08/23/10
I used to be really envious of those people who have always known they wanted to write. You know the ones I’m talking about—they wrote and illustrated their first book at age 3 and self-published their first novel on their home computer in high school and sold it to their friends and two elderly aunts.
I couldn’t help but feel like these people had something that I missed. They had the knowledge of what they loved long before I did. Why didn’t I know that I loved to write when I was that young? Why did it take me so long to find my way to storytelling?
But wait—did it really? What about all those times I played make-believe with my childhood friends? Wasn’t that a form of storytelling? When I organized my dolls and stuffed animals into entire communities and wove lives and elaborate tales around each of them; that was definitely a form of storytelling.
So it took me a while to realize that I wanted to write my stories down. I’ve always been a storyteller, but I haven’t always been a writer. I’m still jealous of people who have written all their lives, but since I know we have the same storyteller gene in common, it doesn’t bother me quite so much.
If you’re a writer, is it something you’ve always done, or known you wanted to do? And if you’re a reader, have you always loved to read, or did you come to it later? Either way, do you have a lot of stories to catch up on? I know I do!
24 Responses
Tircia, I had the same insight you did: I was sitting on my tuffet lamenting that I came to writing so late, then started looking back at a childhood of make believes, decades of keeping a journal, the occasional story or article showing up in the magazine press… The writing was there, and my friends would have said, “she should be a writer full time,” but I was slow to see it. And now? All I wanna do….
LOL! I’m glad I’m not the only one, though I wasn’t one to keep much of a journal until recently, I did have the world of my imagination, right down to my imaginary friend. You know, I still don’t know where she went…maybe she’s hanging out with some other child, nurturing his or her storytelling nature.
I’ve been telling myself stories since I was…five? But giving it an honest effort was late for me, too. Sure, there are stories to catch up on…but if you love it, you’ll do it, regardless of royalty check, fans etc. Really, writing is for you–I’ll bet.
It’s for all of us.
Ooohhh! There are so many files on my computer and in the filing cabinet that will never see the light of day. *shudder* Stories I like, but not stories I’ll ever share. Some of them were strictly learning experiences and some of them were just things I needed to write to get them out of my way so I could move on to the next story.
As far as catching up, there are too many ideas to write and too many books to read. I’m so thankful that catching up isn’t possible!
I was always a dreamer – waking dreams and night dreams – which were sometimes (many times) more alive to me than my dismal reality. I guess I’ve always been a story teller…my earliest endeavor being at age 4 when I sent my father and a business associate of his on a desperate hunt for a rabid dog that “bit” me and ran off when, in reality, I’d just gotten tangled up in briars.
I still remember the whuppin’ I got when my daddy found out…!
Now that was a story! I never tried them on my parents, just saved them for my toys. Guess that was a good thing, huh?
Stories came early in life. A preadolescent mind wanting to go to bed early so I could get my characters engaged and moving. Just couldn’t figure out how to get it all down on the old fashioned typewriters (which scared the hell of me). I’d spend have the time managing correctable paper and give up in frustration. It took years of working and learning to type as I think in business before it dawned on me I might now be able to capture those stories. Better late than never, and never looked back.
Oh, how I hated typewriters and correction tape and goopy correction fluid! I remember getting my first typewriter with auto-correct on it and it was so great. I still wasn’t writing stories, just doing English papers, etc. I’m so thankful for my computer and word-processing software now. It makes writing so much easier.
I do wonder if I would pursue publication without the computer, the internet, and all the other modern conveniences we have today. (I wonder if I’d even know how.) I still think I’d be writing, though, because I can’t imagine myself not writing now. It’s a part of who I am today, part of my identity.
Ah yes, the going to bed early. At one point in my young life I remember my parents being worried about the fact that I “sleeping” so much. If they only knew…
Oh, I was always the worst typist, until computers. Luckily for me, I loved using a pen, still do when I’m in the creation stages or just blocked for ideas. For the typewriter replacement value only, computers are gold. One of my early bosses told me it was a good thing he ‘loved’ me because he had to buy correction fluid in quarts, and in three different colors. I don’t know why he couldn’t just do his various forms on white paper…
Trish, I can definitely relate to your topic.
If I had stories early like Cadence did, I don’t remember. I do remember early years buried in books of every kind which was the buzyness of my youth. It was replaced by the buzyness of work when I came of age. So until I found myself out of eighty hour a week jobs and crashed into silence, I never realized what my mother had always noticed – I always had a pen in my hand (like Grace – years and years of journaling) I just didn’t know or allow myself to see until the last decade what was trying to bloom inside me – fiction.
Thanks, DT. “Better late than never.” Amen to that.
Marley, I did always have my nose buried in a book. Mom read to me before I could read for myself, but once I learned, I read all the time. I still do. I always have a book (or my e-reader) in my purse. I can’t imagine a world without books! That would be truly awful.
I think that’s a part of why I want to be published. Books mean so much to me and I want to be a part of that. I want to touch someone with my own books, like books have touched me. And I think that’s what will keep me from giving up. Corny, but it is what it is.
She still has a pen in hand…I know ’cause Marley is evermore bringing me samples of her newest, most favorite pens;) But, it obviously works for her and I love getting the pens! Love that Marley!
I self-identified as a writer even as a child – but at the moment I’m a blogger only. Not yet published. I handwrote several novels in my school scribblers and illustrated them, just as you described! I also used to run elaborate story arcs with my dolls and barbies, and my friends played social role playing scenes rather than games. We were all storytellers then and we’re either published or pursuing publication now.
I think it’s so great that you knew what you wanted when you were so young. As I said, I’m jealous! Keep writing and keep working on getting published. It’s all about practice and perseverance! And, yeah, my Barbie games were like that, too, but my friends didn’t always want everything to be so elaborately planned out with backstory and story arcs. What were they thinking?
I was one of those people who always wrote stories. And yes, I wrote and illustrated books that my father (my biggest fan) would take to his office and photocopy for me. I’m sure his secretary was grumbling, “this is not in my job description.” the whole time. I still have them in a box in my attic and it’s fun to pull them out every once in a while. But then we established in an earlier blog post that I was so geeky I turned my weekly spelling lists into a story, so I guess I was a storyteller from the beginning.
See, you’re another one of those people I’m jealous of. I feel like I lost so much time when I could have been writing! Instead I floundered around looking for my passion. I tried art–oils, watercolors, charcoals, pencil sketches, pastels–counted cross-stitch, sewing, smocking, basket making, etc. I don’t paint or draw much anymore because I have no natural talent for those, much to my disappointment, but I still cross-stitch, and sew just enough to repair our clothes. *g* I enjoyed every one of these distractions, but wish I had added writing to my long list of artistic pursuits when I was younger.
Still, we do have the storyteller in us in common, as I mentioned. I think some of us just have to find our way to writing by travelling down a different, and sometimes much more winding, path.
I have a very vivid memory of being 7 years old and holding a big fat red pencil and writing on lined newsprint. I was in second grade and I was writing about the Pilgrims because it was Thanksgiving time. I made up a whole story — not factually correct, of course — but I do remember it was so much fun. I looked up at my Mom and said “I’m going to be a writer.”
Of course I got sidetracked in the 1960s like a lot of people and ended up studying Political Science instead of Journalism. So instead of writing articles for a living, I ended up writing speeches and press releases and testimony. It was still a writing gig as far as I was concerned.
However, I did achieve the goal of writing my first novel before I turned 30. Of course it took me 27 years and 14 more novels before I actually sold. But, yeah, I’m one of those people who always knew and was too stubborn to give up.
I remember those big pencils and cheap paper embedded with wood chunks…..
My daughter was going to be a writer, once upon a time. She still writes amazing stories for her school assignments, but doesn’t know what she wants to be when she grows up anymore. I’m hoping she never fully gives up the idea of writing.
I knew in 7th grade I wanted to be a writer, but by college had detoured off into teaching English, then writing for a newspaper, then public relations/marketing writing press releases, reports, marketing plans and advertising for a community college before drifing off into fundraising. I decided to leave the fiction writing for my retirement “career.” It never occurred to me to continue writing all those years like Hope did. I did write my first novel 10 years before I retired, but like others, didn’t keep at it until I retired two years ago. Now I’m playing catch-up.
At least we still have time to play catch up. It’s not like being a model or something you can only do when you’re young; you *can* write at any age. And I plan to keep writing as long as I can think and type!
I’ve known from the time I was 11 that I wanted to write romance novels. I’d just finished my first Harlequin Romance (Wild Goose) and was hooked. I didn’t actually start pursuing publication until many years later, but the dream was always there. In high school, my best friend and I would pen stories with ourselves as the heroines and our crushes as the heroes. I wish I would have kept them–if I remember right, they were pretty hot.
LOL. I was reading mysteries then, so any stories I would’ve written would be littered with dead bodies. Wait, they still are. They just have hot guys and happy endings now. *g*