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  1. VictoriaPrincess

    VictoriaPrincess Member

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    What or who inspired you to start writing?

    Discussion in 'The Lounge' started by VictoriaPrincess, Nov 16, 2018.

    I thought it would be fun to see what or who inspired us all to start writing :bigsmile: So to start us of, here is why I began writing...

    To be honest, I began writing because of some bad things that happened to me when I was seven, I won't to go into details but things got dark for me. Real life was horrible for me for ages, I couldn't stop thinking about what had happened to me and I didn't think things would ever return to normal again... So I did something I'd never done before, I created a character, a lot braver and more impressive than me Samantha Jayne who solved mysteries and helped people who needed it.

    As time went by my brain started to dream up more and more ideas and characters, and even new worlds! Samantha Jayne became one of dozens of characters that I dreamed up, some were good people others were bad. I'd experienced so many emotions when I was a little girl that I was able to transfer them to paper and really bring my characters and their emotions to life...!

    I eventually kicked myself back into gear and started living again, things got rough and I almost lost the fight against myself but I'm happy to say I recovered and got back on track and now today - I'm still dreaming up new exciting stories and characters and am writing nearly every day, and I'm loving every single second of it! I love writing, it's not just a hobby anymore, it's more of a best friend who relaxes me and makes me feel really happy...

    I wouldn't wish what happened to me and what I went through afterward on anyone, not even my worst enemies, but without a doubt that is what inspired me to write and the journey of recovery after that only inspired me greater and made me a stronger person as well as a better writer, and for that, I am very grateful as my stories and characters are now a huge part of my life...! :bigsmile:

    I don't want to ever stop writing now.
     
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  2. Mans

    Mans Contributor Contributor

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    A talented student and a children's magazine!

    This story is a little long:

    When I was a kid I was not aware of my talent in writing and drawing. There was a student in our school who wrote essay very good. He was in another class but sometimes the principal ordered him to come in front of the row of the students in the yard at morning and read his new essay. On day as I was listening to his article I wished if I was instead of him and could write such the excellent things. This created a warmth in me to follow his work.

    A week later, one day the schoolmaster came in our classroom and said:" Dear students! recently a new magazine has been published for student namely ' galaxy of children'. It is a very amazing magazine for you with a lot of stories and nice pictures. If you are interested to have this magazine, you must announce your teacher to register your names in a notebook. You also should pay five Rials ( one or two pennies) to him weekly as the subscribe, then we will deliver you the magazine every week. it is clear that only the students will receive the magazine who pay the money beforehand regularly."

    Thus I saved some pennies every week, delivered it to the teacher (or sometimes to the class supervisor) and after a few days received the magazine. For about four years I studied the magazine with various stories and other entertainments such as puzzles, drawings, crossword puzzles and so on. Gradually I grew! My talent helped me to write better and better and also I progressed in drawing.

    I remember, I was in the fifth grade of the school. One day a new teacher came in our class and ordered the student to write an essay for tomorrow. He emphasized:" you should write the article yourself and nobody is allowed to copy anything!"

    I wrote an excellent essay at home. Tomorrow morning the teacher who didn't know me called me randomly to read my writing. When I finished reading my essay I saw his face turned into red. He shouted at me angrily, while moved his stick in the air:" Didn't I say you not to copy?! Then you copied the article from a book? How bad work! come here!"

    Thus I became a mini writer!
     
  3. 18-Till-I-Die

    18-Till-I-Die Banned

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    As a youngling, I wanted to be an *ahem* movie director, but since I had no idea what that was I eventually realized that my "scripts" were basically short stories or novellas and decided to aim at becoming an author. I was always heavily influenced by the writings of Doc Smith, and I basically grew up raised by my grandmother who watched soap operas on a daily basis, and I was a massive fan of 90's anime like Robotech and MD Geist, so in my mind the three merged into what I can only describe as my personal writing "style". I like to megalomaniacally think of it as a kind of sub-genre I created, like YA teen dramas interspersed with cyberpunk and space operas. I also drew a lot from 90's Grim and Gritty comics like Youngblood, Stormwatch, WildCATS, Bloodpool, etc so the idea of a kind of episodic story telling divided into short stories or novellas more than an actual like 600 page novel appeals to me.
     
  4. exweedfarmer

    exweedfarmer Banned Contributor

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    One day, for no particular reason, I just did.
     
  5. jim onion

    jim onion New Member

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    As a little kid I had a pretty active imagination and I was enamored with the Star Wars and Lord of the Rings universes, to name just a couple. I originally started writing stories for fun, and because it felt good to express myself by making something and sharing it with others. Didn't matter to me that I was just ripping off my influences; you gotta' start somewhere.

    Then I actually stopped writing for a while. I was captured by video games and movies. At one point I thought I wanted to become a film director, at another point I was convinced I wanted to work on video games. Luckily over the years I managed to pick-out the common thread of my interests: story. And I realized that as a creative person who needed to express myself, the best medium for me would be writing.

    I think that my ideas and the things that I have to say are valuable. Writing is the only occupation open to me that I not only love doing, but I'm also good at. In life I've struggled with depression, I've hurt myself and others a lot, I've made lots of mistakes and I've quit many things. I've struggled with a lack of confidence, a lack of faith, a lack of hope.

    In spite of all that, I'll make a career out of writing or die trying. It's the hill I've chosen to die on. I believe that I only have this one life and I want to make the most of it by realizing my dream. Couched in that is the belief that realizing my dream will be of benefit to others. Also couched in that is the fact that writing is what gives my life meaning and purpose.

    I write whatever I want to write. If an idea chooses me as the conduit, I try to do it justice. Romance, sci-fi, horror, fantasy, dystopian fiction, non-fiction... whatever it is, I just write. I do have favorite genres, and I feel like I'm better at some than others, but ultimately it comes down to being open and available to ideas.
     
    Last edited: Nov 18, 2018
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  6. Lifeline

    Lifeline South. Supporter Contributor

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    I had a grandfather who made up stories on the spot, when we cuddled on the couch after lunch. There'd be an old oil painting right above his head, and then he'd start talking.

    I don't remember when I started first making up my own stories, but for the longest time pre-teen I had trouble going to sleep, so I started making up stories in my head to pass the time until I got drowsy. Then there was the new family who moved into our apartment block, with the girl who also made up stories. Thus we would sit and write together. We were twelve when we finished our first 'novel'. I used to stand in the train, wedged in with a lot of other people and no turning room, scribbling furiously on a palm-sized piece of paper. Then life happened and for many years I didn't even think about writing. Writing was just something I did, without plans that I would ever show the result to anyone.
     
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  7. MikeyC

    MikeyC Active Member

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    English class when I was 10 ish and 'The Hobbit'
    Rgds
    Mike
     
  8. DK3654

    DK3654 Almost a Productive Member of Society Contributor

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    I have always liked coming up with my own ideas for things; books, tv, movies, games, comics, whatever. For entertainment more than anything else.
    One of my major ideas was something I called 'Mortal Chains'. It was, primarily but not definitively, a book series idea. It was a sort of urban fantasy, trying to being a little more unique with it's world concepts. I kept playing around with it, but it never really went anywhere. I'd make some general notes, write and rewrite some short scenes, but that was really it. I just didn't get to the point honestly were I really knew what would happen throughout much of the storyline, rather than just the key events.
    Something I started to think about more and more was the idea of doing a more traditional urban fantasy story. At first it was 'and', but after I started to piece together a new idea, it increasingly became 'instead of'. That idea was the beginning of my current WIP 'Foreshadow' (tentatively titled).
    Early on, I began to imagine it as a tv series, because I just liked it that way. After a while of making notes, I had worked on it enough that I decided I should do something more concrete, and began to write scenes in a script format. It helped to develop the idea more and help me make appropriate changes.
    But then after working with scripts for long enough, I decided that if I was going to spend this much time on this idea, I might as well write it in a novel format so it's more complete end product, and something I would be more comfortable writing in it's entirety.
    And so now I have made novel writing a hobby.
     
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  9. PoemNerd212

    PoemNerd212 Contributor Contributor

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    I hated reading and writing with a passion until I was about ten years old. Luckily, one of my teachers somehow made it more bearable for me and helped me write more confidently. I managed to win an essay contest that year -funny enough, it was about inspirational women and I had chosen my teacher to write about. Then in sixth grade, there was this young authors’s contest; they didn’t make it mandatory that year to participate, so I was the only one in my grade to submit anything. I wrote a short story about a girl’s pet duck who was addicted to nuts and it actually won.

    Sometime after that was when I actually started trying to write poems. Awful, cheesy, cliché poems that are all gone now lol. Didn’t really have a lot to say at that point in time, which is probably the main reason why they sucked besides the fact that they always suck when you start out. When my grandfather passed away in seventh grade, though, that was when I wrote what I consider my first real poem.
     
    Last edited: Nov 18, 2018
  10. NathanLyle

    NathanLyle New Member

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    I guess if I had to say anyone it would be all those English teachers who kept giving me writing assignments. When I was a teenager I stopped writing stories for class and started writing them for myself. My grades went down a lot in high school. I went from an all A student to just barely getting high enough grades that they can't hold me back.
     
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  11. Alex R. Encomienda

    Alex R. Encomienda Contributor Contributor

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    When I was a child I was really into movies. If it wasn't horror films then it was family films like Little Nemo and Pagemaster.

    Now, I get inspired by ideas, feelings and concepts that cross my mind throughout the day.
     
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