# When did you REALLY start writing, and why?



## philistine (Apr 22, 2013)

I'm not talking about this whole, 'I wrote my first novel when I was six: it was ten pages long, and full of errors...' business- rather, the point when you really starting taking your writing seriously. Also, what kicked off your desire to write with such determination?

For me, it was a few days after my twenty-first birthday. I remember I had just finished a volume of Russian short stories, and they had been racing through my mind constantly for some time afterward. I soon after began sending short excerpts in the form of instant messages to a friend over MSN, and he thought they were quite entertaining. They eventually became longer, forming a sort of serial, and it wasn't long afterwards that I realised I should actually try and write a structured story. I did, and I haven't stopped since. That was around two years ago. 

Let's hear it! :joyous:


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## Dictarium (Apr 22, 2013)

1st Grade. I wrote Kingdom Hearts fan fiction in a notebook I would periodically show to my teachers to show them how smart I was in a kind of fake cursive I made up before I knew how to actually write in cursive*. I had a bit of a lull in my want to write during Middle School but it picked back up around the end of 9th Grade.

*I just obtusely connected print letters with swoops and loops in an inconsistent fashion.


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## Robert_S (Apr 22, 2013)

I used to play a computer RPG called Baldur's Gate. It was a "trilogy" starting with Baldur's Gate, Baldur's Gate: Shadows on Amn and the closer expansion called Throne of Bhaal.  After I completed it, I found myself wanting more, so I started to write fan fiction based upon my character and his love interest from the game. I also signed up for an online critique class and used that to gauge my skill. The teacher said some really good things about my writing, so from there I've been trying to keep at it. This was back in...I think about 2000 or so.

I tried my hand at a novel, but novels aren't my thing. I try short stories, but for now I'm doing script writing.


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## Skodt (Apr 22, 2013)

Around 15, if memory serves. I was into some bad things around the time, and also depressed, a teenage angst I suppose. I started on a book, _"A book of teenage suicide" _Turned out, I really liked the story. It came easy to me, not that I ever wanted to kill myself, but just the flow felt right for my depression. Anyhow uncle ended up rebooting my computer, one night, and the file was gone forever :-( Oh well, I never have tried to re-write that story, but I still think of it as my first real story.


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## Grape Juice Vampire (Apr 22, 2013)

This is a hard one as, in all honesty, writing is just something I have always loved doing and have always been serious about it. But, I'd had my current work in my head for years, and I would tell my best friend about it, and she encouraged me to write it and see if i could publish it. That was a few years ago, but because of life getting in the way, I've only really been working on it for the last year or so.


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## moderan (Apr 23, 2013)

At fifteen I won an award in an adult fiction contest. I bet myself then that I could get a story published within a year. My English teacher matched the bet and helped me craft the story. That one didn't sell, but the next one did. I got a long letter from the then-editor of Isaac Asimov's SF Mag, George Scithers, that explained what I needed to do to publish in the future. Then he bounced my story. He did buy two others, but I've yet to appear in that periodical, having been ousted by John Varley and Reginald Bretnor. Can't complain too much about that. The copyrights reverted to me before the stories got in the publication queue.
There was a semi-prozine, a mimeographed thing that paid pro rates, called Strange Horizons, out of Winnetka, Illinois. I made my first six sales to them, and later sold plenty of things to the editor, who ended up working for Bob Guccione.
Got serious enough after that, that I wrote two novels before the end of high school and took a journalism degree.


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## Jeko (Apr 23, 2013)

I thought it was around March, last year.

Now I've realized I wasn't taking it seriously then, either.


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## Trilby (Apr 23, 2013)

I don't know if I have 'really started writing' as in taking it seriously. I have had features published in printed magazines and seeing my first by line was undeniably a thrill, it also proved to me that when I put my mind to it, 'yes! I can do it'.
 I am working on a large project, I know what I am going to write, I know the market to aim for, I know which agents I am going to approach first, but my biggest obstacle is procrastination - anyone know a good cure?


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## Bilston Blue (Apr 23, 2013)

It really depends what you mean by "taking writing seriously". I wrote a regular column for a football fanzine over ten years ago, which I took absolutely seriously knowing there was a captive audience as each monthly issue had a print run of around three thousand.

I started trying to write fiction around the time my daughter was born, so a little over four years ago, and, though I knew the standard was way short of what I desired, I still took the craft and its learning seriously.

Now, my writing having come on leaps and bounds over the past few years, I don't have anywhere near the time to devote to it; yet so far as the subject matter is concerned and trying different styles and voices, I'm taking my fiction more seriously than ever before. 

But if by serious you mean churning out ten thousand words in a week or something, then I'm probably not very serious at all.


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## JosephB (Apr 23, 2013)

Age of 26 or thereabouts. Begged the warden for pen and paper -- just trying to get them awful screams out of my head.


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## Sam (Apr 23, 2013)

When I was 16, my sister died suddenly and unexpectedly. It floored me for about a year afterwards, and when I finally resumed some kind of normalcy in my life, I discovered that there was a lot of rage brewing inside me. I started writing shortly after my 17th birthday, a cathartic exercise more than anything else. I soon realised I loved it. By my 18th I'd written my first novel. I was never 'serious' about it in the strictest sense of the term. I wrote because I loved the feeling of creating a world and then getting lost in it. It didn't -- and still doesn't -- feel like a chore that I had to sit down and take seriously. Writing has always been a joy for me: academic, creative, general -- it doesn't matter. Coming home from work to write 2,000 words a night wasn't something to fear. It was second nature. 

So, to answer your question, I've never taken it seriously. It still holds the same wonders and joy that it did for that 17-year-old kid starting out. I've always had serious output, but never serious input, if that makes sense.


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## WriterJohnB (Apr 23, 2013)

When I was around 45, I got an idea for a horror novel based on evolution and tried to write it. Over the next few years of trying, I realized I didn't have the skills to craft a novel, although I had the basics of writing down. I joined a critique group and they basically "helped" me write the book. Now I've got several novels published and enjoy writing as a hobby, because it sure isn't paying the bills.


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## Circadian (Apr 23, 2013)

I've been writing pretty much since I learned how to hold a pencil, but I don't think I was really serious about it until a few years later (can't remember my age) when I decided to write a novel.  I switched over from writing random stories about animals to finding a genre that was truly thrilling to write in and that I still write today.  The novel was the beginning of a series and the first project I actually planned out before writing.  I abandoned the idea most of the way through the third book when my computer decided to commit suicide.  I tried to revive it once, then figured I had bigger and better ideas, but I always think of it as my very first novel.


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## sknox (Apr 23, 2013)

Serious? Seriously? 
I wrote a short story in my early twentys. Sent it off to Galaxy and got a quite nice rejection letter. This was back in the day when an author might get a handwritten note.

Then graduate school happened and I spent many years writing history. I also kept coming up with story ideas, wrote pages and pages that went nowhere, read books about writing, but never completed anything.

One day, a couple of years ago, my wife found that old rejection note and quietly put it on my desk. I thought about it and realized that I had been writing all my life. Huh. Maybe I'm a writer, sez I to me.

I decided on that very day to get serious. To keep going until a story was finished and then send it off, and I've been working at that ever since. Age fifty-nine is awfully late to begin pitching, but I've had a helluva wind-up!


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## Gamer_2k4 (Apr 23, 2013)

I write with the same drive now as I did in elementary school (that is, not much drive at all).  However, I'd say I only started writing well a few years back.


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## Skodt (Apr 23, 2013)

sknox said:


> Serious? Seriously?
> I wrote a short story in my early twentys. Sent it off to Galaxy and got a quite nice rejection letter. This was back in the day when an author might get a handwritten note.
> 
> Then graduate school happened and I spent many years writing history. I also kept coming up with story ideas, wrote pages and pages that went nowhere, read books about writing, but never completed anything.
> ...



55, that isn't bad at all. I mean look at the writer of Game of thrones. George has been writing forever of course, but you said it, so have you yourself. He is almost 70 years old, and is still pushing his work out. He is the slowest writer I know though, but that is not age; he has always been that way. So, what I intended with this ramble was to show you that, if you work hard age isn't a factor. By age 70, you could be a author of over 5 books. That is only at a pace of three books a year. Odd's are lower, but not gone. :hi:


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## Bakslashjack (Apr 23, 2013)

I started writing after my dad died. he was a crazy prolific reader. he would read about 6 novels a week. he said to me about a month before he was diagnosed with cancer, "shit man, I can do that." He grabbed our age old typewriter out of the garage and was cleaning it up and getting it ready to type. he never got to write a single sentence. my post ends here as I've started to shake and can hardly hit the right keys.


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## Angelicpersona (Apr 23, 2013)

I started taking my writing seriously when I was about 16. I was in a creative writing class in school, and I was very shy and quiet and didn't partake in class very much, so I thought the teacher wouldn't really notice me, but she started telling me that my writing was very good, and very adult for my age, and I think I just took that into myself and used it as incentive to keep getting better.


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## Dictarium (Apr 23, 2013)

Trilby said:


> anyone know a good cure?


Deadlines which, if not met, yield punishments. These can be as simple as "no [insert favorite food here] for two weeks" or something like that. Said punishments are, of course, carried out by a friend, a significant other, a mother, a father, a sibling, et cetera. A procrastinator cannot be trusted with remembering to enforce their own punishment.


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## Olly Buckle (Apr 23, 2013)

I was in my fifties when a Japanese musician friend did my horoscope and asked me to write lyrics for him, then after a couple of motorbike accidents and getting Wegener's I was not working nearly so much and had more time so started developing it.


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## Leyline (Apr 23, 2013)

I took writing seriously before I could actually _write_. I would bring my Mom scribbled pages and claim they were stories (my mother read to me from the moment she knew I existed. I was raised by stories). And, according to her, would get quite angry if people dared say that they weren't. In kindergarten, my story 'Sandwichman' -- about a man who gained superpowers when he was bitten by a radioactive sandwich -- was framed by my teacher and sent home with a nice note praising my vocabulary, spelling, humor and sense of irony.  In every grade of elementary school, I was beloved of teachers because I wrote. Not just little stories, but full notebooks of serialized interplanetary adventures starring my classmates. I would read these in front of the class and one of the templates for my understanding of the concept of satisfaction was when I'd look up and see everyone quiet, intent, caught up in this situation that I had invented. I never put myself in the stories, that seemed wrong somehow. 

I found out early that there is a simple, quiet, yet _vast_ power from writing: nobody wanted to get on my bad side and end up getting the crap part of the story that _everyone_ was going to hear, laugh at, and talk about later. It was my first true, visceral lesson in the sheer power of _story_, in the fact that the world _runs_ on stories. Our lives are stories, and reality is understood and defined through story.

To a dirt poor kid in hand-me-down clothes, with an absolute disconnect from his peers so far as TV, movies, games, toys, and all the other ephemera of childhood, it was a hair-raising and life changing realization.

I could _create_ the stories they could only _buy._ And, with not much effort, make them better -- more personal, more direct and meaningful to the listeners. With will and thought, I could create something that _mattered_.

I've _always_ taken it seriously.


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## Hunter56 (Apr 23, 2013)

Pretty recently. I began to write a story on Christmas morning 2011 (literally like 12 or 1 a.m.) and thought it was a really good start. I didn't get serious however until late spring/early summer of last year. So I've been writing seriously for just under a year.


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## Tiamat (Apr 23, 2013)

I spent two years living as an illegal alien in Norway with nothing much to do except go door-to-door with a snow shovel and a really poor grasp of Norwegian.  Needless to say, I had a lot of downtime.  So, combine the boredom with the fact that it's incredibly lonely to be surrounded by people with whom you can barely communicate, and you start spending a lot of time in your head.  I had always dabbled with writing, but being poor, bored, and cut off from most every other human being in the vicinity, I had the time and the drive to do more than just dabble.

Granted, most of what I wrote in that two-year span is utter crap.  But, that's also when I joined WF and was fortunate enough to meet English-speaking people (holy sweet mother of God be praised!) that were kind (and brutal) enough to teach me a thing or two about this craft we all adore.  I've been hooked ever since.


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## luckyscars (Apr 24, 2013)

Maybe twenty. About the same time I grew out of being a rock'n'roll star.


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## JosephB (Apr 24, 2013)

It occurred to me while I was perusing this thread that I only care about when someone started writing or why if I've read his or her work. If I can't make that connection, it's of little interest to me. 

I belong to other creative and career forums and you just don't see this unless it just comes up as part of another conversation. I suspect it's because some writers are just compelled to tell their stories for some reason -- I guess because their writers -- and that's it's more about that than people really wanting to know how long some stranger on the internet has been writing and why they do it. Who knows -- maybe I'm a little jaded. Maybe all this is interesting to someone who's seeing it for the first time.


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## moderan (Apr 24, 2013)

*Are You Serious?*

Well, the title of the OP seems to infer "serious" writing, i.e., writing for profit or publication, more than "juvenile messing around with words". If one is "serious", a serious response is warranted.
To a certain degree, I agree with you. Don't recognize those bylines. But those folks seem to believe that they're "serious", and who am I to disagree?


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## JosephB (Apr 24, 2013)

Well, for example, I can read George's work and know he's putting his money where his mouth is. What difference does it make if someone just _says_ he's serious? That could mean anything. The proof is in the pudding -- the writing. And I'm not disagreeing with anyone -- I'm just indifferent.


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## moderan (Apr 24, 2013)

I understand. It is the same species of skepticism that one entertains when one reads the publication advice of people who don't have work "out there"-there's no body of work, no track record to refer to. But the anonymity of the internet makes it possible that such people may indeed be justified in their claims. Unlikely, still, in my opinion, because them that has such credentials are seldom loathe to share them, but possible. One simply waits to see what the reality is.
And there are others who are telling patent untruths (not necessarily in this thread, but in general). Their word usage or misusage and conceptual difficulty often serve as indicators.


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## JosephB (Apr 24, 2013)

It's easy for me -- I have no credentials. On another note -- is anyone else tired of hearing about Greek yogurt?


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## Loulou (Apr 24, 2013)

I've always written.  I started my ten year newspaper column when I was thirty.  But a huge turning point was in 2007 when two of the most testing things in my life so far happened - we were flooded and lost our house, and my seven-year-old daughter almost died and we discovered she had type 1 diabetes.  I gave up my day job in travel to care for her.  While she was at school I remained at home - or at least in the awful place we were living while our own house got rebuilt.  Then writing became something beyond just writing.  It was escape, therapy, passion.  I coped with everything by doing it.  It made me joyful.  I knew it was what I had to 'do.'  And I've not looked back.  Since then I've written three novels, two and a half plays, and over thirty short stories, of which about twenty have been published/won prizes.  I finally have an agent and am waiting on a publisher's team reading the latest novel.  I think a writer is born.  But then something often happens when the serious writer emerges.


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## jayelle_cochran (Apr 24, 2013)

I would have to say that I first became serious about my writing last year.  I had written a novel once before but I wasn't as serious as I am now.  That novel came out like crap.  It was a good story, the writing just left a lot to be desired.  Last year at the end of October/beginning of November I started on the novel I'm currently writing.  It was supposed to be an exercise.  I had been writing quite a bit for a few years but nothing substantial (had trouble finishing anything I started).  At the time I had been playing a free-form RPG with a friend of mine.  We both love creating stories and that's basically what our role playing was.  We weren't able to play for a while and I had an idea to try writing the way I gamed with my friend.  So, I wrote up some characters like I would for the game.  I decided on an environment that the story would start in (again just like with the game).  Then, once I had an idea of a scene (after a few days of daydreaming and character creation) I sat down and began to write.  Now that exercise has turned into a novel that is nearly complete.  I'm at 94,000 words and the end is near.

This has been unlike my other projects.  Yes, I did stop for four months.  But, I had hit a wall that took me a while to get up the nerve to get around.  Still, the freeness of the way the story developed caused it to be just as much fun as role playing.  Not only that, but the story is actually good.  

I had spent the past 5 years doing research on self-publishing vs traditional publishing because I had hoped that one day I would finish a novel and be proud of it enough to try and publish the work.  I had already decided how I would publish before I sat down to this novel.  With the knowledge that I have about publishing and the joy I had with this novel...it's something I've decided to do for a living.

So, yeah, once I had written a few chapters back in November I decided to get serious about writing.  I'm looking at self-publishing like a business since that's the way I've decided to go.  I have ideas for future stories that would tie my first book into a series.  I'm not sure how many books the series will be.  Still, I look forward to writing them.  

I'm glad that I found my writing mojo and can finally get serious about this form of art.

*hugs*
Jayelle


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## moderan (Apr 24, 2013)

JosephB said:


> It's easy for me -- I have no credentials. On another note -- is anyone else tired of hearing about Greek yogurt?


[ot]I've heard enough of it, and had already seen enough of John Stamos to last a lifetime. Good stuff if you're making tzatziki though. But still.[/ot]


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## JosephB (Apr 24, 2013)

*Also off topic:* I only mentioned it because there was a bevy of moms in my kitchen talking about it. And not surprisingly, John Stamos came up -- some controversy over whether or not he's still good looking or if he ever was. Yeah, I was talking to a Greek guy who owns a restaurant -- he says they only use it as an ingredient -- no one just eats a cup of it like they do here. It is good though, and better for you -- if you're into yogurt.


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## moderan (Apr 24, 2013)

*still very much off topic*

[ot]





JosephB said:


> *Also off topic:* I only mentioned it because there was a bevy of moms in my kitchen talking about it. And not surprisingly, John Stamos came up -- some controversy over whether or not he's still good looking or if he ever was. Yeah, I was talking to a Greek guy who owns a restaurant -- he says they only use it as an ingredient -- no one just eats a cup of it like they do here. It is good though, and better for you -- if you're into yogurt.


The funny thing is that we were talking about it over the dinner table last night because we saw one of the gawdawful Jamie Lee Curtis commercials about the stuff. My wife hates those. Yogurt is like sour cream to me. I use a lot of it, but as an ingredient, like you say. The two are often interchangeable.[/ot]


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## namesake (Apr 24, 2013)

I agree, with what people have said in this thread, but no need to gloss over what people say and ignore. Opinions are considered not truths anyways. A forum has a simple goal for example. Help people get better, and sometimes it's hard to judge what is not obvious to people in public opinion. I apologize if disagreeing is a bad idea. I think Moderan is smart and articulate, just needed to chime my opinion on the idea discussed. Not to mention his stories are really good which is why I back his opinon and support his view as a general service since it looks like be the truth to me.


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## Nickleby (Apr 24, 2013)

Back on topic (sorry, don't like yoghurt).

For me, becoming a "real"/"serious" writer was a long, gradual process. In school, writing meant essay questions, and that meant regurgitating facts in the shortest possible period. Distasteful. One year, having run low on required courses, I took Creative Writing. My surreal side woke up, and I wrote a serial drama based on _Don Quixote_ (which I'd just read). Instead of a flaky Iberian knight, though, my hero was a cockroach.

It occurred to me then that writing might be enjoyable. In college I wrote a few derivative short stories. After that I got involved in pencil&paper role-playing games, a more immediate type of narrative and a good way to learn world building. My gaming group became playtesters for a rules book, and instead of sending in some feedback, I rewrote the book and submitted it. They didn't use it. I sent a game-themed story to a magazine. They rejected it. The real world got kind of complicated, so I put writing on a back burner for a while.

After that the Internet became kind of a big thing. I found out there were people who shared my interests, and I turned to writing erotica (never mind what kind). That was fun. I got some good feedback. I began to think that writing could be a career, especially when I got drafted into doing some technical writing at work.

Then (you guessed it) the real world got complicated again. I got an idea for a book, I did the research, but I never got serious about cranking out the words--until a couple of years ago. All the gear for my other hobbies went to people on eBay so that I could concentrate on this one book. It's had its ups and downs, but I've always had one eye on the finish line. I _will _finish this book, if I live long enough, and I _will_ get it published, even if I have to do it myself.

The moral of the story--don't give up. If you are a writer, you may do other things for a while, but you can always come back. Other experiences will make you wiser, stronger, and more articulate.


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## TomBuhls (May 2, 2013)

I became intensely involved with social-political activism about five years ago, and it all started with me writing press releases for my church organization.

I never thought of myself as a very good writer, nor did I particularly enjoy it, but having found a talent in the art it is something that I've come to develop.  Fast forward a few years, and I'm a Communications & Culture/Journalism/Philosophy student at I.U.-Bloomington, with focus in rhetoric/advocacy/argumentation/speech composition/persuasion, and other writing disciplines.

Every time someone asks me, "What do you study in rhetoric?", I answer plainly and directly, "I study the art of telling you what to think..."  People stop asking questions after I drop that answer on them...

But, to get back to answering your question-- I started taking writing seriously when I realized that I had a skill with it and that it was a valuable tool in accomplishing my social-political activist work.

-thomas


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## Jeko (May 3, 2013)

Correction: I _really _started writing last week.


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## Folcro (May 7, 2013)

I always knew, in the back of my mind, that writing is what I was born to do. First grade, when we were told to type anything we wanted on a computer. That fascinated me. I could make happen whatever I desired, in whichever way I chose. The assignment ended, and in my early-childhood foolishness, I returned to doing what foolish children do... crayons or something. 

Then, when I was 11, I received for my birthday a game. Loved it form the start. I hit the net in search of cheat codes for it. I found none. What I did find were fanfics. Printed them in reams. Drove my parents nuts. Before very long, I was filling notebooks with my own. After some time, I retired fanfiction and began my own works. Several novels later, here I am, grateful that things worked out the way they did.


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## word (May 15, 2013)

I am not a great writer and my English is terrible. I have just started writing short pieces because I can make some extra cash and I have found it to be a lot of fun I am 54


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## Jeko (May 15, 2013)

Correction: Turns out I was wrong.


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## H. Giggles (Jun 16, 2013)

April of this year.  That's when I started writing my current story, the only one to survive the inevitable occurrence of sobriety.  It's the first time I've exceeded ten pages in anything outside of school work.  It was this story that made me register on this site in the first place.


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## escorial (Jun 16, 2013)

Started last year, poetry mostly and recently small stories. Not sure why , just started one day.


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## Yurika (Jun 18, 2013)

Attempt #1: Just out of high school, all starry-eyed and enthusiastic, shot down by creative writing teacher. 
Attempt #2: Went on holiday and came back all motivated, tried to write every lunch hour, got shot down by hundreds of publishers.
Attempt #3 (the one that stuck): got retrenched and couldn't find work for eons. I had nothing to do at home BUT write; and the story was finally born. Now I am writing the second installment in my fantasy series! The first book, 'The Unsheathed Key', is epublished and shooting off the virtual shelves!
I am finally happy and content; flying off into my own little world every day.


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## Mutimir (Jun 18, 2013)

Skodt said:


> Around 15, if memory serves. I was into some bad things around the time, and also depressed, a teenage angst I suppose. I started on a book, _"A book of teenage suicide" _Turned out, I really liked the story. It came easy to me, not that I ever wanted to kill myself, but just the flow felt right for my depression. Anyhow uncle ended up rebooting my computer, one night, and the file was gone forever :-( Oh well, I never have tried to re-write that story, but I still think of it as my first real story.



Do you still have that computer? It could be salvaged. Also, thanks for posting this as a reminder to me to back up my work once again.

I began during 10th grade English class. Our teacher focused mainly on poetry and would review line by line every poem we read. Once I began understanding the structure and meaning behind several poems I decided to take a stab at it. I've probably written about 50 poems since then. After I graduated college I went through some weird phases and matured a bit. I started reading better authors and was inspired. After I read _This Side of Paradise _ I began to understand the impact of well developed characterization and why I wanted to write.


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