So - how did you start writing? I'm curious to know how the various members of the forum started writing. For me, it was when I was about twelve; I finally enjoyed writing for fun. I mostly wrote short stories for school until I was seventeen, when I explored different ideas. What about you?
Eight years old, which coincidentally is eight years ago. My teacher told me that I wouldn't even get a pass mark in the exams unless I improved my creative writing. I probably took that a little too much to heart (hey, I was eight) and ended up churning out around 50,000 words in 4 weeks about all kinds of weird stuff. I think the first thing I wrote had something to do with King Arthur. It was cliché-ridden and awful, but I liked it. And so I kept on writing; fantasy at first, progressing at some point into a wider spectrum. When I was 11 I wrote something for English class (not very good either, but hey, I was 11) that the teacher thought was so good he read it out as a random work by an author. Everyone wanted to buy the book (give them a break, they were 11 or 12). So stuff happened.
It was one of those events in life that I did not know I was even doing. Ask when I started breathing or when I started walking, talking, whatever it might be. I've always written and assume I always will. I do remember, however, sneaking into my grandfathers office and using his typewriter to write Spiderman comics. I was probably about seven years old or so, though I'm guessing that wasn't the first time I've ever written something in terms of a story before. I don't want to get downer-Irish here, but I grew up in kind of a bad home. I won't go into details, but reading and writing was my great escape. It let me find absolute solace knowing, or at least hoping there was something better beyond my own four walls. With that in mind, I didn't even know it was possible to be a writer as a profession until I was fifteen. One of the drama teachers at my school pulled me aside and told me that she was going to put me in her class for the next year and that I didn't have a choice. She was the creative writing teacher and I learned a lot from that class. Now that I look back I realize that most of my adolescence was filled with me getting trouble for writing too much or nearly failing entire classes because I did nothing but write short stories. I remember one year my Social Studies teacher, in the middle of a lecture, walks over to my desk and says, as loud as he could, "If you're going to write fiction, Mr. Stevens, at least do it during the French Revolution." Ahhh, I miss childhood sometimes.
I was inspired when writing background for a D&D character. I just enjoyed the story so much that I couldn't stop writing about it. Then in school I wrote some short stories as part of the course and my teacher told me how amazing she thought they were. I thought I should give it a try. A decade and a half later and it's one of the greatest things to come into my life.
It started when I was on Neopets(I was young...) and I came across a guild basicly advertising a MMORPG called Dransik. Purely out of curiosity I decided to go to the website and download the game. I enjoyed the game and kept playing. It wasn't until a few months later did I notice the forums and a section for Stories and Role Playing. Its then I decided I want to write a story about my characters background and story. Its sorta then I fell in love with writing. I tell the little backstory because I find it almost scary how if I hadn't clicked on a link and followed my curiosity I may never have discovered my love of writing.
I think I was in 2nd or 3rd grade when I started writing little stories. I was very shy when I was younger, had almost no friends around where I lived, so I lived in my head, instead, and took those thoughts to paper. Now years later, I'm still there, in my head and on paper, lol.
by picking up a crayon and printing my name... oh, did you mean 'writing seriously'?... as in 'being a writer'? ;-) started in high school, when i wrote a gossip column, made up the weekly crossword puzzle that i had to 'dumb down' significantly, being a daily and weekly ny times solver [in pen], and edited the whole paper, to fix up everyone else's writing goofs...
Started writing when I realized I had a knack for English and that I couldn't draw a straight line to save my life. Thus, my ideas of being able to draw and digitally color graphic novels (for the record, I do have artistic talent, I just can't draw !) came to a sudden halt and being able to simply write my stories became more of a reality. This was when I was immersed in comic books between the ages of 10 and 12. I started writing, and pursuing other means of art as well. At first, I thought of writing as a sub-skill to try and compensate for what I really wanted to do. However, as time went on I realized I enjoy writing more than I ever would have enjoyed creating comic books. Caleb
I did a bit of dabbling when I was quite young, but I really started writing in fifth grade. Like Irish, my home life wasn't always easy -- heh, there's an understatement -- and writing was an escape. I had a couple of writing files that I would type in, gradually building and expanding this idea for a science fiction post-apocalypse novel, and it became a habit of mine to sit down at the computer several times a week and type for several hours. By ninth grade, my bits of writing had grown to more than two hundred thousand words. I had realized by then that my original novel idea was poor -- the science was still good, but my understanding of human beings had greatly increased and didn't support the then-plot. So I started work on the beginnings of a neat magic system I thought might be promising, and produced some 65,000 words one summer during high school. Since then I've kept writing, but I've gotten busier. (Ah, college.) I mostly do short stories now, and keep kicking myself to be more productive. We'll see how it goes.
It was fourth grade. Our class had been moved into the gym with another class, after our ceilings had collapsed. We were given a writing assignment to come up with a short story. I was only about half way done with mine (because I hand write things slowly) when I was called to read. I fudged the last half the story, making it up as if I were reading it off the page (after reading I did write the rest of the story down.) It was something about dragons, if I recall. I ended up getting a round of applauds from my classmates and the other class in the back of the gym who were not even part of it and doing math class work clapped. No one else got applauds after their readings. At that point knew I had the ability to entertain people. I've pretty much just kept going from there.
I've made up stories my entire life. I remember being as little as 4 and coming up with my own stories because I had no one to play with. (my brother and his friends didn't want a little girl around, and we lived in very rural areas. We also moved alot, so making freinds wasn't really an option) They were usually about a little girl, me, trying to save the world from evil. haha I found some note books once from when I was in the fourth grade, and i was writing a story about a dog. The letters are all backwards, but the words are spelled correctly (I seem to have lost that ability. haha). I had horrible dyslexia, so it was interesting for me to look back and see how it really affected me. So I wrote my whole life really. I stopped writing at 18, I was told by a teacher that I was horrible writer and laughed at. So I believed her and gave up my dream, but at 26, my husband saw something I had typed out on the computer and encouraged me to continue with it. He didn't even know that I had wanted to be a writer, I had locked that tidbit about myself away, I guess I was kinda hurt by it. So, I started my novel, and actually finished it. I'm writing again, whether it will actually turn into a career is doubtful, but I am comfortable if it doesn't. I think it's what I was meant to do, tell stories. Even if i'm printing off copies and selling them at yard sales.
I don't remember a time when I didn't write, which is not to say that I emerged from the womb with a pen in my hand. I just don't think I actually ever "thought" till I began to write. I kind of do remember being read fairy tales as a young child and trying to imagine what kind of "being" wrote them down, to begin with. (I wondered the same thing about the Bible, which I memorized pieces of for Sunday School at the Baptist Church I went to). As a child, I think I had a kind of image of "authors" as beings of some other species--and, so, an unattainable objective for a real human being like me (with, at best, a diary entry or two to my credit). Although I was always pretty good with grammar and writing-related subjects in school, I don't think I ever made the connection between writing and authoring till, as an adult (around 30-ish), I actually published some things myself and discovered how underwhelming that experience actually was (compared to actually writing it). Meantime, I had worked as a "writer" (writing job descriptions in my first job out of college and, later on in my professional career, case studies). I really didn't begin to understand the truth of fiction (nor even maybe fiction itself) till maybe my early to mid-40s, when I began working with writers (some of them novelists) and also began reading more literary fiction. It began to occur to me that fictional truth actually made sense out of nonfictional things I'd wondered about all my life, some of which I'd tried--and failed--to write about. Since then, pretty much everything I've done, including everything I've read and have written myself, has been focused squarely upon learning as much as I can about fiction and absorbing, understanding, appreciating, and benefitting from whatever gifts of imagination I stumble across (my own or anyone else's).
At one point when I was like 13 or something I started a blog. Too much free time. I'm so attention seeking that I can't write something without having a noticeable amount of people read it. Not really. But it helps when you know someone will read what you write. At least for me. I've heard someone only write for themselves. Hm.
I first took up writing like I write now about 2 years ago. Looking back I think it was probably some kind of subconscious self-theropy although it never felt like it at the time, I just wrote because wanted to. It wasn't really a case of I had a particulally difficult time, it was more a case of finding myself. However, I do remember one particular incident when I was about seven or eight where I wanted to write a story, so I did. I have written bits and bobs since I was about seven, but I didn't write like I do now until 2 years ago.
I find it interesting that individuals started out with writing when they were very young, I was expecting it to be older, not younger, so I'm very impressed. I'm also finding it interesting to find that most of you remember the exact moment (or close too) that you guys started writing which is really way cool.
I've been writing ever since I discovered Microsoft Word, which is about third grade. All of my short stories had awful plots that I'm embarrassed of even today, but my characters were round and the voice is similar to that in which I use today, so I guess I'm a natural.
Over the past three years or so I have started reading alot of books by different authors. I have started to really enjoy a good bit of fiction. And I wanted to create some myself. Originally my vision wasn't to create a book, but I wanted to write a script for a film. As I thought more and more about it and ideas came to me for a plot I found myself thinking more and more that being in the movie business was out of my reach. It would take years to work my way into the industry with a vain hope that someone of importance would read my script and decide it would make a good movie. I then realised that to make a movie I'd need a load of money, actors, directors, all that sort of stuff. But to write a book, all I needed was a word processor. I have since found much more enjoyment in my writing since I have started creating my first story and will be happy when one day I will have a finished book (whether anyone ever reads it or not) instead of just a script that has never been made into a movie.
I've known several published authors who turned their own novels into screenplays, and one or two who had their novels optioned by filmmakers. So, if filmwriting, -making, and so forth still has a draw for you, writing novels certainly doesn't close that door. Although these two venues are virtually bipolar opposites in some ways, I suspect that doing either can inform a better outcome for the other, if the writer pays attention to the differences. All the best, Enjoy!
I've always wanted to write ever since I was like 5. I never really had the patience to actually do it untill about 6th grade, when I was tested for vocabulary and reading skills. The results showed that I read at a 12th grade level. I showed my teacher, and told her that one day I was going to be a famous author one day. She laughed and said I didn't have the patience or ability needed for writing. She really pissed me off, and the next day I bought a composition notebook and set to work. I was only like 11, so it was slow going, and she would always ask how the book was going. (in her sadistic, mocking voice.) After the end of that year, I decided that I was going to finish that bloody novel if it killed me. I kept on writing, and about halfway through, I decided the characters were flat and lifeless, and the dialouge was crap. I spent the next four years researching character building and writing tips. I even got The Elements of Style for christmas in eighth grade. and now, In highschool, I find myself with a 40,000 word manuscript. And the best part is, I still have about 90,00 words to go. The first copy I get of this book if it gets published, Is going staight to her.
Ah, sweet revenge! Something to be said for obstinance in the face of arrogance is that it kind gives persistence a stronger push. Go for those 90,000 words, and make 'em good ones!
I think it was when I was in the 8th grade. I wrote some stuff for my english teacher and she liked it and encouraged me to write more but I did not know that I would like it this much. It serves as an outlet for me but I ignored for the most part of my life.
My family actually picks on me about this, they often tell me I never started writing I was born writing. Go figure. But anyways, even before I could really write the alphabet I was creating stories like there was no tomorrow. It kinda stuck too, still can't stop writing to save my life.
I had to do a fiction writing assignment in middle school, and I found that I really enjoy writing. Ever since then I have been writing, but I didn't get serious about it until around 4 years ago.
I have loved to write my entire life. I dont actually know. I think I was born a writer. My first memory of writing though was in first grade when I wrote a story about a gummy spider attacking someone (I think) and got an A on it.
