Kaye Curren was a guest blogger here a few weeks ago. This morning, I read a post she wrote for another blog. She detailed her writing journey. You can read it here. I started thinking about how I began my writing journey and then about the way rest of the writers I know and those whom I have not met got started writing.
I think we all began our writing journey in different ways. Many have the desire to write long before trying it. They had a delay for various reasons. I had always wanted to write but let Life get in the way. I was in my mid-fifties before Life smacked me and I chose to take a correspondence course on writing for children as a solution. Ever heard that old adage Out of all bad things comes some good? For me, that was certainly true. From this side of the fence, I know that the miserable situation I found myself in was the catalyst for my finally becoming a writer. I'm eternally grateful.
My oldest granddaughter, Alexis, wanted to be a writer from childhood on. I credit a primary grade teacher she had who taught her students to journal on a daily basis. I have a feeling that was what sparked Alexis's love for writing. She was a copy editor, then writer for her college newspaper. Now, she is in grad school but still writes when she can. She will be an English teacher when she finishes graduate school and she will teach middle school English with an emphasis on creative writing. I'm so glad she pursued her writing far sooner than I did.
Some of you began writing when only a teen. Others waited until they had experienced a lot of other things in life before becoming a writer. Remember this--even if you haven't published but write, you are a writer. Some feel that publication allows you to say I am a writer. Anyone who writes can proudly say I am a writer. If you've never said it out loud, stand before a mirror and say it to your image several times. Then, try saying it to someone else. Take quiet pride in saying it.
A longtime friend, teacher and artist, always asked me if I'd written my book yet. In his mind, I wasn't a writer until I had written and published a book. That's so wrong. There are so many other types of writing besides writing a book.
How many of you have written an essay or short memoir piece about how you got started as a writer? Wouldn't an anthology filled with stories of how people began writing be a great inspiration to new writers?
Some of us begin writing at an early age while others waited until fifty or more. I wrote an article many years ago about people who began writing after age fifty. They were all people I knew personally. What impressed me was that, despite a myriad number of reasons for waiting so long, they all overcame whatever had held them back and could finally call themselves a writer.
We all walked different paths to become writers. The best part of the journey is that we persevered and can call ourselves writer.
As a teen, I wrote copious notebooks full of "poetry" - mostly doggerel. But it rhymed. I'm so glad those writings have disappeared into the mists of time.
ReplyDeleteMy first published writing was an article for the Kansas Business News in the eighties. Then my next published work was a devotional gift book, published by Harvest House, in 2011.
My first foray into fiction happened as a novella in a Christmas anthology in 2017. At present I have plans for more fiction and a couple of non-fiction projects. Since I'm pushing age 80, I'll have to hurry a little faster on future projects. (LOL)
Good for you. Sounds like you started and kept right on. I know what you mean about hurrying as I, too, am 'pushing 80' Next spring!
DeleteI began writing poems as a young girl. When some were selected for our yearbook, my confidence grew.
ReplyDeleteGood post. We all have doubts. Well, maybe not those published with the Big Six.
Getting that little bit of confidence certainly helps. I bet you're glad you kept writing.
DeleteUnexpectedly! As a grade school student, and later in high school, I wrote because I needed that particular Literature or English class credit to graduate. I did well, but I planned on becoming an engineer.
ReplyDeleteAfter high school, I did not have the means to attend a college. So, I entered the US Air Force to work with high level Aviation / Electronic systems - radar and such. Part of doing that job included us technicians making notes to pass onto the next technician working on that same system, and also being able to convey my own Avionic system repair information. We needed to explain our repairs concisely to let the next worker know.
After leaving the Air Force in December of 1981, I started college. In January, thirteen months after I became a civilian, I was the passenger in a single car crash. I have so much to say about that incident, but I keep forgetting parts of what I may remember. And, many of the players who might help are no longer around. They had a much clearer vision of what had really happened with me, especially when I was still in my coma.
Even now, I struggle. I have acquired a new editor, but I have never been able to attain a coauthor. So, I do the best I can. At least I kept a personal journal for my editor to use, since 1996 - once I healed well enough, thirteen years after the incident.
I admire your persistence, Jim.
DeleteThanks for the article, Nancy. I credit college, especially graduate school, for giving me the experience to research and write. Later, I wrote a play to be used in a workshop on appreciating diversity. But my first book was the result of children repeatedly asking me questions about my life as a deputy sheriff. "Is your gun loaded? they'd ask. "Have you ever shot someone?" "Did you ever have to see anyone die before?" "Can I try on your handcuffs?" "Do you know my dad, he's in jail?" After answering these questions so many times, I started writing the answers and stories down. After a while I began to recognize that the stories were chapters for a book that would become a police memoir. The title? Cop in the Classroom: Lessons I've Learned, Tales I've Told by Jim Potter
ReplyDeleteSounds like you didn't find writing, it found you. And a happy event that was!
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