When did you know you wanted to pursue writing?

[zeldas_lullaby]

Thanks!

Oh, goodness. Surely you've improved since then? What makes you think you haven't become a good writer?

[ALynnPowers]

Thanks!

Oh, goodness. Surely you've improved since then? What makes you think you haven't become a good writer?

Just my instinct. Not all of those who write are necessarily good at it.

[zeldas_lullaby]

Hm... Well, maybe it's a strength/weakness thing. For example, I'm great with dialogue. I'm horrible at creating flowery sentences. I'm great with vocab, but I'm horrible at creating realistic adult characters (apparently). HA HA HA HA!!!

I bet you're a better writer than you think.

[kovac-nikki]

When I could first remember being asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I had said a massage therapist. I enjoyed concocting potions out of my mother's lotions and perfumes and having my brother pay me in change to rub them on his back. When asked a few years later, I was probably seven or younger, I said lawyer. I carried around a suitcase with a bunch of blank papers. I didn't know how to write then, but I had a mouth to argue. Finally, in 5th grade, when life started to get tougher because I was constantly moving around, I started writing scary, short stories and childrens books. It wasn't until I was in middle school did I finally start writing novel-sized fan-fiction on my boxy computer. Since then, I knew I wanted to pursue writing as a career.

[moderntimes]

After wanting to be a cowboy, cop, or fireman (astronauts weren't around yet) my first serious wish was to be a doctor, particularly a pathologist. I'm one of those weird people with dual brains, left & right hemispheres both running full speed. Of course this is actually a false premise but I was interested in medicine, science, chemistry, biology, etc. and at the same time interested in literature.

So I was writing small stories and such while still in high school, no publishing outlet of course, but it was fun to write stuff. In college I was a chem major w. pre-med, biology, and math, too. Then i branched out and took a 2nd major in English lit w. focus on James Joyce.

Right out of school I worked as a newbie reporter for a newspaper but the pay was simply not a living wage so I directed my dayjob toward chemistry.

Eventually lost the medical desire but ended up doing chemical research and still kept writing fiction and essays and such too. Later in life I was an engineering consultant on specs for offshore exploration and drilling w. focus on safety and environmental regs. So I got to blend my writing skills w. technical things and I did pretty well, since I could write coherent specs that were easy to read but still had all the requisite tech info.

And I still kept writing, and now I'm focusing on my private detective novels.

[rtubbs77]

For me it was a couple of years ago. I wrote a letter to a girl I really like and she told me the way I wrote that made her wonder if I wrote professionally. I never even thought about it before, but I decided to follow that lead and my goodness what a world it has opened up!.

I started writing guest blogs, about random topics. Mostly were comedy and my readers loved them. They said I had a way of puling them in. And because of that I started writing stories tailored to my readers being the main characters. They got such a kick out of seeing who would play what in those stories.

I have not been so happy since starting to write my own stories

[moderntimes]

rtubbs, just wait till your stories are published. Then you'll REALLY be happy! Good luck.

[Virtue]

As soon as I graduated High School, I knew writing was for me.

[Specterpoet]

When I fell in love with writing:

I was eleven, and it was almost Christmas 2001. My family was moving from California to Wisconsin and we had to spend Christmas and New Years in a hotel in Tennessee (I've travelled a lot!). I remember we had just seen The Fellowship of The Ring in the theater, and I was feeling inspired. I was also feeling bored and restless. So I took out one of my dad's tiny yellow legal pads and started writing a fantasy story about the Twunes and the Wolymen. I distinctly remember telling my little sister that I was only going to write for an hour or so until I got bored.

I never got bored, couldn't stop writing, and finished that book when I was almost 13. I've been writing ever since!

[authorrustynugent]

Well, when I was 6 I started writing stories for TV show such as Knight Rider. I would bring it to school and let everyone read them and they were like where's the next one. I was also a metal drummer and loved playing music, it was my life until I found out I had a heart birth defect when I was 32 years old. All I can do now is write my wild and crazy stories but I am a slow writer because I write intense full with major plot stories. (^_^) Stay Cool!

[Amagine]

I knew I wanted to pursue writing as soon as I was able to read by myself. I would read a book and think to myself that I could write a book too. I began orally telling stories and then I begin to write them down.

[Rebeccaej]

I heard the idea that if you want to write, you should quit and find something else to do. If you can't quit, guess you're stuck being a writer. And I realized that, while I didn't write all that much at the time, when I did, it was because I NEEDED to. So I figured maybe I should try developing that skill.

[Sushan Ekanayake]

I was writing short poems to children's newspapers when i was small and then came a science fiction competition in my school. I wrote a story about starting life on mars and won the bronze medal. That's how I started writing

[emidio125]

It was when I realized my thoughts were powerful and people liked them.

[Kajol Dadhania]

Stories are something I had always loved hearing, reading, and making up. But I realized I could also write decent stories when my English teachers started appreciating my writing in essays.