How'd You Start?

Something to keep in mind... Just because you write something down, doesn't mean you are a writer. A lot of people write grocery lists. I'm confused as to how that adds to your ability to write or to you as a writer. I also don't see how scribbling as a child means anything. Other people may disagree.

Hojo

To some it can be an addiction. The imaginary world spins through your brain whether you like it or not. I shared my first short fiction before my eleventh grade class and was hooked from there forward. Problem was, life got in the way. There was always some emergency at home or crisis at work that prevented me from advancing into an actual writing career. Once I reached 56 I decided if it were going to happen, had to be then cause I was running out of time. Took almost two years to get the first call, and I almost gave up after 21 months and 120 rejections. Then in two weeks I received three offers. Yeah, weird how it all happened at once. Since then I've had 16 novels and stories contracted/released, and thought my energy level is not as intense as in the beginning (fighting cancer drained a lot out of me), I still get a thrill each time I type out the final words, "The end."

Bottom line - don't give up. If ya like it, keep marching to the song of your muse, long as you enjoy it.

gettingby said:

Something to keep in mind... Just because you write something down, doesn't mean you are a writer. A lot of people write grocery lists. I'm confused as to how that adds to your ability to write or to you as a writer. I also don't see how scribbling as a child means anything. Other people may disagree.

Click to expand...

Agree with everything gettingby has just said.

I'd always had an overactive imagination, it scared the crap out of me when I was little, the things I would think up. I made all my teddied play out the things that were going on in my head.

When I was 13, I discovered that I could get the tales in my head down on paper adn it made me a lot calmer.
Throughout my teenage years I used writing as a way to get my emotions out, instead of going out with friends to parties and experimenting with sex and drugs like so many of my peers, I sat down and wrote.

I stopped when I was 17, life took over and I went on to have my 2 sons, it wasnt until my eldest got sick back in 2010 that I felt the need to write again.

Writing for me is a type of therapy, it keeps me calm, relaxes me, lets me get emotins and feelings out without having to express them verbally or physically.
I cant say it's an addiction, but I do get a high from it. Seeing my word count rising with each session of writing makes me feel like I'm accomplishing something.

Thirding gettingby. A writer is someone who's craft/trade that they excel at is writing; not someone who writes.

I started 'cause I had an overactive imagination, nothing to do, stories to tell, and the most viable way to put them out was through writing.

I always am hesitant when writing. Since I'm always trying to improve, there's a weight that starts pushing on me when I do. It's just 'cause I'm insane.


Oh, there's no such thing as writer's block, just a lazy writer.

HoJo73 said:

I've been writing for-ev-er. Literally, since I could hold a pen and began to scribble as a child!
!

Click to expand...

I wrote short stories in my teens and a novel when I was 24. All of it was trash. Thereafter, my scientific career consumed every creative ember that glowed.

When I got older, I began to think of writing again. But I worked on for eight more years, and my first real novel was written while I was still working. It took seven years. Since retiring, I've worked on nine novel projects, three of which have been published, and one still in progress.

I wrote all the obligatory stuff when I was younger - short stories full of purple prose, squishy poetry, etc. Wrote lots of first and second chapters over the years and tossed them in the trash. Then I stopped writing for a long time. I finally started again last year at the age of 46 and had my first book published two weeks before my 47th birthday.

I wrote a short story a few months ago, which I entered into a contest. I won along with some other participates. Then I decided You know I'm going to write a book... I'm not a reader or a writing, I actually have struggled all my life to even stay in school. I have dyselxia, which I cannot spell. But over the last four months I have been working very hard to write better and learn to read more then the books school forces upon me. So those learning troubles may explain my poor grammar in all of my posts... I realize though if I work hard it will become a better writer...

Thanks for reading... I'm glad someone created this thread, I am looking forward to reading other peoples replies

Well, I don't know about anyone else here, but I cut my storytelling teeth with fanfiction. It started with me just telling stories to my brother, but when we got the internet, I discovered that I wasn't the only one doing it, and started putting my stories to paper. Gradually though, I graduated from fanfiction to doing my own thing. I'm currently at work on a novel and I hope, if it gets published, that other people will do fanfiction of it because it'd be like completing a circle.

I started writing. Not much to it. No real explanation. I wrote a book when I was five. In reality it was no more than a picture book, but it had all the elements of a story. Then I continued to write and edit.

HoJo73.

With all due respect, nobody is born to write or to do anything else. Sure, we all have some kind of talent, but the reality of accomplishment is loads of hard work and learning the craft. Writers are not special people, writers simply write and often make money from it. Writer is not an identity, it is a title or description. Just because someone writes does not make them a writer.

My career choice as a paralegal is dependent upon my writing (and researching) skills, and I often spend all day writing substantive reports that go to the bosses who give us our work. Just because I spend my day writing legal documents does not mean I am a writer. It means I use my writing skills.

I write short stories and have a few published, but writing is not my career. It's something I do for fun. I enjoy it. I don't make my living from it. In fact, any money I've made from writing short stories is not income, but for fun. If I were to make income off of my writing, I would say I am a writer.

Same thing with my novel. Just because I've written a novel and have it out on query does not mean I am an author, it means I have written a novel and have it on query.

Something to keep in mind... Just because you write something down, doesn't mean you are a writer. A lot of people write grocery lists. I'm confused as to how that adds to your ability to write or to you as a writer.

Click to expand...

Man, I agree with this.

HoJo73 said:

I've been writing for-ev-er. Literally, since I could hold a pen and began to scribble as a child! It just felt right, you know? And then I started writing poetry (the greeting card business was always a dream of mine.) From there I graduated to avid journal keeping, and after that I just couldn't stop! From grocery lists, to letters, to blogging, fiction, and of course NF. It's an addiction.

Does anyone else feel this way? I'm curious how everyone else started and at what age. Do you feel like a part of you is dead when you find yourself with the dreaded writer's block?

Thanks for your answers!

Click to expand...

I have fond memories of the writing I did as a youngster. Full of dreams, armed with a stack of #2 pencils and a fresh new composition book- ahh, those were beautiful times!
Now I get my kicks on the PC, but most days it feels about the same.

HoJo73 said:

Wow! Thank you all for your responses. I love hearing other people's srories

Gettingby, trust me, I am a writer. As I'm sure many of you frequenting this site are writers. I'm not in need of anything to add to my credibility - my writing speaks for itself. I was merely trying to make the point that I was born to write. It just doesn't feel right if I'm not holding a pen in my hand. It isn't natural.

Click to expand...

I don't think anyone is born to write, at least in the sense of writing well, or in the sense of making it a profession, or even in the sense of writing fiction. Holding a pen or not holding a pen doesn't make you a writer. Neither does having not holding one feel unnatural.

I think believing you were born to do something is a very dangerous proposition. It usually leads to needless disappointment, at least when it's used as anything other than a catch phrase.

Anyway, I started at age twenty-six. I read an article wherein Robert Heinlein said he wrote his first short story in an effort to pay an overdue bill. I was a high school dropout with a cruddy job, and way too many bills, but I figured what he could do, I could try.

I didn't know a comma from a coma, so I bought a grammar book, read it in a couple of days, and then typed out a short story in another couple of days. I submitted the first draft, and it sold, paying more than my day job did in a month.

I did the same thing with two more quick stories, and they sold. I then wrote a novel in three weeks, and it was picked up by the first agent who saw it, and it sold to the first publisher she sent it to. In two months I went from never even wanting to be a writer, from never even trying to write a story, to a full-time pro.

I wasn't born to be a writer. It's just something I could do because I'd been a reader from an early age, had read thousands of novels and short stories, and wrote my stories the same way.

Susan Littlefield said:

With all due respect, nobody is born to write or to do anything else. Sure, we all have some kind of talent, but the reality of accomplishment is loads of hard work and learning the craft. Writers are not special people, writers simply write and often make money from it. Writer is not an identity, it is a title or description. Just because someone writes does not make them a writer.

Click to expand...

I disagree. I can sew and I'm horribly good at it, but I wasn't born to be a fashion designer or a seamstress. It's just not something I want to do for hours and hours and hours. All writers are different, just like all seamstresses are different. Some write as a hobby and some write because it's the only thing they want to do for a living. And those are the people were born to write, not the ones who just write on the side. I sew on the side. Sometimes it makes me money. It's still just a hobby.

And just because someone has a natural talent for something, doesn't mean they don't have to work hard it. They do. They always do. I used to dance. I wasn't born to dance. No matter how hard I worked at it, I was never going to be as good as someone who was born to dance. I can't get my body to move like that.

Just saying.

Badly, by all available evidence.

caw

katci13 said:

Some write as a hobby and some write because it's the only thing they want to do for a living. And those are the people were born to write, not the ones who just write on the side. I sew on the side. Sometimes it makes me money. It's still just a hobby.

Just saying.

Click to expand...

The above is a generalization.

The majority of people who want to make a living writing don't because it's a difficult task to accomplish. I know authors who have been on the NYT best sellers list with multiple books. Many of them have second jobs in addition to their writing careers. If you make a living at writing, you've worked hard and had some good luck.

Just because something is a hobby and not a profession does not mean we are or are not born to do something. It simply means we've chosen where our interests lie and what we want to do with our lives. We always have a choice.

I can relate to writing being a form of therapy like French Maiden said up thread. I've been making up stories in my head to distract myself in boring or uncomfortable situations since I was a young child. I wouldn't say I was born to write, but I have always been a creative type, and writing is one of the forms I excelled at growing up.

The second grade was the first short story I remember writing. When I turned 13, writing was the only form of creativity available to me, and I did quite a bit of it through my teens, mostly short stories and poems.

I started incorporating my writing skills into my work in my mid twenties, but writing nonfiction isn't creative enough for me. By the time I hit thirty, I knew something had to give, and I took a year off from most of my obligations to focus seriously on writing my first novel. At this point, I'm back to freelancing and am still working on the novel.

Am I a writer? Yes. At least other people seem to think so, and have been telling me so for many years. Is that all I am, or all I was born to do? No. My biggest creative outlet is acting, and if my life had gone a different way, I may have never developed my writing seriously.

I’ve been telling stories all of my life. To myself, in my head. To my baby sister when she was little. Bedtime stories to a college roommate that had trouble getting to sleep at night. Bedtime stories to the kiddos I work with now.

I’ve also been writing all my life. For classes in high school and college. In journals. Poems. Short stories. Here's a funny story about my first college English class. Huge class at a huge school. My first writing assignment was to write a epilogue for Glass Menagerie in the style of the narrator of a novel we had just read, Brave New World maybe, or Left Hand of Darkness. The night before class, I had a dream that I got an A and the professor read some of it in class. I told myself it was stupid when I woke up. This wasn’t high school, where my writing got some attention from teachers. This was college! This was serious stuff!

I got an A and the professor read some of my paper aloud in class. My one brush with psychic powers, and it was for that.

Despite having compliments on my writing throughout my life, I never sat down to write a novel. The thought was overwhelming to me. Around when I hit 40, I decided to bite the bullet and try. Wrote a few chapters, and then realized it was complete crap. I needed to learn how to write, for free, and in the time I had that wasn’t already used up by work and home. A friend turned me on to fanfic, and I read and read and read. And then I wrote. A novel length fic. With a wonderful beta reader who knew her stuff and helped me for free. In that first fic, the writing wasn’t bad. On one website, it had almost 15k readers. But after two more novel length fics, and a herd of short fics, the writing was better. I worked with around 5 talented beta readers in all, and each taught me things I needed to know. My fics won several awards, which pleased me, though I didn’t go posting banners all over creation. I have nothing against doing that, it just wasn’t my style.

I was ready to start my first novel. Then I had life issues and stopped writing almost altogether for two years. Then I sat down and wrote my first original novel in two months. I’m working on my second now, which is going slower but just as enjoyable.

I’ve seen some fanfic haters in my life, but it was an awesome place for me to get started. From the beginning, I had a plan. To learn to write, and then move on to something of my own. Do I still have things to learn? Sure. But I am a much better writer because of fanfic.

Wow. I got rambly again. didn't I?

Action Figures. I used to act out stories with them, and the same characters stuck with me. So I decided to start writing them in story format, and I've been doing that for about six or seven years now.

When did I start? Don't remember. First got recognized for it? Second grade. First regional award? Fifth grade. First paid published piece? Tenth grade. First piece I'm happy with?

Still waiting...

Once upon a time, during an American History exam I realized that my essay wasn't 'technical'. That bugged me... a lot. As I sat there rereading my answer, I discovered I had written a story. Sure I threw in a couple of important dates, but the answer's tone was simply a bard's perspective.

I grumbled about it, passed the exam in and walked away frustrated. Life was busy with kids, hubby and college so I didn't think about that story for several years. (btw, got an 'A' on my non-technical history exam.)

Everything changes. One day I sat down and started a story. That one grew into another and I published it. Those were fantasy titles.

Now I'm switching to mystery/crime/thrillers. The story telling is still there and growing each day.

~ TempleStorm

I wish writing was more of an addiction or compulsion for me. I've been a voracious reader since I was so small I can't remember, but writing was something I did in response to the occasional assignment in elementary school and middle school. It didn't really occur to me that I could write novels like the ones I loved to read until someone outright told me I should be a novelist when I was 13. I wrote a lot of fiction from that point until midway through college (majoring in English).

When I first started writing fiction I still disliked nonfiction writing, mainly because I dislike writing persuasive and opinion pieces, which I felt like I was constantly being forced to do. Not to mention the aversion-factor from always getting poor grades on my essays and research papers. Now that I'm allowed to write informative and educational pieces and no one grades them I enjoy writing non-fiction a lot more. On the other hand I've gradually lost my enjoyment in writing fiction; I still love thinking up a new story idea and I'm one of the only people I know who enjoys writing plot synopses, but as for writing actual pages of manuscript I'm just not interested any more. It's too detail-oriented, requires too much decision-making, and is too solitary for me to enjoy that part. With non-fiction I'm mostly just sorting out thoughts I've already had, not constantly wracking my brains for new ones, and I can at least pretend it's social because I'm writing curriculum or how-tos for a specific audience.

I can remember the first time I thought about sitting down and writing a story (well, it was a screenplay) While watching "The Butterfly Effect" on TV in 2005, I remember being totally blown away with how the filmmakers planned such a wonderful piece of art. (Some may disagree with piece of art, but I think it's a great film)

When the film ended, I ran to my laptop and searched all types of screenplays. Spending the following weeks reading through my favorite films, I thought, "Hey, I can do something similar to this."

A few months later I'd written my first screenplay, which eventually turned into my first self-published novel, The History Maker.

Still trying to write a screenplay half as good as the butterfly effect though

When I was about seven, I got tired of my brothers making fun of me for playing with my imaginary friends, so I started writing all my long stories about them on the computer instead of acting them out.

It became hard to make fun of their little sister when everyone else was going, "Dude, your little sister writes books? Holy cow."

It's always been my secret plan for sibling domination.