What Made You Want To Become A Writer?

[Laycrew]

I started writing a story when I was in elementary school about an orange cat. I don't remember what it was all about now. I was always reading and I wanted to write my own stories. I started another one when I was in jr high. It might have been a portal fantasy. I'm pretty sure that one is lurking in a file somewhere. When I was in high school I took art and also got to take a Creative Writing class instead of regular Senior English. I had poems published in high school and then I had two pieces of writing I shared with a teacher. She helped me mold them together into one story. I can't tell you how many times she made me edit it and edit it again until it worked. That story was published in a statewide publication along with one of my art pieces that year. I was told that getting two pieces published was uncommon. I was quite proud of the writing. My senior year I wrote a story about a girl in a picture. When I submitted that one, I never had to edit it the way I did the year before. It was published that year in the same highly selective Statewide publication. Again I was told doing that two years in a row was unheard of. I wrote a research paper about the history of tennis shoes and the paper had to have a creative writing spin on it. I wrote it from the POV of a tennis shoe in the dump and it gave the history. My teacher loved it and kept it. To this day I wish I had a copy of that paper. The last thing I wrote that year was sort of a reflective essay and my teacher told me she wish I was the one speaking at my graduation which was a very high compliment. That teacher is the one that helped mold me into being a writer and let me know I did it well.

My mom really wanted me attend an art school. My art isn't really that good and not satisfying the way writing is for me. I think that was her dream so I wasn't all that excited to pursue that. I went to school for Child Development instead. I wound up super frustrated in my English 101 class. The one paper I did really well and got an easy A on was a rather snarky paper about homework frustration.

Time went on from there and I was always wanting to write but life and raising kids came first. Now that I'm finally writing, I have all the writerly feelings of not being good enough. I lost some of what I was able to do as a teen and had to relearn it. But I do enjoy it. Writing actually settles down my depressive moods and anxiety. So for me it has become good therapy when it's just me and my stories. When I let it out into the world though all that changes.

[James A. Ritchie]

[pls]

[updog]

[Brien Sz]

I've written most of my life. However, I wrote 30 second, 20 second, 15 second, 10 second and 5 second commercials for television. I wrote a few sales tapes and some corporate Ra Ra stuff as well as a nice handful of articles over the years but the art of writing a novel is a whole new magilla. I love it. I love the joy, the angst, the work, the focus, dedication, pulling my hair out, the rush of an idea - it's been wild. Next step of course is to secure an agent. I've had some nice rejections and some notes thrown my way but I have not sipped from that cup of success just yet. I will. My goal is to become a novelist/speaker for the second career. I do the speaking part now but want to kick that up a notch more. Getting that novel to print is my manifest destiny...

[LilliesCarol]

I'm probably the oldest hen in the roost and have been writing since 1947,inspired by my high school English teacher. (See Paul, English teachers are most helpful and inspirational). We were told to rewrite THE YEARLING into a short story with I don't remember how many words, but it would be 3/4 of our grade mark for the semester. I was the only one in class (out of the three frosh classes she taught) to get an A Plus. I guess that set me off to write short stories, poetry and memories of things that happened in my life and the lives of those important to me.

Writing can take on so many different genres and even the genre in which you write can lead you down all sorts of paths as your character develops his/her own personality.Sometimes, I wonder where the ideas that flow to the computer screen in front of me come from. It is a fascinating art and I just love it, even more so now that I have retired and write any time of the day or night. I guess at age 83, which I will be the end of this month, I am so happy to have been a six time short story published author. Isn't life wonderful? So to all you tenderfoots, never be discouraged, good things will happen with perseverance. Blessings to all.

[max2011]

I didn't think about becoming a writer until I actually sat down to write a novel ten years ago. I found great joy in doing so and contemplated becoming a writer. I already wrote poetry since I was in High School. Writing filled something in me.

[MatthewTM]

I don't know. I've always created characters, worlds and stories. I used to draw them, now I write them. I pick writing because it's the quickest way out for my ideas. Although I've discovered that writing a novel is a very long process (for me at least)

[James A. Ritchie]

[pedro12]

Coz I want to work in my pajamas