When did you find your passion for writing?

I drew lots of pictures in kindergarten. And then I wrote stories to go with them. I literally did not draw a single picture that wasn't accompanied with words. ^.^ It kind of blossomed from there.

4 years ago a character turned up in my head - I blame a certain film.

3 years ago I had to stop writing due to ill health. But the character stayed so I had to go back to him once I was well again - a year ago today as it happens

Little git, won't get out of my head

I was telling myself stories at age 5-6, writing them down at 13 and just kept going.

I had to smile at your question. I didn't write early as many of you. I've written many things, mainly business letters, position papers, theses (historical).

But in the spring of 2006 I woke up with a dream. The dream turned into the written word as the fog cleared away that morning. I began to read my dream. Still in my bathrobe that day, I decided to write the words of my dream - a fantasy that will never see the light of day.

I fell in love.

Never have I felt more passionate. Never have I been more obsessed. My soul bled on the paper that day. And every day it bleeds a little more I am happy.

My mother was the guiding light for me. My one kindred spirit, and I still miss her. Mum brought us up with books. She would read classic tales such as Treasure Island and Kidnapped to us before we went to bed. There were shelves of books in our living room. I was able to read at 3 years old, because she taught me the love of words. I can remember the volumes of the old poets on our shelves: Shelley, Keats, Wordsworth, Arnold, Scott, Burns, and poetry formed a big part of my home life when I was small.

When other kids threw tantrums because the weather was bad and they couldn't go outside to play, I never batted an eyelid, because I knew there was a whole world in our house, and I could lose myself in it. When I finally got to school, writing stories was my favourite pastime. We called it 'composition' in those days, and I would happily lose myself all lesson just writing and writing words on paper and creating characters. I remember trying a little murder mystery when I was about 7. It was hopeless, of course, but I typed out about 6 pages on an old Olivetti manual typewriter that my auntie had given us. I wrote poems too - again, hopeless, I have no doubt - but that didn't matter. It was the flow of words on paper that fascinated me.

So, to sum up - my passion for writing came from reading - and my mum. It was the greatest gift she gave me.

In second grade: we were assigned to write a story about a classmate (which looking back on it wasn't probably the best idea a teacher ever had). I think she meant a true story, but I created the great romance of Brian and Charity, involving a talking car, five bright red thoroughbred racehorses, several attempted robberies, and the death and resurrection of Charity. It ended up becoming a series. I'm not sure if I found the attention of an audience or the outrage of my subjects more appealing, but I was hooked from that point on.

Like heronW - it found me.

When I realised no one but I could write my perfect novel that is perfectly adapted to my tastes.

I was born to do it, baybee! There was no epiphany, just acceptance.

When I was seven, my grandfather gave me an old typewriter. I can still remember rolling the paper into it and typing (pecking) out the first few words of a story from my head. Then I read it, and re-read it, and re-read it. I was hooked. Have started and stopped intermittently over the years, but I'll never forget those earliest of moments.

I was eleven years old, and in fifth grade. I started out writing Star Trek. After about two years of that, I started developing my own Science Fiction Universe, which I began writing another year later.

celticroots said:

When did you find your passion for writing? I found mine when I was thirteen when I had to do a short story for an English class.

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I really think I've had it for a while......when I graduated high school I longed to do homework, but not homework - to have a notepad and a pencil in hand. Now and then I'd want to bust one out but never knew what to do with it once I had it in hand.....then in 06 a coworker mentioned very casually that she wouldn't have time to read because she had a writing project....I asked about it....and here I am. She was referring to NaNo. I started, and didn't finish in the 30 days, but loved the story I was working on. A memoir. I googled writing groups, cause well, I was a writer now....and found AW. And I've been here ever since.

I think I found it around the time I started watching television or reading books and I started thinking to myself: "Why does it have to be like this? Why can't it be like this?"I started planning intense stories that swerved off the plot lines I read about or watched, and they were my own stories and I wanted to write them down. It was, essentially, fanfiction, but it was still a big step towards me wanting to write.

Third grade.

I wrote (and illustrated) a story about two martians named Marvin and Mary. I remember being surprised at the positive feedback from family and friends. I'd written it just because it was a fun thing to do; it hadn't occurred to me that someone might actually like it.

I started writing my sophmore year of college. I had to read so many depressing stories in my English I wanted to drop out. So I wrote a story using all the elements that were depressing in the stories I read. It's a 4200 word totally predictable depressing piece of drivel that has gotten rejected so many times I gave up on it. Which is probably for the best anyways.

Mine was when I was about nine and I read Robin Hood of all stories. I use to have a speach inpediment and was teased because of it, and I thought one day I am going to write a book. I became quite obessed with it for many years. My grandmother brought me my first typewriter at nine. Sadly, it wouldn't be until after she died, and I had stopped writting, that I realised a dream. The memories of the faith she had in me, and all the things she would no longer enjoy, spurred me on when she passed away, and inspired my book.

At 11, I started writing down the news every night, hoping to draw up some kind of yearbook with all the news for each year.
After I grew up, I still loved writing facts but never thought of writing fact books.
Then I gradually fell into a journalism career, first writing a newsletter, then moving to a newspaper and so on.
It was only much later that I turned to fiction, trying my hand at screenplays and realizing that wouldn't work. Now I'm writing novels but still unpublished. I'm convinced I'm closer now to having a book published than ever before, if I just keep working at it and improving.

I wouldn't say I have a passion for writing. It's a hobby. It's something I enjoy and I work towards being better at it, but it's still a hobby. I'm not one of those people who from an early age wanted to write, not someone who feels as though writing is as important as breathing. I enjoy it in the same way that I once enjoyed photography and chess and hacking into computer games to get infinite lives or ammo.

I began writing four and a half years ago at the age of 43. I'd thought about it a few years earlier but only started because I was in town and saw a How to Write a Novel book and thought it might be interesting. I've written short stories since then. Recently they've been getting shorter and shorter, something I'd like to reverse. One day maybe I'll try writing a novel, but my short stories haven't yet reached a standard that I'm happy with, my writing still has some way to go, so that can wait.

Cheers,
Rob

I was reading some weekly alternative paper and I never saw anything in that reflected my reality.

So as the saying goes, if you don't like the news go out and make some of your own. That's what I did and 16 years later I'm still at it.

I decided I wanted to be a writer at age eight--after four years of reading everything I could get my hands on, I wrote my first story when I was twelve and found I couldn't stop.

Well, there was this one time at band camp....

I think somehow it's always been there--I've been writing stories as long as I knew how to write, and prior to that I had been making them up--but it was around age eleven that I found I had a talent for keeping stories going, and going, and going. That was the age at which my dad told me to stop bugging him and go write a story; when I came back a while later with a notepad half full he said, "I told you to write a STORY, not a NOVEL!"

That story turned into the first of a series, which spawned another series, then along came another series and different storylines and novellas and novels and short stories and serials...

And so it goes to this day.

Even though I wrote and illustrated a picture book in a fourth grade academic program, I didn't realize I could write down those silly stories in my head until around seventh grade. I've always loved writing and storytelling, but it didn't really become a passion for me until people I admired (one a college professor, and the other a produced screenwriter) told me I had talent. So about seven years ago, I found my passion.

Afraid to grow up

My life has largely consisted of avoiding the very issue.