Thinking about why I love NaNo got me thinking about why I write, how I got started. I always wanted to be an English teacher, particularly at the college level. That is still a dream I toss around, now and again, but it was in English class I always excelled. Words were this magical elixir to me. They filled me, and I could never get full!
Books would take me to magical places, other lands far away, in short, they would take me anywhere! I wanted to share in that beautiful gift. It started with Shakespeare, I really love anything written on Olde English! I found my way into writing poetry. I had a particular talent for rhyme and rhythm back then. Now I have learned to let the words flow, as good poetry, or even poetry, does not need to rhyme.
I was stuck there, for many years, only writing poetry. Thinking, there was no way I could craft something as amazing as a novel, I could not take people places! Oh how I longed too, but I just couldn’t believe it was possible. Then, I had this dream. I had to write it down, and from there, a story started. It took me almost ten years to actually get more that just bits and pieces of that story out. I found NaNo. It gave me the chance to try my hand at my dream. It didn’t have to be good, it just had to be written! Well, I can write I said. All this time I was worried that it had to be good! I got through my first NaNo, and now, I love that story premise, trust me the writing itself shows it was one of my first attempts! I do plan to revisit that work, hopefully sometime soon and actually see about crafting it into something more, but it was there, with that single act of completing NaNo, proving to myself I could write, that I found my courage to work on the novels in me. Someday I hope to find the courage to share those novels and have them go further than just family and friends. I would love for my words to be able to give someone else the escape, the dream, that the books I read when younger, and even still today, gave me!
What about you? Where did you get your start? What made you actually start writing? I would love to hear your stories!
Random Acts of Writing 
I’m sure my mother read to my brother and I when we were very young, because she read picture books to my kids and her great grandkids. The books I remember her reading to us, though, were books like Treasure Island, Robinson Crusoe, Pollyanna, My Name Is Aram, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Canterbury Tales. She read with expression, giving the characters unique voices and coloring her tone with joy, sorrow, despair or corny manipulation. (Thinking Tom Sawyer’s fence here.) That’s the way I read to myself and it’s the way I read out loud. It turned me into a voracious reader to the point where reading wasn’t enough and I had to write my own stories. I can’t even remember when that started. Like you, whiteravensoars, for a while it was mostly poetry, rhyming and not. Now it’s mostly prose. As I look back, I think poetry is a good outlet for the internal storm of hormone-driven emotions tweens and teens experience.
Good Post as always!
Poetry really is such a great outlet of emotions… I have found lately that my poetry, like my writing has changed and grown. Now my poetry is more on the lines of exploring depth… the different meanings behind things.
My dad read to me too. Every night. I don’t know that he added so much expression to it, but he had a wonderful reading voice, something I like to think I gained from him, but I too add the expression, it makes the stories come alive!
Treasure Island… ahh… that was a personal favorite! Always seeking that new treasure, to me equating to that new gem of knowledge…
I’ve always loved books. According to my mother, I started reading by myself when I was three out of the blue (for which she was thankful because she was really getting sick of Go, Dogs, Go!) and I was devouring chapter books in kindergarten. In first grade I was introduced to the concept of writing stories rather than just reading them, which opened my eyes–there were actual people behind the books I loved? And in second grade I wrote a 7-page long typed story about my first sleepover. My teacher wrote “You’ve got an author on your hands!” to my parents on top of it, and I decided that was what I was going to be when I grew up. I didn’t actually finish a novel until my senior year of college, but I hope to finish many more. =)
I read very early on. I think I may have even written when I was rather young, but got too caught up in the perfection of what my writing should be.
I really love reading about the authors behind the works! I can’t always believe that these stories that I love so much came from a mind… it fascinates me!
I didn’t think I ever could be a writer, probably why I settled with the idea of just being an english teacher, but now… oh yes… now I will be one *grins* even if only for myself.
I think that’s the best reason to be one–for yourself! But hey–at least as an English teacher you have a steady job. I’m thinking about going into Early Childhood myself to actually make some money while I wait for a publisher to pick up a novel or two. 🙂 I love reading about the authors, too. Sometimes I even read the author bios in the back before reading/finishing the book.
I do that too, along with always reading the acknowledgements and extras before heading off into the world of the story!
You should read John Gardner’s “The Art of Ficiton.” He calls writing a “vivid and continuous dream” … I often think of writing and reading as sharing in the same daydream. I don’t even remember how I got my start writing. I’m sure it came out of making maps and playing pretend with my friends back in elementary school. Before I knew it, I had put together a (rather shoddy) novel on the bus in middle school, based on our adventures. Probably explains why I still, to this day, steal my friends’ personalities for my stories!
I will have to find that book, at it to the top of my writing book que. I totally relate with what he calls writing. I think that describes it best as I see it.
*grins* steal? no, I think it is more… hmm… revealing the essence of what you see! I too pull from the things around me. I think more so from the ideas behind the people. I see many of my characters of different reflections of myself. Of the person I want to be, of the person I have been, of how I am with specific individuals. Some of my characters take on the life of those I know, but in the same vein… a reflection of how I see them… much like I think you do as well. Isn’t it great, to look at our characters and see the reflection shining out of them of how we see the world and those in it who relate to us?!?