What was the first spark in your mind that it propels you to write. The good writing of one of your classmate? A novel? A movie? An random event? Your inherent talent ( an inner voice)? Feel the need to say and communicate with others?...
I don't know. It might sound strange, but it was never something I chose. It chose me. I've been writing since I was like, 9 years old, and it was never something I thought much about, I just did it. Like sleeping and eating and breathing. I always felt the need to put pen on paper, and so I did.
This. I've been writing since I was seven, and I still have most of my projects from way back when. But yes, it chose me. I just have a need to write, and if I didn't give into it, I would be even crazier than I already am. If I had to pick a moment, though, it was when I was read The Chronicles of Narnia by my dad. I just thought, "If this guy can do it, why can't I? I want to create a great world too." And so it went from there.
Well here's my first post here and it's little more than a restatement. "It chose me." Exactly. It's disputable when I penned my first "story." I remember it being 5 years old. I was told it could be 4 years old. I don't even know if a 4 year old has a brain that's developed enough to write a story, but whatever. It wasn't until I was 18 that I made the decision to become a writer.
This for me as well. Life would postpone me here and there throughout the years but it's one area that I've never been able to ignore or neglect for long. Kind of like an insufferable itch that I can't help but scratch.
Writing was like an older brother to me. It approached me and convinced me to try it. I was excited. My mind was a whirling dervish of ideas. Writing coaxed me on, telling me how great my prose was. Hours turned to days and then months. I had finally done it; I had crafted a 92,000 word manuscript. Then, like a big brother, Writing slapped me hard in the nuts and told me how much I sucked.
It began when a failed musician met a hardluck woman and they made me. He left, along with with his musical whimsy to seek out fame, women or what have you. So in comes a childhood influence named Jason, he was a babysitter who happened to live with us. He loved to play video games and I loved watching him. He'd play old school RPGs on the SNES and I would devour every minute of it, my favourite game to this day will always be Final Fantasy 3. Nostalgia and Kefka (villian) always draws me back for a replay every few years. This game was the first story I became obsessed with at about 6 years old. My love of writing hadn't fully blossomed yet as I choose to pursue drawing instead. At about 12 years old I started watching DBZ on Cartoon Network and I became obsessed with another story again. Drawing various characters from the series, making up my own in the art style of the series. I then discovered Manga and began reading and studying the panels, graphic novels came next and this is when it dawned on me after reading Maus that I wanted to make one. I never got to realize that first burst of inspiration, but there it was, seeds of writing planted in my cranium. I dreamt up characters and settings every day at school, constantly day dreaming. I then put off drawing for music, maybe my biological dad inspired me, perhaps I found the concept of a traveling musician romantic. So I wrote songs and lyrics throughout high school, I replaced drawing with lyrics. Those lyrics of mine are still scattered about and I've come across them here and there, usually locked away in a drawer full of scribbled papers. Most of them are god awful and others are clever and steeped in metaphors, out of the hundreds of poems and songs I made only a handful remain that I can say I'm proud of. By a handful I mean like 2 or 4. During my later years in high school I met this girl and I had a huge crush on her since the day I first met her. This crush carried on for years before she actually caught on that I was madly in puppy love with her. She told me that she wanted to be a writer. This is when I shunned music and started to write stories, in order to impress her I wrote and wrote and wrote. I would read her writings and send her mine. Every teacher who would read my writing assignments would always tell me that I should be a writer. Up until this girl entered my life, I ignored their advice on pursuing writing. I wrote for her and no one else, besides my negative outlook told me that the teachers were only being nice. It wasn't until I met a shrink by the name of Dr. Hunter that I realized that maybe I do have some sort of natural talent. I was in rehab by my own admission at the age of 20 and Dr. Hunter tells me that he wants to give me an aptitude test, I agree. From this test he tells me that my writing is superb, the test says that I have an advanced vocabulary and am ranked at the top 3 percent of the general population who took the aptitude test. He says he's amazed by my intelligence when it comes to writing and keeps mentioning my age, every one at that damn rehabilitation center mentioned my age. This is when it finally dawned on me that perhaps those encouraging words from past teachers actually meant something. This is when I felt confident to pursue writing as more than just a hobby, I began reading how to books and joined a writing workshop online. Even after the girl who first inspired me left for Toronto, I kept writing. Looking back at all my artsy hobbies growing up, my induction into story telling at a young age through RPGs, the graphic novels, it all lead up to writing. I still draw and play guitar from time to time, but I don't consider myself a painter or musician, I'm a writer and this is how I ended up finding that calling. Sorry for the long post, I had to really think about this one, I dissected my childhood experiences to come up with a worthwhile answer to the question asked.
Sorry if our pathetic little personal stories don't meet your highfalutin English-professor standards. If we're making you puke, why are you here?
Hmmm... "It chose me"... Nah not exactly. I don't exactly remember when I started. It was some time in my elementary school years. I hated reading dreadfully back then. I also hated math and science projects and anything academic in general. I enjoyed being outside playing or "adventuring" with my sister and cousin. Somewhere along the line, it became mandatory for us to read for, like, 20 minutes every day in class (maybe when I was in 3rd or 4th grade), so I began picking books off the shelf (usually the easy ones, until my mom made me challenge myself). One day I picked up a book that interested me, though I don't remember what it was called. Then I read another, and another. Finally I came to a small book called The Castle in the Attic, and I was hooked. I began reading the Harry Potter series next, then The Chronicles of Narnia and a handful of other things that sent my imagination racing. With my new found interest in literature, I began writing more, starting with just little shorts to express my creativity. I was always coming up with stories and adventures and little characters, and I too was heavily influenced by Dragon Ball Z, Pokemon, and other anime series. My family was very encouraging, although I never thought of writing as something to do, just something I enjoyed doing--or rather, telling stories. I even wrote a short story assignment that qualified me for a city contest back in 5th grade (I think), but there were some other good writers there so I don't remember what I came home with. From then on, I was writing things all the time, usually something pertaining to the season. I wrote a story for spring, a story for Halloween and a story for Christmas, not including a few things in between. Things changed in like 6th grade when I wrote "Imagine," a 30 page (single-spaced) story about a character I created on a bus ride home, partly based on myself and partly based on my influences at the time. Regardless, he was a wish-fulfillment character through and through. Later (perhaps the next year, perhaps only a few months later, my memory of this time is slippery) I wrote a 52 page sequel, in which the story got more complicated. That only prompted me to continue the story with a third installment, in addition to various smaller project here and there. I let some of my classmates read it and they suggested I turned it into a book. I spent the next few years reformatting it, adding things to create what I thought was a cohesive plot, and generally building a monster of a bad book out of my childhood writing. I did full edits, updating the story frequently, changing parts, and adjusting all of the writing. It was a lot of work, and I was simultaneously writing the next part. It reached 83k words before I had finished the 4th part out of 5. At that point I was devoted mostly to editing it, although this was slow work thanks to school and many other life adjustments. It took me until my Junior year of high school to realize I had much to learn about writing. Even then, I didn't start doing much serious research until my senior year. Then I learned Imagine (the book) wasn't worth continuing at that point because, it would need a full reboot if I were to use these characters. Now I'm two years into college and I haven't written much else (aside from three or four twelve-pagers and some practice scenes). But I've learned a lot and practiced a few things and made some plans for stories. I'm sure I'll be writing more frequently soon enough, but at the moment I'm starting to gain more interest in life experience and learning. The best writers usually have loads of life experience anyway. This forum has been the most substantial part of my growth, honestly. As long as I'm a member, I predict more of the same. My writing, in general has improved with my accumulation of knowledge, and my content has matured with me. I see a trying future, but one in which I am simply a creator, writing whatever comes to me to the best of my ability... (or drawing, or building... Who knows!) I hope that answers your question. It is the long version, but that's my story and I'm stickin' to it.
I always loved to tell stories. I was fascinated by gossip I'd overhear between my grandma and her friends, but also newspapers, fairytales, movies, books and documentaries. I was always fascinated by people and their natures and what motivates them to do things. So books and stories have always been a part of my life. Likewise, so many things inspired me along the way, and continue to inspire me, to try to tell my own stories.
so can you, wac! better in being a courteous fellow member, that is... your dismissive sarcasm is rude to the max and totally uncalled for... your snide posts are a lot more 'pukey' than what you're bitching about, kiddo... go play somewhere else, if you don't like what you see here...
I thought the Cartographer's mark was really funny-sarcastic, which is why I gave my contribution in form of another 'pukey' answer. In my experience, whenever we are asked how we chose to do what we do, the answers are either pragmatic (my parents made me do it, I had to earn money somehow, I wanted to be famous etc) or cliched to the max. Why does anyone do what they do? Imagine listening in on the medical school interviews, candidates answering a question "How did you find your desire to study medicine?" I'm feeling queasy already!
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0880387300/?tag=postedlinks04-20 This abysmal book made me realize that if this mofo could make money writing, so could I. Later, in an online writing course, I wrote a piece of fanfic about my character from the Baldur's Gate series and the mentor thought it was awesome. Now, I have a story to tell and I need to tell it or I'll go to my grave wondering what if and feeling like a failure if I didn't at least try.
To be quite honest, I can't remember when the desire to write wasn't there. Despite my lack of clear memory regarding my childhood at all (for no reason other than the fact that it was rather uneventful), I do suspect that from the moment I discovered fiction reading my thoughts consisted of a wish to create such things, even when I had yet to understand just what it truly meant to write. The more my understanding of literature deepened, the more I wanted to write. By that point, I had already been doing exactly that since the first creative writing activity we had ever done in school. That one activity had gotten me practically addicted to writing, although I hate to think of the nonsense I wrote as a child who had no idea what they were doing. At least I already had a firm grasp on grammar? Anyway, the thing that fully solidified my wish to write wasn't actually literature: it was philosophy and the many ways it could be weaved into literature to create an intricate story to actually make the reader think. I noticed the lack of actual thought-provoking content in much mainstream modern literature and realized that the best I could do is bring my writing back around to what I feel its purpose should be. In short, it essentially began with a wish to write for the sake of writing and hoping to emulate my only childhood heroes, better known as authors. By now it's become writing for the sake of creating something meaningful yet simultaneously interesting, at least to somebody.
How many guitarists does it take to screw on a lightbulb? Ten: one screws on the lightbulb while nine watch and go "Hmm, not bad, but I could have done it better." I've been a guitarist since I was six and it shows in just that kind of thinking. It started with music: I remember listening to different bands and songs, my favorites, but even with them, I'd often think "this is amazing, but I would've done it a little differently in such and such a manner." When I was 18, I finally bit the bullet and started writing my own music, the kind I wanted to listen to, the kind that was sorta kinda like my favorites, but with the little "fixes" I always thought up when listening to the originals. I started writing earlier than that, at 13, and even then it stemmed from the guitarist ideology: I'd read books since I was 9 and even with them, I always envisioned different outcomes to various scenes, changes to characters etc. so at some point I decided I'd write the kind of book I would've wanted to read (never finished that one). I know this sounds terribly cocky and I suppose it is, but it is what it is. Nowadays I write with KaTrian and since our tastes in art (and almost everything else) are an almost 100% match, it's easy to figure out the kind of stuff we want to write. So often we read books, watch movies etc. and go "this would've been better if they would've done this instead of that." And, of course, ever since we first tried writing together, we discovered it's so much fun, we'd love to do it full-time even if nobody paid us or ever read our stories. That's what keeps us going. The stories keep coming, the characters keep popping up in our heads, and we need to get them out or they'll drive us nuts, kinda like how I often get up in the middle of the night to write down or record a guitar riff, a melody, a chord progression: if I don't, it'll keep bugging me until I do. But as we do it for fun (we have other means of income), as soon as it stops being fun, we'll stop even though I don't really see that ever happening.
