally their stories were getting longer. So I planned out a novel, and promised myself it'd be finished by the end of the school year. Indeed, it was. That's basically what I've been doing ever since -- telling myself stories, setting myself deadlines, making those deadlines, and setting other ones.

I started writing a novel because I wanted to FINISH writing a novel...

It just came on in my late teens like a sickness. With no warning whatsoever, all these characters where doing things/talking inside my head. Had to let them out; they were giving me a big headache.

To get the last word.

Short stories... I have no idea. There were people living between my brain and my skull and they were giving me a headache. I wrote my first thing when I was 6, I think. I still have it. My first novel started as a short story and just got... bigger. *shrugs*

A rabid dog bit me.

My reasons were strictly mercenary. I always enjoyed reading horror and military/political action/thriller novels, and I've been writing manuals, training materials, and other materials for the government and businesses over the years. Over the past eight years, I've been laid off four times and I'm sick of it. So, I decided that rather than spending my days writing for someone else, I would write for myself and if I make a good living at it - I'll be set.

Because if I started DOING what the voices in my head say, rather than writing it down, you'd have heard of me by now, in the notorious, infamous kind of way.

I heard chicks dig the writerly type.





(((Still waiting)))

Vandal said:

I heard chicks dig the writerly type.

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Inconceivable!

Sorry. It's silly Friday and you made that WAY too easy w/ your avatar.

I couldn't find a book to read in my genre, so I decided to write one myself.

Plus, I was tired of getting my butt kicked in computer games.

aonarach said:

i've been writing in one form or another since i was very young. <...>

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Me too. I wrote a novel when I was about 13. About ponies.
And another at seventeen. Er, about ponies.
And a third at twenty, about the afternlife.
And then I drifted into journalism & learned about all the craft stuff of writing, to write to a specific length, and discipline & story arch and clarity.
After ten years of journalism, I started again with the fiction. And ten years after that, I got my first book published.
I can't not write. I was virtually unproductive all last year, and it felt crap. Brrr. Now I'm wirting again, and it's such a massive, massive relief. back in my element.

Over ten years ago, I played with my Star Trek Micro Machines a lot. I came up stories for them based on Star Trek. One day, I decided that it would be a great idea to write out the stories, so I did. Several years later, I to develop my own science fiction Universe and started writing that. I've been writing since then, perfecting my Universe and my writing.

In general, I started writing because I had a) an active imagination and b) no one good to act things out with. I was 7, I think, when I wrote my first story. It was dreadful, but it did what I wanted it to do. I was 6 years younger than my older sister, and at that age 6 years seems like a million years. She never wanted to play with me, and so writing became the way I could play make believe without other people.

And I've just never lost that imagination, I guess.

I started writing short stories because I was frustrated and depressed at my lack of progress on the various novels I had going...still write them, but not as frustrated since I kick out stories more frequently.

I've always been an avid reader, and I started writing at 12, when I came across a story my sister (who is 6 yrs. older than me and never wanted to play with me) had started and never finished. I liked it and asked her if I could finish it. She's never written anything more, but I've been writing ever since.



My first attempt at a novel was about ponies, too! lol!

I still have the very first short story I ever wrote by myself when I was 12. It was horrible. Two pages -- front and back, and no paragraphs, just sentence after sentence after sentence. I like to get it out and look at it every great once in a while. Shows me how very FAR I've come since then! LOL!

I just felt compelled to.

I used to write little stories about my brothers and I growing up. I'd write about fantastical adventures and stuff. I had a very active imagination and it was always so thrilling to write about adventures that I couldn't actually go on in real life.

Now I write still because I feel compelled to... but also as a means of escape. My own life is less than satisfying, so I might as well spice it up with a little imagination.

I started writing because I read this book where I loved one of the characters but was incredibly pissed off by the plot. I just kept imagining all the infinitely better ways this one key scene could've been done. Eventually, I wrote down one of my changes. Only by then I'd gotten rid of all the characters except the one I loved and replaced them with my own characters, and put the whole thing on the fantasy world I used to play with when I was little. Writing down that one scene was fun, so I started writing more scenes that I came up with on my own. That lead to my entire fantasy series.