I recently wrote an article as part of the #SuperVoices campaign- a campaign which encourages individuals to share their stories about how their disabilities or disadvantages helped them discover what their "Superpower" or greatest talents are- about how my social awkwardness as a kid and my lack of an apparent talent helped me find my skill as a writer. What made you want to write, and what made you realize you had some writing talent?
a teacher at my middle school picked up on my writing talent from my english class and helped me develop it, i kept going as a way to remember where it all began
I thought that if more great thinkers shared their genius via the medium of books, the world would be a better place.
I've loved reading books all my life. I've also loved making up stories in my head. I could never write longhand or compose on a typewriter because I chop and change all the time and the MS soon looked like a dog's breakfast. But when I got my first Mac with ClarisWorks ...hey, I finally had the medium I'd always wanted. I wasn't sure if I could write a novel, but I did, and was very pleased to discover it was more fun than I'd ever dreamed it would be. And I've now got a story I'm pretty proud of.
Honestly, I don't know. I haven't always wrote, but I've always read. H.P. Lovecraft gave me the confidence to write, he showed me the way - but I suppose the desire was always there. It felt natural to me.
When I was 11, my father bought my mom a typewriter - a ponderously heavy, mysterious mechanical wonder - so she could practice her typing as she prepared to go back to work. After she went back to work, I came home one afternoon, rolled a blank sheet of paper into it, and started pecking away.
This is a hard question for me... Because I've always been a writer. I entered into short story contests as a child (I still have them too). I wrote poetry in middle school to help deal with my turbulent emotions. I got into roleplaying in online chat rooms as a teen, mostly because I had very few friends and roleplaying was a way for me to connect with other people. I started writing my first (awful) novel in high school. And honestly, I never really thought anything of it. I didn't see myself as a writer. I just wrote. It's just what I did. I wasn't much of a reader either. I had a few books and series that I enjoyed, but I didn't explore books much. It wasn't until I was eighteen or so... I moved into my first apartment, alone, and couldn't afford cable. So it was either play video games.. or read. So I read. And I read, and read, and read. Then I had a really intense dream that I thought would make a great novel. So I tried writing it. And I've been writing ever since! Being a writer wasn't something I consciously chose. It just... happened. And it's the only thing I've stuck with, the only thing I've been this dedicated to. I may not have much to show for it at this time, but in my heart, I'm a writer. And I can't see myself being anything else.
I blame both Harry Potter and The Legend of Zelda. Really, the latter. I remember looking at the screen, watching Link stand there doing his idle animations and wondering how cool it'd be to have my own universe with my own characters, to do whatever I liked to them. Harry Potter reinforced that with the idea of a book. But I mainly blame Zelda for even getting me started on it.
The 'punk rock' aesthetic. Do It Yourself; push the boundaries of what you think is acceptable. That kind of philosophy. I had a talent, acknowledged at school by various teachers but being a writer isn't what working class kids in post industrial Glasgow do. A great many writers have since convinced me that this view was as myopic as it was nonsensical. I only wish I'd started sooner.
it started in 2005 when i was 20 years old i was at summer camp and one of my buddies and i began to talk about movies and from their i got the writing bug.
I've never *not* had the desire to write. My grandmother saved a story I wrote when I was seven about 2 trees who got married and had twins. She think it's hilarious since I have twins now. When I was 10 I wrote an epic short story about an alligator that attacked people- no doubt in response to my dad popping Jaws into the VHS as a father/daughter bonding experience... I wrote it on a laptop which we haven't had for years- I wish I could go back and read it again to see how delightfully terrible it is. I've started more stories than I can count- but I've just recently had the wherewithal to finish them. Which is the real test, I suppose.
I never wanted to be a writer and still do not want to be a writer. But there is something I feel the imperative to write.
I've always spent a whole lot of time writing. I kind of brag about the fact that i spent a lot of time writing illegible stories in a diary before I knew how to properly write. Then, after I could write, I spent a lot of time entertaining my toddler nephew with really immature stories about poop. From there it grew into small stories, fan-fictions (yay for middle school phases),roleplaying, and eventually, my own half-novels. Writing is the only thing that I've ever felt I had an affinity for.
Just because you write and enjoy writing doesn't mean you have talent. You don't really need it, either. Not if you just do it for fun. Too many writers seem to think doing is the same as achieving. That being interested is the same as being talented. I bet there are many people who have writing talent that couldn't care less about writing. I saw a writing group recently online that was talking about going to task with amazon to do something about negative reviews because they hurt book sales. Sigh.
I don't feel a need to. It's just expression. If I knew how to express visually, I were a painter. If anything, it enables me, enriches my means of social activity. There's no disadvantage of any sorts in the background.
I write because it makes me more sure of the fact that life is some grand, ironic little joke. I wanted to be a writer because I liked how idyllic it all is. And I enjoy writing. And reading. The only two things I appear to have any talent in.
My desire to write began when I was 6 years old. I was behind academically so I had to sit outside the class with a TA, practicing my writing. This extra tuition used to bore me until I started making up my own things to write...and that's when I suddenly found it fun. My earliest story is about a miniature-sized me living beneath my bed as the wife of a salt shaker.
Interesting question, Alex. I'd worked WITH writers for several years but never really wrote anything myself until I started a blog. Blogging initially got me into writing and then from there I was approached to write articles. I then went on a creative writing weekend followed by the nanowrimo challenge. I'd never really written ficton before and using the stream of consciousness technique I polished off over 50,000 words in a month. I've not done it since but the experience was amazing. I'm now trying my hand at writing short stories. Tenacity, yes. Talent I'm not so sure.
I started off doing little picture books just to entertain both myself and my younger siblings. I didn't actually write stories though until I was about twelve, and it had been on since. I always had a thing about stories, but I have little to nothing from my childhood.
I started in my late teens, and then it fell off the map for about a decade. Just have a head full of stories and it is a nice way to get them out. Learning the hard way that writing should be called, keyboard abuse.
I started when I was four because my mom wanted to be a writer and (somehow) I talked her into letting me use her typewriter when she wasn't.
