Who inspired you to become a writer?

My grandpa and Tad Williams, mostly

 

I've always written. In fact, I still have stories that I wrote when I was about five or six. That isn't to say that I haven't had various inspirations, my mother for being one of the most prominent. I was a lonely teenager and it was during that time writing became something more than a hobby. It was how I vented after being bullied by peers. In school, one of my English teacher informed me that I was the worst writer he'd ever read. He implied that I was stupid and made fun of me in class on multiple occasions. My parents did what they could, but they couldn't help what they didn't know, I suppose I didn't believe that I deserved better at the time. Because of that teacher's seeming repugnance towards me, I found myself slipping into full blown depression. I stopped trying in school, stopped writing, and I found myself considering suicide. Eventually, I was pulled out of the school system and educated through alternative, better, means. I ended up finding a love in writing again too. I moved on, started college and I'm still writing, it's just part of who I am.

 

why thank you MM...

Agree. I'm also inspired by
Successful indie authors.
Please ignore the capital S my iPad is quite insistent and won't be persuaded otherwise.

 

Mine probably stems from Star Wars Episode 3. I know it sounds silly but bare with, after watching this I started going onto RP Forums in the star wars universe and began writing. I loved the universe and I loved making up characters and writing with people. For a good four years I was active and always writing. Slowly it died off as work took over my life, then a couple of years ago I decided to give it a go again. Unfortunately most of the sites I used to write on have died off, so I started writing my own stories and here I am.

 

I have wanted to be an author ever since I went on Fanfiction to read Percy Jackson stories. Also, Castle is a great show.

 

I'm a born storyteller. But on one hand I was inspired to write by all the great SF authors I've read over the years, ranging from Edgar Rice Burroughs, to Andre Norton, Frank Herbert, James White, David Drake, David Weber, and all the authors who contributed to the Battletech and Warhammer 40K universes and many many more.

On the other I was inspired by the great Anonymous who wrote all those marvellous tales of Victorian Erotica, Pauline Reage, The Marquis de Sade, F.E. Campbell, and all the other greats of BDSM fiction.

 

Stephen King inspired me to write horror and supernatural fiction. He's the best. He can make a pair of bedroom slippers scary.

 

Shhh.... He may be watching. Lol. And yeah I've only ever seen the movies but I have been meaning to read his book 'It'.

 

Everyone on here seems to rave about Stephen King. I used to love reading horror when i was late teens/early 20's but never rated Mr King (though i think i only read The Tommyknockers), much preffered James Herbert. Maybe i should give Stevie babes another try?!

 

One too many female protagonists in YA and romance novels that had nothing but the best boyfriend as their greatest accomplishments. I'm inspired to write female characters that have more than one dimension and definitely more than the classic 'best boyfriend on the planet' going for them.

Every female protagonist in every movie I saw in my childhood primed the pump. I remember watching one of those Jungle Queen movies where the guy comes to find this woman who's been living just fine in the jungle since she was a child. After he finds her she is rescued by said guy about every 10 minutes throughout the rest of the movie. It's too much to take, I have to write to fix this wrong-doing.

 

I think I may have always had that creative spark but never knew how to channel it. In high school painted and wrote poetry. But then I thought "hey now you are an adult, time to stop dabbling in creating things and go get a real job." And that is how I wound up with a degree I don't use. It wasn't until I became a book addict (seriously I averaged 1 book a day for over 4 years) that i realized, this is the thing that I was searching for. This is the world that turned the spark into a fire. I knew then that I had to do it. I had to write because if I didn't I would go the rest of my life missing this fire. I would end up with a job that payed the bills, and eventually a family and then soon enough I would be an old lady in her nursing home, thinking, man I wish I had tried. I could have had the fire. Even if my books never get published, I will know that I was true to me. I gave myself a chance to feel this feeling.

 

I wasn't inspired by anyone, I've just always been writing, since the age of 8. Somehow even back then I felt the urge to write things down. Stories. Journal entries. I've always been writing. BUT the book that made me think that I wanted to try and write something that I eventually one day could try to get published was actually a romance novel. It was good but I don't think it was that novel in particular, it was just the spark and it came when the time was right.

 

It was on a cool November morning that my inner writer was revealed to me... Or it could have been on a sweltering hot day in July. Maybe even a Thursday.

Anyways I had started to play this MMO. I really enjoyed it and after a time I discovered their forums. On these forums I stumbled across the role playing section and read a story. I am not sure if the story was actually good. I barely remember it or anything.

But I walked away... Well I clicked away I suppose... With an idea. I wanted to write my characters story too! Sure why not? I mean it would be fun and cool! And it was.

I don't remember what I wrote. I don't want to even try and recall that abomination of a story.

But soon after that I started writing more. Most of it took place in that MMO. But over the next few years I slowly broke away and wrote more and more original stuff.

But to this day if I am writing fantasy I will use one of the cities names as a place holder.

The sad thing is I don't know who that person was. Like I said I barely remember the story let alone the author. Sometimes I think about trying to track them down. Somehow. If only to give a name to the person who helped inspire me to write.

It was no one famous or even one of my favorite authors.

 

I've always had an overactive if not crazy imagination. One day while bored, (I was on a boring date actually) I had a great idea. As soon as I had it, I couldn't wait to get it down and see how the story would unravel. So ended things instead of faking it some more, and rushed home to start writing. I haven't stopped since.
But as for who, there were some coworkers who would comment on my (as they called it toeing the line of crazy) creativity. They told me I should write, and their confidence in me definitely helped me along.

 

I've been inspired by the ideas I get that won't go away. So, I'm going to turn them into books. I also want to write romance with real conflict. Nothing that can be fixed with a five minute conversation. And real characters, not just stand ins for the reader. But, I want a happy ending. It seems the really good love stories end up with a break up or someone dying.

 

I wish I could have a "Like" multiplier. It is nice to see that someone was inspired by something they see as wrong and take corrective action about, not just complain.

 

When I was a child around 8 or 9, I started collecting Star Trek and Star Wars Micro Machines. With these, I developed a series of my own Star Trek episodes. One day, while playing one of my episodes, I decided that it would be good to actually write out these stories. I've been writing ever since.

So, Star Trek was my ultimate inspiration. Over the years, Babylon 5, Anne McCaffrey's books, and Alan Dean Foster's books help to shape my writing into what it is now.

 

I don't think I had a specific person/author who inspired me, from when I was little to this day I've always been creative. My favorite toy when I was little was paper- whether it was used for drawing, crafts or writing.
I remember my first story was called 'Oh no in Hippytown" XD My god, and my mom kept everything..
But yeah, I loved lots of creative type hobbies (drawing, reading, guitar, dance)and writing just seemed to come naturally to me.
Though if I did have to choose one inspiration for writing it would probably have to be my dad. He always told the coolest stories to me when I was little, and it was the best building blocks for my imagination. And when I got old enough(11, 12) I started writing seriously. I really have him and my mom both to thank for encouraging me and always reading what I wrote

 

I always had a vivid imagination and would daydream endlessly, conjuring up characters, stories and imagining in great detail how I would like my life to turn out (HA!).

I always enjoyed reading (thanks, Mom!) and once I began reading Stephen King I really began to think I could do something similar. I didn't even like horror much but found King's books addictive. I dabbled in writing some short stories and realized 'Hey, I really can write well'. So I planned on writing a novel and getting it published so I could be the next Stephen King.

Well, not so much. My main problem was I couldn't come up with a story to write. Plots escaped me. Assign me one in school and I could tear it up easily but an original idea proved elusive. It took me until my late 40s to finally come up with a complete story in my head that had a beginning, middle and end. I envisioned 'scenes' like movies in my head complete with dialog. It was there, but daunting to put it all on paper. However, once I started I flew through it and with a few rewrites it became a novel (and ultimately the second book I published as an e-book). Though I don't write fantasy or horror now that first project is ironically something King may have considered.

Truly, though, I think my main inspiration was myself. I always felt I had it in me to do it. I knew I was good; I just had to prove it to myself.

 

I've long had a love of books, but I hated writing all the way through high school. That changed thanks to my comp 1 teacher at the local junior college. She took a deep interest in her students and in bringing out the best in them (her husband was my history teacher and was exactly the same). Thanks to her, I found that I could write and that (shock!) it could be fun. I didn't spend as much time writing as I do now for a long time, but I wouldn't do it at all if not for her. I'm very glad that we crossed paths.

 

My dad, but indirectly.

I was a terrible student. I have dyslexia and didn't do very well in English in school. I'm a college dropout.

My dad kept telling my mom and I that he wants to write a book. We would encourage him to do so, but he never would do anything, just talk. This frustrated me to no end.

I was over at my folks place, I think it was April 2014. Again my dad brought up the fact that he would love to write a book. I got frustrated with him and told him, well if you won't write a book, I will!

I had been going over a book in my head before that happened. I wanted to write a book titled "Random Conversations." A collection of overheard conversations at coffee shops. Only to realize our little town only has one. I thought a much better book would be to do a collection like that world wide/nation wide. I hate to travel, so that fizzled out. But by the time that fizzled out I had joined a local writer's group and began writing short fictional stories.

Now, I'm wondering if it really is me. I can't seem to bring anything together and I'm getting more in the dumps about it and increasingly frustrated about the whole thing. So.. maybe I'm not a writer after all, but I sure wish I could be one.

I have it made, my wife works and I have all day at home by myself. So I think I should at least try and I keep plugging away at it. I'm also an abstract artist as well. The two work pretty well together.

 

Since I was 3,My mom would bring my big sisters and I to the Library every wednesday afternoon, and that's how I began to love reading. Around 8, I startes writing my own little stories because I already had an overwhelming imagination, and when I was 9 I saw a magazine and asked my parents to buy it for me, and that was when I knew I wanted to be a journalist. then, I kept on reading and around 15 after reading a few books from Meg Cabot's Mediator series, I knew I would like to write similar books (that is to YA/new adult paranormal romances) so yeah I'd say its a combination of my mom, girly magazines and Meg Cabot oh and also my literature teacher who made us wrote short stories as assignments

 

Tolkien

 

Well I stumbled into this on my search for the 'Share Your Last Three Lines' thread. (Haven't found it yet.)

Zelazny, Piers Anthony, Bradbury, Andre Norton, really inspired me to write.
However, it took a while to come into my own when it comes down to it.
So yeah mine are all old and dead, except Anthony he is just ancient.