I got an email from David a few days ago and he suggested I do a blog post asking when everyone started writing:
You should do a blog post asking everyone how they got into the writing that they do, how long ago, etc.
Which is a great question 🙂
So how did everyone’s writing journey begin?
I guess for me… I’ve been writing since I was young. I started keeping a daily journal when I was eleven-years-old and I still write in it to this day. I started writing fiction when I was sixteen or seventeen. That was the age I started getting into fandoms so I wrote a lot of fanfiction and read a lot of fanfiction.
I wrote SECTOR12 two years ago and it really came about as a dare. I’d heard about the Amazon Writer’s Awards and expressed an interest in entering, so Lyn basically dared me to write a novel in 2.5 weeks and enter. So I did 🙂
After that craziness, I didn’t write anything substantial for a while, and it wasn’t until September last year that I really decide to commit to my dream of becoming an author.
So that’s my story. How did you guys get to where you are now?
If you have a suggestion for what you’d like to see on this blog, please email me or let me know in the comments.
On a side note, my mum (being the proud mum that she is) entered me in the Best Australian Blogging Awards. So if you have a spare couple of seconds, feel free to vote for me. I’m listed as Jodie Llewellyn.
Words Read & Written 
I think my parents knew I was going to be a writer before I did. And that’s because, much to their dismay,I was writing on the walls of our family room when I was about four years old. Haha!
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I think my parents knew I was going to be a writer before I did. And that’s because, much to their dismay,I was writing on the walls of our family room when I was about four years old. Haha!
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I’ve always enjoyed writing and it came at ease for me. My mom was always really poetic and wordy so I guess I got bitten by the same bug. It wasn’t until last semester, after a creative writing class, that I started to enjoy writing poetry.
Writing is an outlet for me and I love doing it. Now I’m just worried about my future with it.
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I’ve always enjoyed writing and it came at ease for me. My mom was always really poetic and wordy so I guess I got bitten by the same bug. It wasn’t until last semester, after a creative writing class, that I started to enjoy writing poetry.
Writing is an outlet for me and I love doing it. Now I’m just worried about my future with it.
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I seriously started 14 months ago. I wrote a dozen short stories and one novel length story which was pretty bad. I have four short stories published and working on a new novel. I haven’t given up on the first, it just needs a lot of work. I’ve never taken classes and the longest works I’ve prior to writing fiction was assignments for University.
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I seriously started 14 months ago. I wrote a dozen short stories and one novel length story which was pretty bad. I have four short stories published and working on a new novel. I haven’t given up on the first, it just needs a lot of work. I’ve never taken classes and the longest works I’ve prior to writing fiction was assignments for University.
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We had “story writing time” I *think* every day in first grade for 15 minutes or something like that. So, I was 6. We would work on our own stories and at the end of the week we could turn them in to the teacher and read them out loud. The next year in second grade we had something similar. I wrote a 7-page typed story about a sleepover. My teacher wrote on my report card to my parents, “You have an author on your hands!” So I said, “OKAY!” and that’s what I’ve wanted to do ever since.
I started writing fantasy at the age of 10 after reading Harry Potter. The “sword and sorcery” novel I wrote for my English thesis in university is actually the final product of a story idea I started writing when I was 11–which, now that I think about it, is actually before I started reading any real “sword and sorcery” stuff. Anyway, I kept writing, started doing NaNoWriMo every year when I was 14, majored in creative writing in university… still haven’t been published, but I’m not giving up!
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We had “story writing time” I *think* every day in first grade for 15 minutes or something like that. So, I was 6. We would work on our own stories and at the end of the week we could turn them in to the teacher and read them out loud. The next year in second grade we had something similar. I wrote a 7-page typed story about a sleepover. My teacher wrote on my report card to my parents, “You have an author on your hands!” So I said, “OKAY!” and that’s what I’ve wanted to do ever since.
I started writing fantasy at the age of 10 after reading Harry Potter. The “sword and sorcery” novel I wrote for my English thesis in university is actually the final product of a story idea I started writing when I was 11–which, now that I think about it, is actually before I started reading any real “sword and sorcery” stuff. Anyway, I kept writing, started doing NaNoWriMo every year when I was 14, majored in creative writing in university… still haven’t been published, but I’m not giving up!
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I probably started writing when I was in 5th grade–I wrote a trilogy that could best be described as Zelda fanfiction with a bunch of self-inserts. It was awful, but I finished it. I would write more stories through my middle school days and beyond, but I was always embarrassed to admit I wrote for a hobby.
I got into poetry in my high school days, being published several times in my school’s literary journal. I often joke my journalism major killed my creative writing skills, but it’s certainly helping with my current project. And maybe they’re steadily coming back, now that I’ve gotten into this blogging thing.
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I probably started writing when I was in 5th grade–I wrote a trilogy that could best be described as Zelda fanfiction with a bunch of self-inserts. It was awful, but I finished it. I would write more stories through my middle school days and beyond, but I was always embarrassed to admit I wrote for a hobby.
I got into poetry in my high school days, being published several times in my school’s literary journal. I often joke my journalism major killed my creative writing skills, but it’s certainly helping with my current project. And maybe they’re steadily coming back, now that I’ve gotten into this blogging thing.
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When did I start writing? I haven’t. I need to. Last night I started before midnight, and it was really not enough time. So I should stop doing this and start writing.
Actually, I started writing when I was at most in middle school. But it was reading that made me write what I write: Tolkien, Lovecraft, Hammett/Chandler, Harry Potter. Watching Dr Who turned me in a different direction, and then came Rowling. I write more and more as the years go on.
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When did I start writing? I haven’t. I need to. Last night I started before midnight, and it was really not enough time. So I should stop doing this and start writing.
Actually, I started writing when I was at most in middle school. But it was reading that made me write what I write: Tolkien, Lovecraft, Hammett/Chandler, Harry Potter. Watching Dr Who turned me in a different direction, and then came Rowling. I write more and more as the years go on.
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I began writing before school and wrote a lot through my school years…in High School my English teacher gave some of my papers to her professor and a University and he said I had a unique and talented way in writing…I planned to follow up on that but…life got in the way. I continued to write all my years after school and still do:) It is my life line and my heart…my life. I love writing more than anything…and second is photography…they go hand in hand for me:)
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I don’t really ever remember not writing, or at least telling stories verbally until I could write. I can’t imagine doing anything else. ^_^
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I don’t really ever remember not writing, or at least telling stories verbally until I could write. I can’t imagine doing anything else. ^_^
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Ten years old – homework – we were studying the gold rushes of the 19th century. My mother kept the story for ages but it eventually was lost during a house move. I still remember the characters.
And, I still remember the “whoosh” of energy that went through me as the I got the story down on paper!
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I forgot to add: that Neil Gaiman quote – it’s spot on!
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I’ve always loved telling stories as far as I can remember, even before I could actually write. When I started writing, I loved any time we had to do something creative writing related at school. I also dabbed into fanfiction when around 8 even before I knew what it was. I also wrote poetry when a child, but stopped around 9 or 10. My first novella, I started writing it when I was 14.
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What a great question 🙂
I’ve always loved to be creative through drawing and writing. Writing is something I’ve done continually since I can remember 😀 I love all the stories you can tell through it, and one day I just decided I wanted to do it ‘properly’. I wanted to make a life out of it. So that’s how I got here!
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In retirement I have finally time to devote to learning more and hope to develop my writing skills,
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In 6th grade English, Mrs. Mapes had us write a book. I had moved many times in my life at that point so I wrote about a little girl who had a hard time making friends after she moved to a new place. We read them aloud to the class and Mrs. Mapes told me I was a good writer and I felt like someone had heard me and listened. I decided that day I would be a writer when I grew up. Since then I have always written – journaling, poetry, stories – both fiction and non-fiction. I am finally doing it full-time for the past couple of years when I was not able to find a new job… sometimes what seems like negative change turns out for the best!
And I LOVE that quote!
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I’ve always made up stories but it wasn’t until 2011 and my daughter introduced me to National Novel Writing Month that I actually wrote and finished a book. The new indie movement has made learning how to write, to edit, to submit so accessible now! Many thanks for stopping by my blog again!
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I’ve never been a novel or fiction writer, but I have enjoyed writing ever since about eighth grade, when I started journaling on vacations. The journaling started becoming daily after I started college, and I have continued that to this day (although not always literally daily…)
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Jodie, I wish you’d do another self-promotion post because I want to discover some new writing bloggers!
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I was sixteen when I first decided I wanted to be a writer. I had always wrote story’s before, but that was when I made conscious decision. You can’t imagine how my friends laughed when they heard the dyslexic kid wanted to make his living with the written word.
I got to work on my first attempt. Now let me stress , at the time I was a serous planer. I had maps , detailed character sheets, scene by scene brake downs, everything you can think off. It was a work in progress conning in at just over fifty thousand words.
I was in love with the whole thing. Sadly my lady ip was stolen during a burglary along with the external hard drive that held my back up copy.
After that I became disheartened and gave up for a time. But the need to write was just to strong. I started a new a year and a half ago. Now I have the plans for a short series of books with this world , a trilogy aimed at teens and just two nights ago came up with the plot if a new series, that I think will beat the other two sets.
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I started writing in early 2002, I was 15. I wrote a novel. It was hard and horrible and really the mood swings that the main character had were reflective of the two years it took me to write it. The novel was a fantasy/sci-fi novel with some good ideas and poor execution. From time to time I go back and read it just to remind myself of how far I’ve come.
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The first story I remember writing was a fan fiction based on Bambi (the book, not the movie) when I was about 9 years old. Does that count?
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I’ve written since I’ve known my letters. I remember my dad watching me write in a notebook when I was 12. He asked me what I was doing, and I filled him in on the complexities of my 12 year old story. He shook his head and said, “I couldn’t do that.” It was the first time in my life I realized what I could do was unique. That I had a talent that not necessarily everyone has. I didn’t always appreciate that talent, and talent is no substitute for skill. However looking back, that was the pivotal moment for me.
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I began writing when I was in the third grade. I had a wonderful teacher that year, whom I adored, and she let us have time to read and write when we “finished our work.” I was so happy! I kept my unfinished “books” in a blue, cloth-covered binder , marked “Private: Keep Out.” I guess, 49 years later, when I began to write in earnest, the dream was still there! ✏️
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As a kid, I loved writing creepy Stephen Kingish stories. I went to college with the idea that I’d study creative writing. Well… my first writing class introduced me to the fine art of group critique. My fragile teenage ego did not have a good time with that. So I switched my major to literature.
Many, many years later, after a couple other aborted attempts to start writing again, I finally built up enough self-esteem to tolerate constructive criticism. I’m now working as a freelance copywriter and devoting all(-ish) of my free time to fiction writing. Still, nearly every day I get that old feeling that I’m not any good at this. The difference is that I’ve learned to lean into that negativity instead of run away from it. And, of course, to keep writing anyway.
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I started writing in high school. For whatever reason, I became completely enamored with the novelization of the miniseries “V.” I liked it so much I created a version of it with me in it. I was so embarrassed at the idea of anyone ever reading it that I threw out each page as I wrote it.
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I started by making up stories in my head as a child, and acted them out with my toys. Then I read a book – Old Mr Fox by George Brooksbank – and that got me scribbling out adventures for my animals. Then in my teens I started writing sci-fi/fantasy and in late teens ran a fanzine. First writing published was around 20 when I was sub-editor with The Field.
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I’m fifty-seven (a young 57) now and I started my first book in 2009. I dabbled with poetry in college, but never wrote anything for publication. When I joined the US Air National Guard I began traveling to many places, Iceland, Turkey, Spain, Crete, even Antarctica. While in these places I began to write newsy emails. When my father told me that I wrote well enough to be published in National Geographic I began to think that, perhaps I should try just writing for myself. I began to write descriptions of the world around me, especially if I took walks. It was almost a journal “As I Walk.” Using my imagination one day I wrote about a character (much like myself) who was walking on the bikepath at noon for his exercise. He spotted something unusual in the ditch, and on investigating, found the body of a dead young woman. It was the start of my first novel. I wrote it in a year, spent six months “cleaning it up,” then I sent out dozens of query letters and synopses. I almost gave up, but after a year I finally got a letter from a small publishing company, Comfort Publishing. In another year I had a published novel – A Step Ahead of Death.
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I started writing fiction and short stories when I was 14- two years ago, now. Last year I began writing a novel but abandoned it about 50,000 words in. Being a writer is difficult in that sense; in every 1000 words they may only be a sentence that will prevail. When I was 15 I embraced my aspirations of becoming published and began writing for school journals and newsletters; and this year I started this blog to get my writing out there!
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I just wrote a full post in response, but the TL;DR version is this: I’ve made up and shared stories for as long as I can remember, but started writing stories down and sharing when I was around 8 years old, and haven’t stopped (aside from a regrettable pause in my early-mid twenties) since.
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I suppose I’ve always enjoyed the process and the thought of writing. I started writing when I was an adolescent. I wrote poetry… I still have a couple or three packed away. I also collected phrases, quotes and pictures out of magazines and newspapers that I saved in a photo album for sheer pleasure.
Until the past year, the thought of writing became more prominent. I just never had the support or allowed myself the time to just sit down and put words to paper. Now, I do more than before so, I blog bits of my muses where my thoughts come to play. But, soon I hope to project my idea for a novel where it can be read and enjoyed; if only for myself.
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I composed my first story when I was five — I dictated it to my dad, who wrote it down. And then I gave it away to my best friend! Now I wish I’d kept it!
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When I was a child. I only got the courage to write and publish recently.
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