I wasn't a writer then. At least not beyond schoolwork. In college a few years later, I began a journal I called 'Something I Wrote' that was loosely inspired by a columnist (whose name I have long forgotten) in the local arts weekly XS in south Florida. Years later, I started a weekly newsletter (a precursor to the modern blogs) called 'As My Stomach Turns.' Now, besides my WIPs, I do blogs across several areas about craft brews called "The Shower Beer Series."
I wonder what the reaction of my teachers would have been if I had written the kind of stories then that I write now?
My current novel? I'd been encouraged to take some sort of creative writing courses. My poetry and shorts? I'd be locked up in a funny farm.
I was into my first novel at 16, which I finished around 19, depending on how you define finish with all the drafting. I'd written a few stories and novellas before that. It wasn't like serious, habitual writing. Just something I did on and off when I felt like it. It got more serious when I graduated high school, but at 16 I was way more into music. I played in a metal band, had hair down to my ass, smoked weed, played sports, chased girls (largely rejected, but you miss 100% of the shots you don't take). I didn't think too much about writing back then. It was just something I did. It always came naturally to me, unlike music, which I always had to work at. I still have to work at it. 30 years later I still walk out of guitar class every week like, damn, I don't know shit.
Sounds a lot like me, but when I played bass, I drifted between sludge metal gunk to help-I'm-trapped-in-a-guitar-solo-and-I-can't-get-out-blues/rock jam bands.
Well, unlike you guys, I don't play an instrument, but I am a talented singer. I'm just trapped in the body of a guy with no talent.
I hope I'm not driving the thread too far off-topic, but my claim to fame with my singing is that I cleared out a karaoke bar in 4 1/2 minutes. No joke. I was asked to not come back.
Haha. Yeah. Don't take shit from guitar players. Give them their 8-12 bars and then push them back into the key. I have a yes sir/no sir approach to the rhythm section. Please make me sound better for a bit and warn me before you sink my ass.
We had a solo gig one night (we normally did shows with three or four local bands back in the day). When we started our final set, it just started snowing. By the middle of our set, it got heavier. Our guitarist/singer didn't realize it. We always ended the show with one of our originals called "Brand New Day." It's very much a help-me-I'm-stuck-in-a-guitar-solo-and-I-can't-get-out piece. Out guitarist gets into a groove in the solo, and he's off to another plane. The drummer and I are looking out the windows at the deteriorating conditions and thinking "we've got to pack up and leave in this?!?" Literally five minutes in, and the guitarist is still on six-string cloud nine. It's a squall outside. Everyone had left except us, our significant others, and our sound guy. And he is trying to get the guitarist's attention but to no avail. So the drummer and I start dropping bricks to get his attention. Playing wrong notes, hitting drums off beat. Finally, he realizes what we're doing, and sees the weather. Good times.
I wrote my first poem when I was 16. I still remember it - it lives on quite vividly in my head, and that's where it's staying.
Actually, I wrote the lyrics to my first song at sixteen. My last band recorded it back in 2004. It's never been released, but it was recorded. NO! Scratch that! I *DID* record it with another band, and it was unofficially released as a bootleg (that nobody wants to hear).
Every step I continued on with writing has helped it get better. But I would not be where I am with it without the initial things that had me wanting to write stories and what inspired me with ideas for it. Even as a teenager long before I would be doing anything such as this writing there were the things I see leading me to it. Others do so sooner while I needed that time for getting to it.
Oh dear. I do recall wanting to write, and one day in class, I tried to start penning a novel with the lined loose leaf in front of me. I think I got the front and back filled out, but then I had no sense of structure. From there, until the next few decades, I only wrote stuffy academic type papers. So I likely wrote well, but no one would ever want to read it. At 20, I started a story and then shelved it for another 20 years. Finished it up and did a quick self-print for home use.
I was homeless at 15 until I went into the military at 17, living in back rooms and garages of girl friends. That's when I became a great writer of love letters, some that have survived a half century. I didn't try a fictional story—yet it could be said my letters were—but it gave me a love of writing, knowing someone would read my effort and enjoy it.
In my super-edgy phase. I am still Edge McEdgeface, but I have learned to create balance in the story. Like a teen might write 90% Erotica to 10% plot. That was me, but with gore and dark shit. Fun times.
16-19 I wrote mostly broken hearted love stories based on life experiences. Then at 19 I spent way to long getting over my real first love. Funny 100 years later we are still friends.
