How Did You First Become Interested In Writing?

I can't pinpoint the exact time I started to like writing... I had always been a chatty person, and my friends would get annoyed about my talking, so I wrote what I wanted to say instead -- and I think it just took off from there.

Green Eggs and Ham. I wanted to be a word acrobat when I read that book. And Roald Dahl sealed the deal.

About 1st-2nd grade when I realized that when I told stories aloud, people called me a liar, but if I wrote them down, people called me imaginative, creative and cool.

From reading comic books. I wanted to be Stan Lee, or Jack Kirby...

My first grade teacher noticed I had the knack during some assignment or another.

She was also the first to discover how I clutch under the pressure of a deadline.

My father was a great story teller. It was in the good old days when there was no television. We would sit in the living room after dinner and he would enthrall us with his yarns. Our family is Manx and ther was always a lot of superstition and magic in the tales. Then, when i lived in Papua New Guinea, there was no TV when my first two kids were young. So the natural progression was from telling stories to writing them.

Well, I've got pictures of me sitting at a desk as a toddler, scribbling away little "stories" which I no longer recall. So, I always wrote.

I didn't think anything of it until the third grade when I wrote a poem about a color for this project we did with a visiting writer. It was either a poet or a children's book author. He chose some of the poems, and mine was one. I had to read it in front of the whole school. I was scared to death, but I got through it and the applause made it worthwhile.

"Lavender Rain" it was called. That's hilarious to me now. But...it let me know that I had a little knack. It happened during a time in my life when I was desperate for approval, so I think it made a permanent impression on me that this was something I could do, and do reasonably well.

*shrug*

My mom tells me I was writing little "made up stories" when I was in second grade, so I suspect this particular brain-chemical disorder (which is how a good friend of mine who works as a psychologist describes my need to write) has been with me since I first learned how to wield a writing instrument and put letters together into words.

I was always told not to attempt writing. I was such a bad speller, and I was horrible at essays. Family, and adults I trusted discouraged any kind of foray into the world of writing. I wasn't illiterate or anything. I was a voracious reader, and read at college level in the 4th grade; however, people treated me as though I was illiterate. I actually realized that they were wrong while I was in college in New York. I had to write a 20 page final paper for Art History. I had gone through my entire academic life without such a hurdle-- which is amazing. I was so nervous. I worked on the paper for a month. Apparently I did everything right. I got an A++ and any bad test score was wiped out. The professor told me it was the most entertaining paper she'd ever read. The spark had been lit. Less than a year later I was off to New Mexico to get a degree in Professional writing. While there, I got bored and began taking creative writing classes. I did well there too. I was amazed that everyone told me I could not write when apparently, I could. I wish I had tried it earlier. I learned that when people discourage me, I shouldn't listen to them. I didn't know that back then.

From the moment I could talk; I then used that ability to tell myself stories. Once I learned to write, and then learned that some people make money writing, I was hooked.

I loved reading since the age of 3. I was reading all these Ray Bradbury stories and falling madly in love with them in middle school. I went to the store to look for more Bradbury books and I found that he had written a book about writing. I was intrigued by the possibility that I could write something similar to what he wrote and from that time the idea stuck with me.

1) When my fantasies offered an escape from the hell house I was raised in
2) When Rhet Butler walked out the door and that STUPID Scarlett simply figured she'd get him back, but would think on it tomorrow.

Me? I'd have tackled him, ripped my bodice, and smothered him in southern delight!! That's when I decided I could write a better story.

Uh hem. I was fourteen. Need I say more?

The first time I remember thinking, "I wonder how the author did that. I wonder if I could do that." was when I read Jeffrey Archer's Cain and Abel back when I was a preteen.

As an adult, the first fiction I wrote, I set myself this challenge: To write a whole story without ever telling what the character was thinking. Do it all through actions. Entirely show instead of tell.

So I wrote it and I haven't stopped writing (much) since. I guess that was 5 or 6 years ago.

I've been writing stories as long as I can remember; I recall a story of mine which was highly derivative (read--ripoff) of Coyote and Roadrunner being entered in the Young Authors program when I was little. That surely wasn't the first. I was always writing silly little stories in childhood. Every time the teacher would give us a list of spelling words to use in a story, I seemed to come up with the most creative one. And not only that, but I'd write sequels, and sequels to sequels. I recall a short-story series we read as classwork and none of the students were satisfied with the abrupt ending so the teacher gave us the assignment to write our own ending. Mine was of course an epic (complete with illustrations, no less) which the class enjoyed. This pattern continued all throughout school and up to the present day, though of course, once past junior high, everyone else stopped caring about reading any of it. (Where I'm from, it's cool to be a creative writer--when you're in elementary school. The rest of the time it's rather lame.)

As for a defining moment though, I was bothering my father in the kitchen and he snapped at me to go write a story, so I took a notepad and left. I returned a while later with it half filled up and he exclaimed, "I told you to write a STORY, not a NOVEL!" That story was based on a dog food commercial that I'd seen. (Long story.)

I finished that, then wrote a sequel, then another sequel, and another, etc....then started a different series...and another different series...and a fourth...then other series set in these four different storylines...and more unrelated stuff...and more and more...and sequels to sequels in the series...and then spinoffs...

And that's where I am today. *shrug*

So, thank you, dog food commercial.

I started writing graphic novels when I was a kid, sitting around waiting for my dad during meetings and such. (At the time I would erase each scene and draw a new one.) I didn't realize I could actually be a writer until I turned 30. (I'm a slow learner. )

It was my grandmother who got me to write down all the stories that I would tell her, so she could "remember them better", but I realise now that I was giving her headaches with my non-stop chatter and interrupting "grown-up conversations".

This is a popular interview question and writers should have an answer ready for it, especially when they become authors. My answer? I honestly have no idea when or how I become interested in writing. I remember loving to read a lot, but I can't remember how it happened. I just liked that the stories I read took me places in my imagination and I felt like I was living the stories I read. I was always sad when a book ended. But writing? I haven't a clue. I don't even remember when I started writing. How awful is that?

Since age 12. See my site link in my sig, "Poetry/Prose" page, click the "California Here They Come" link (its rather short). Unedited. Wrote that and got an A+. I still have the original paper, the grade in red ink at the top. Wish I hadn't waited so long to continue writing. :/

I wrote my first story when I was 6. It was called "The Incredible Space Creatures." No, I don't write sci-fi now.

I wrote the most between grades 7 and 12. I'm trying to recapture that productivity now.

I always loved reading and stories. Writing was just a progression. I wrote what I consider my first serious story when I was thirteen. It was pretty terrible but it gave me a massive sense of possibility. I don't think I've stopped writing or lost that sense of possibility since.

A short story popped in my head and I laughed at the idea of it and so wrote it down - i'm afraid to tell you all that i caught the writer's disease and i hope i never find the cure. cheers.

I come from a long line of storytellers - only my family called 'em 'liars'. My sixth grade teacher gave us a writing assignment - short story - and I created 'Pam Palmer', an intrepid female space explorer. She discovered a far-off planet ruled by King Awattatashi. Another liar storyteller was born.

CBumpkin said:

This is a popular interview question and writers should have an answer ready for it, especially when they become authors. My answer? I honestly have no idea when or how I become interested in writing. I remember loving to read a lot, but I can't remember how it happened. I just liked that the stories I read took me places in my imagination and I felt like I was living the stories I read. I was always sad when a book ended. But writing? I haven't a clue. I don't even remember when I started writing. How awful is that?

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Yeah, my press-worthy response is definitely "I don't know."

I *think* I got started down the writing path when I was around 12, 13, when I realized I couldn't think of any career I'd actually want to spend my life doing, except writing. Maybe I thought it would be easy.