For me, writing came from reading; I can see now that it was inevitable. I don't remember not being able to read. My mom used to take me to the public library all the time for those events they had for little kids. I'm so grateful she did. From then on, I read anything fiction I could get my hands on. By the time I entered middle school I was practically reading on a high school level. I was set in my ways, though, and some books I just refused to read. I loved the genres I loved, and I wouldn't read outside of them, mostly because the few times I had, I was bored to death. So, die-hards, look away...I've never read Harry Potter! But that's okay, you'll get over it sooner or later.
In elementary school I read through nearly all of the Nancy Drew books, and by middle school I was mainly into the adventure and fantasy genres. I was all for anything relating to pirates, knights, and other worlds. Sword fighting and bows and arrows were usually a must. A little romance thrown in wasn't too bad, but it was just as good without it. But by the time middle school was beginning to come to a close, I was having trouble finding books that I liked. I perused the library for as long as I was allowed, reading countless book covers and many times leaving empty handed, or with a book I never ended up reading more than a few pages of. Thus, the birth of my writing.
Truly, I had been writing since elementary school, because when you read like I did, there's no way you can't have a bursting imagination. But later, when I couldn't read, I wrote. I still have a mound of my crazy unfinished stories, written on various brands of notebook paper, in handwriting so horrible, I myself can barely make it out. There are pictures too, but we'll talk about that another time. It got to the point where I told stories to myself in my head as I fell asleep at night.
My senior year in high school I took creative writing. The class was made up of a ragtag group of various ages. I think there were about three of us who had voluntarily signed up for the class. I really got to explore there, and write like a crazy person, so I was sad that it was only a semester class. It was in that class that I wrote the very first draft of my first complete story.
I had had a scene in my mind for several months before we had to write. Sometimes I even think it was induced by God. I can't even explain how you can look at the sky when a random song comes on the radio, and a scene unfolds in your mind that you can't file away. I didn't even have a story at the time that the scene would fit into. So when it came time for our fantasy short story assignment, I just created a story for the scene. It was short and very rough, but it was a start.
In college, about a year after high school graduation, Caroline told me about National Novel Writing Month. Basically, you write a novel in a month. Some crazy writing fiend must have come up with it. Who else would? I signed up on the website immediately and then settled in on figuring out what to write. It dawned on me that I had never really hashed out the full idea for my short story back in high school, so I went with that. I wrote furiously that November, and thankfully my classes weren't too hard. By the time December 1st rolled around, I hadn't finished, or gotten anywhere near the 50,000 word mark that signals victory. I set it aside. Then, literally the day that classes ended that semester, I jumped on that thing. I was so close. I don't remember the exact date, but sometime before Christmas, I typed the last word. It was only a rough draft, mind you, but it was one of the most significant points in my life.
I mentioned earlier that I had a stack of unfinished stories. On my computer, I have at least thirty unfinished plots awaiting completion. I even had to limit myself to stop coming up with plots, and put a majority of the ones I already had in a file appropriately named, "You're not allowed to work on these yet!". Up to that December in 2010 I had never been able to finish a story. That day, I didn't cruise into the winner's circle, I didn't get prizes galore, I didn't make it to 50,000. But I still won. I won because I finished.
(The original name and cover I made. Who knows what the title will end up being...)
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