I came at writing slowly.
As a kid I spent most of my free time playing or watching TV. I liked to read but not in an obsessive way. And I didn’t write unless I had to for school.
My senior year of high school I had an English teacher who really knew how to bring books to life through discussion, and I discovered that I liked thinking deeply about books.
In college I started keeping a journal, but only wrote in it sporadically about girls I liked but was too shy to ask out, or about what life is all about, or about how I needed to get off my butt and do something, anything.
Sophomore year I decided to major in English because I had to major in something and didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life besides go camping and backpacking.
My last two years of college I wrote lots of old-style rhyming poetry, modeling the poets I was reading, and had two poems published in a student literary journal.
When I moved to Alaska a few years later and was living in a cabin outside of town, I wrote some really bad short stories about a guy living in a cabin where not much of anything is happening.
Fast forward a few years: I’m teaching English in an alternative school and I discover Young Adult Literature. I start bringing home books by the arm-load, searching for a few my reluctant and struggling readers will connect with, and I fall in love with the genre.
Now that I’ve got my students reading, I’m looking for ways to turn my students on to writing so we start writing scenes using characters from the novels we are reading.
My students like doing the assignments, but I love doing the assignments.
I’m not sure I would’ve started writing YA if it weren’t for my students. Now, I’m hooked.
How did you come to be a writer? Did you love writing from an early age or did you discover it in a more roundabout way?
Great story Paul. I always loved to read. When I was very young, I read my first novel, (Black Beauty) and I was hooked. I devoured books as fast as I could. (Especially horse books.) Then when I had children and began homeschooling, I too loved the writing assignments. About six years ago our cat Blue got stuck up in one of our trees on our farm. The tree is 70 feet and he was in the very top. There he stayed for TWO weeks. We tried everything to get him down. Even called the fire department. He finally came down on his own. He was hungry and mostly thirsty.Well. I thought that would make a great picture book and so wrote, A Cat Named Blue. That book will be published one day. (Blue died last November.)
That is how it happened for me. (Sorry for the long comment.) Your question took me back. Thanks for helping me remember. I bet your students were happy to know that they had a part in your love for writing. 🙂
Great story, Robyn. I hope you find a home for the book that was born from it.
I love the round-about way you got there. Your students were the catalyst:) I also LOL with that cartoon about writing what you know!! Ha ha! I still find it interesting that a guy wrote in a journal–makes me wonder if any of the guys I knew did and why oh why didn’t they just ask the girls out! We were waiting!
Thanks, Terri. Your comment made me laugh-out-loud. Maybe guys that were English majors were more likely to keep journals. Who knows?
I loved reading this. I, too, came to it in a roundabout way, and only a few years ago.
Thanks, Christine:-)
My gran is a published author and poet in my country, and so it has always been a natural thing for me to do…
I started in seriously with full length novels when I was thirteen. I was negotiating the word limit up for an English essay and decided to write a book instead…
Misha, that’s great. Having a writer as a role model in your family. I like the visual of negotiating a word limit up for an essay:-)
Fanfiction as a learning tool?! You, sir, are as brilliant as they come. I intend to talk to you when writing my thesis.
Jon, I never thought of it as fanfiction, lol. I was just trying to get my students interested in writing and figured if they had a base to start from that would help. 🙂
I loved writing from an early age, but up until a couple of years ago, I only considered it a hobby. Like you, I didn’t get serious about it until I discovered YA. When my kids started bringing home YA literature, I would read some of it. I fell in love with it and decided to try my hand at writing it.
What a good question for a Monday morning (and I love that chimp)! I’ve liked reading and writing for as long as I can remember, but what comes to mind when I look for a reason is my grandfather, who, at all the family gatherings, would sit with us grandchildren at his feet or on his knee and tell us Irish folk stories. My parents weren’t much into storytelling but they encouraged my reading and I recall that many birthday and Christmas gifts included books. (I collected all the Albert Payson Terhune dog stories and the Bobbsey Twins sagas.)
I kept a diary as a teen and periodic journals as an adult. The latter eventually morphed into a badly written memoir and when a friend suggested an autobiography I laughed and wrote a novel instead. That one became four and I’m still at it. Who knew novel writing would be addictive?
Totally by accident! There was a little contest, and for some reason I had an idea, and I wrote it and entered. I was about 27. I’d never written stories as a child, except through a Power of the Pen contest.
Pretty cool. I love hearing the stories of people that came by it more slowly. Instead of they were born with a pencil in their hand.
Mine came from a desire to create. I taught elementary school, so I was already familiar with kid lit. And quilting just wasn’t cutting it for me! 🙂
Interesting post! I love reading about how writing infiltrates people’s lives. 🙂
I recently posted a similar entry on my site about why I write. I’d like to hear your thoughts on it if you have the time.
http://www.somewhereoverthesun.com/post/1197399780/whyieatagain
I didn’t take to writing until I’d gotten both my bachelors and masters degrees. Well, maybe that isn’t exactly accurate. I liked writing poetry since I was in high school, but I hated prose.
Then I went through a very rocky period around the year I turned 30 and started writing to deal with my issues. I wrote a lot in a journal to begin with, then branched out to fiction. Now I love it.
What a great post. I think it’s wonderful that you discovered the YA genre while teaching. 🙂
I loved reading your story Paul (and the pics were way fun!). I love that you came at the writing thing out of a desire to serve your students. What a beautiful thing. 🙂
Lovely post!
I’ve always enjoyed reading, but never in my life thought I could write a novel length story. I went the way of biology and medicine in school and college, ultimately completing medical school and residency in psychiatry. For the past two years, I’ve been “moonlighting,” as it were, with writing. I’m on my seventh novel now, and the ideas keep coming. Hopefully, I’ll see my novels published. My, my, what an unexpected journey.
Interesting. I love reading author journeys.
I began novel writing when I was 17. My MC’s were usually teens, but the novels were pretty bad and in an adult style–I wasn’t reading any YA back then. It wasn’t until I became a teacher and was exposed to MG and YA that I started writing for young people.
I started with poetry. Only mine was bad poetry in high school.
I also majored in English and taught high school.
Only I didn’t stumble into YA because of my students. My journey started with a flooded basement. The only things that weren’t in plastic totes were my old high school things. I found my inner teenager again, started writing a book then became a YA fan.
Great story! What a wonderful selfless way to come at it. And it seems like approaching writing through students and readers will always keep the search meaningful. To be a good writer I believe you always have to be reaching. I loved this post!
I love reading this. Isn’t it amazing how our little life events can add up to form such a big life event? Very cool.
Fantastic post, Paul. And I love that Twister cartoon!
For me, I’ve always felt safer behind paper than in real life.
What a great story.
I rediscovered children’s literature from reading to my son. And working in a middle school, I read The Giver, which blew me away. By the time I read, Harry Potter, I was hooked.
But I hadn’t gone to school for English, so I didn’t think I could write. Then the author, Melissa Glenn Haber came to speak to my fifth-graders. She said she’d hidden stories for years. So did I. I decided to give writing seriously a try.
Since then, I can’t stop.
Lovely story, Paul.
My first memory of “being” a writer was in fourth grade…My teacher, whose name I sadly cannot remember (but do remember her kindness and interest) handed back a story I’d written. “You should be a writer,” she said to me. And, though many things initially distracted and obstructed me from the committed, consistent path I’ve been following for ten years, I felt I always was.
So cool to read a little of your history, Paul. Sounds like those students were lucky to have such a passionate teacher.
I LOVED reading when I was younger. Swore to everyone I would be a writer. Life happened. Put that aside for 20 years. Then, decided I’ll never have time to do it if I don’t just do it.
Great post, Paul! Thanks for sharing. 🙂
I’ve always written, but didn’t know I wanted to be a writer until about 4 years ago. I have stories from when I was five or six…They aren’t very good, but hey…they were stories. :-O
It is all my daughter’s fault. Had to tell bed time stories. Sort of a history in our family as Dad did that for me. When she got older I was asked to write them down……
Love your story!
I come from a family of story tellers. I was encouraged in college to put my stories onto paper. I loved it & haven’t looked back!