Hey everyone,

This thread is, as it says, for you to tell us how you started your writing, from when you first started, to, well, now, I guess.

NotThatShort and I checked out General and Writing Discussion and couldn't find one, so here it is.

I'll post mine in a bit...

Okay, well, when I was eleven, I wrote a space adventure story, then I realized how dumb it was and threw it in the trash.

When I was thirteen or fourteen, I began a story that was basically a knock-off of Narnia and Eragon, and I ended up throwing that one in the trash too.

When I was fifteen or sixteen, I wrote a poor excuse for a novel called "The Art of Escape"; a story of an abused boy who runs away and meets a girl and then that girl's sister, who is dying, gives her her baby so that he won't be raised by her abusive husband, or their father. And then the father goes crazy, and yeah, it was pretty dumb. XD

When I was seventeen, I wrote a good bit of a series called "The Chronicles of the Empowered", which I was working on when I first came to HW. But then I realized it was full of holes, like Swiss cheese, and abandoned it (though I've recently thought of a way to fill a lot of the holes - I'm working on it in my head).

When I was eighteen or so, I started writing "Natalia's Journey", a rambling, pointless attempt at a first NaNo novel, that I still have somewhere in my computer for some reason.

When I was nineteen, I wrote a novel called "Wake Up", a supernatural psych-thriller that I need to revamp and publish. I also started "The Last Singer", which I'm working on now, a fantasy set in a world where God basically is music, and to deny Him your music is a sin, and those who live in sin are the Silent, and yada yada, check out my thread and you can read it.
I also started a novella called "Ettelevon', about a magical land which some children get to through the woods, but only if they believe it's there - sort of created by their imaginations, kind of like Bridge to Terabithia.

At twenty, I began "Super", a dystopian sci-fi about a group who, through illegal human experimentation, develop a process to make humans nearly invincible, and a girl they kidnap and force into their army of "Supers".
Recently, I started a short story I call "Along the Acorn Path", a romance, sort of, told from the POV of a brook running through a forest. I'm not sure how close I am to being done, but I'm past the halfway point.

Over the last year or so, I've also written a few short stories:
A True Soul - about a good "Grim Reaper" type creature.
Pull the Trigger - dystopian, post-apocalyptic flash fiction about infiltrating and bringing down a totalitarian government. Oh, and there may be a monster and gunfights too.
Changeling - about a creature I created that sucks blood like a vampire, then changes into that person.

Stories I'm still working on:
Super
The Last Singer
Along the Acorn Path

Stories I plan to work on:
The Chronicles of the Empowered
Wake Up
Ettelevon

So that's my writing history.

Let's see now. I started writing...I believe I was seven, because I remember writing a complete novella called Adventures in Dreamland, which had a winged villain who ended up crashing into a window and knocking himself out--and then the computer crashed.

I was mortified. So there's that.

After that I wrote odd little bits and went to two writing day camps at about nine and ten, respectively, completing two short stories that I got hardbound copies of and will never touch again because they are miserable. One was a spinoff of a Disney fairy book I still happen to have, and the other was a cheesy chick-flick sort of story with no plot and miserably cliche characters.

Then at about...twelve to thirteen I wrote the first complete, pretty decent thing I ever did: A feature-length, sci-fi screenplay, Princess of Plantaris (don't judge the name). I still have it, and I plan to make minor adjustments (like the name) before either selling it to a film company or adapting it into a novel.

More recently I did NaNo and have lately just performed small things for my own enjoyment. As of right now, that seems to be genderbent fairytale rewrites. I don't know why...it's just fascinating to see the way a character's mentality changes--while it still being the same character--when they're the opposite gender.

Ooh, this is a cool idea! Let's see...

When I was seven or eight I wrote several short stories in my journal. There was a horrible short story about two chipmunks named Rosa and Rosanna getting nuts and talking about books and then going to the bookstore (I told you it was horrible), then I had a story about a girl who's father was a bird and her mother was human so she had wings. Her name was Taffy, and I don't really even remember anything about the plot, but it was horrible whatever it was. Then I had a story about a girl named Shy Eyes and her parents, Porky (dad) and Bad Foot (mom). Shy eyes went out with her dog to gather fruit and got kidnapped by their enemy Mussed Hair and then she got rescued and so on and so forth.

When I was about nine I started writing a story about a family of Native Americans in modern (mostly) day. Only they still rode on horses and stuff. That story had no plot and no intended ending. After about fifty pages of that awfulness I got bored with it and started writing its prequel, and about five other stories. All of which I think got viciously deleted. I might have remnants somewhere, but... Anyhow, that went on for a year or two. I eventually started a story called Trailer Tramps about a bunch of guys that didn't have homes so they lived in an old horse trailer. That one...I never really ended it, but I liked the idea of it so I saved it somewhere. I'm not sure where. *Shudders* I might dig it up someday, or I might bury it deeper. Don't know yet.

At about age twelve or so I read a bunch of Narnia books and my sisters read The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings to me, so I got inspired to write Fantasy (which is still my favorite genre). I started a mega-novel in a giant five-subject notebook (still love those huge notebooks). The story was about a peasant boy who went on a journey to retrieve a national treasure that had been missing for like his entire life. He goes on a journey and picks up friends on the way and then the friends get kidnapped and he has to go rescue them and then go back to where he thinks the treasure is, find it, then trick the thieves into coming all the way back with him to the king, and then he goes back the way he came with the king and his army to stamp out a false king who snuck in and took over a city (who almost beheaded the peasant boy on his first journey). And then they have to go back home again and celebrate. I wrote on that for a couple years and added a prequel and thought up a couple other prequels and sequels that (thankfully) never got written. So that took me several years. The good thing about that was I invented the world of Eshteka through it. And though I completely scrapped the stories that took place in it, I've been incubating the world and will eventually write new stuffses to go in it.

So by the time I was about fourteen or fifteen I was sick of my dumb Fantasy stories and decided to take a break from them and write something new. I wrote a short story called Krachack about some Asian-like boys who were training to compete together to see who would win the honor of getting to catch and train an Elemental Dragon. Whichever boys won would grow up as the official royal guard for the emperor's son. That was the first story I actually liked, (and the first one I posted on Holy Worlds...it's around here somewhere.) and I saved it to revamp and expand later.

Sometime in the same vicinity I also started a story for high school - a Rapunzel rewrite. And I've been sweating over the thing ever since. It's been about two and a half years since I started it, and I haven't had time to work on it like I should... In the meantime, I'm plotting for some new stories. I have a sci-fi novel in the works, as well as a (most likely) children's story about a dragon that captures a princess and ends up keeping the knight that tries to rescue her as her pet.

So that is my lengthy and somewhat unimpressive writing career in a nutshell.

*evil laugh* I will have to read all this carefully.

Ahem. As for me...

I recently started going through a bunch of old notebooks--that I've kept since I was about nine and reading some of the TERRIBLE stuff in there. I mean, stuff that I wanted to rip out and tear into pieces and burn into ashes and then eat the dust. They're just that bad.

Mostly horse stories. You know the type: girl with family issues or school issues, an outcast, goes to a magical horse ranch where she meets a magical horse and her life magically changes. Only, I don't think I ever actually used magic. That was sarcastic. I do that. (stay on topic, stay on topic)

I slowly graduated from that--SLOWLY To writing actually magical animal/people stories. (Think Narnia/Redwall/Land of Elyon fanfiction, but I didn't realize that's what it was at the time.)

And then I got to what I'm writing now. Children's speculative fiction and some young adult with one adult suspense story in the plotting/hating/absolutely-adoring stages.

My progress as a writer is pretty well on display over at apricotpie.com under my pen name (Kay J Fields). While I don't think "Shadowed Moon" is worthy of being read, it's cool to see it beside my much lighter-hearted and probably better written "Island of the Kahts".

All right, all right, people have posted.

So, I started when I was eleven. My first writing venture was this horribly, badly formatted story of 10,000 words or so, where, for some comprehensible reason, I wrote the vaguest of locations and lines. When I first wrote it, for the first few months, I was able to fill in the blanks of actions and events, picturing it all in my head, but a year and a half later, I had forgotten it.

Shortly after writing "Bad-script-like-story", I kind of forgot the gap of a-year-and-a-half. I know I came up with a bunch of story ideas, and just created documents to hold all the related information in it (Characters, events, locations, etc.), but I don't know if I stopped writing or kept at it.

Either way, I found myself with half-a-dozen documents with stories in various stages of development - all pretty horrible, most of them fanfictions, until I finally decided to devote myself to them one at a time.

So, when I was thirteen, I put them all in order on a production schedule (Which still exists), and forced myself to start at the beginning, with converting "Bad-script-like-story" into an actual story, with descriptions of what happens, aside from the characters talking.

I completed that, and then started writing a few more, trying different formats of telling a story, did a short fanfiction story, etc,. etc., until I hit my first major project.

My primary writing sandbox is a semi-fanfiction, combining characters, settings, etc. with completely original ones. The events occur in real-time, and, for convenience's sake, uses a normal calendar. Because I used to feel very weird/out-of-touch writing 'events' that occurred 'long ago' or 'in the future', I would write the stories and move on immediately, barely editing any of them. In my earlier stories, this made them look even worse.

My writing style was very beginner, and throughout this 10-month writing endeavor, you can clearly see it change. I still was doing badly on descriptions of people and locations, but the writing style and focus shifted greatly in the last 10 chapters.

When I finished, I was fourteen years old and now had a 56k novel. Still poorly edited (With, I think, a couple of minor plot points resolved quickly). This novel will be the first thing I re-write, whenever I get around to re-writes.

Time passed. I continued writing in the semi-fanfiction world, introducing new and original settings and characters into it as they came to me, eventually overcoming issues I had with writing 'future events', describing things and people, and writing females (Seriously, like, for the first three years, I didn't even have one-use throw-away characters of the opposite gender - I was that intimidated with writing them)

Now, I continue to write in the semi-fanfiction world, but am prepping several standalone, completely original works (Including 2 medieval fantasies, and a couple of sci-fi).

I love this!

I wrote my first series when I was young, seven-ish I think. Maybe younger. It was about a cowboy name Bill (how embarrassing). And his series was Bill the Cowboy. The first was about a gang that stole Bill's bundle, and somehow he manages to call a sheriff that arrests everyone. (I still have my 'paper back' copy of it) The second was a Thanksgiving Special, and there was a scarecrow that was an outlaw in reality. The third was never made although it was supposed to be a Winter Special. ( )

I stopped writing after that, no stories no nothin'.

Then on the summer of 2012 (if there is such thing called summer here) my first character was made. And it began with: what if after Q doesn't have to be a U?

So for nearly two years I've been working on my books which are the following: viewtopic.php?f=150&t=1624&p=191884#p191884

It began with a single dragon's eye. At least, that is where the flame sparked.

Taking a look back, nearly a decade previous, I did miserably with creative writing as a child. I can remember several occasions that my parents lost all patience with me and assigned extra homework or doing lines because, argue and plead as they might, there could not force me to write a single paragraph story. In retrospect, that was because I had no single paragraph stories that were telling themselves to me, and could not force myself to create a story that I didn't know. I'm still not able to write by stream of consciousness. It's easier to sit and stare at a blank document and what the length of time necessary for the words to come.

So my writing career certainly didn't start on a page (I'm also hyper sensitive to textures, to the point where a younger me could not stand having my hand or arm resting on paper while I was trying to do school), but more so, it began in my head.

I'm the loner introvert that makes the stereotype. My favorite pastime as a child was lying on my bed and looking out of the window at the ants and robins and spiders that might be in the garden or the yard. I also read The Chronicles of Narnia at least a dozen times, often reading up into the night and finishing two books in a day if I was focused. I never got bored, because my mind was already full of stories. They were usually my favorite movies, television shows, and books, but with me in them in addition to all of the other characters.

Those were my crossover years. Since I was always the same person across genres, I constructed elaborate, trans-dimensional fan-fictions (TrekCraft being my favorite) all in my own head. There were also some made up stories of my own involving my various stuffed animals. Each of them ended up holding trinkets I collected over the years (usually no more substantial and party swords and drink umbrellas), and each item somehow contributed to their personality and character in my strange, sci-fi stuffed animal world.

Coming forward to my freshman year of high school, I was around people much more often in the day, and therefore compelled to leave the boundaries of my own mind. However, that was also the year that I had the greatest teachers in my academic career, and a story structure and analysis class as part of humanities. It was in this year that I was assigned a creative writing paper that intentionally followed the set structure, and ended up expanding it to be twice as long as necessary.

Begin sophomore year. My best friend at the time (Sezja on HW, though she is inactive now) spent time in study halls drawing characters from her book and discussing with me the possibility of being able to run of a waterfall, given the right physiology. I was never much of an artist, but I had pictures in my head, so I drew the eye that had been on my mind for some time.

Once it was on the page, the eye took on a character. It never told me anything in words, but I could tell what he was saying. I drew another. She was more abrasive and harder to read, but I got to know her as well. Next, I turned to copying geckos from a book, giving them bright colors and names I had constructed from my Latin dictionary. That was when my mind started to buzz. There were too many characters in my head, and they wanted a home. The notebook began to fill with odd snatches that would come to my head when I would look at the characters. Other characters crept in behind them, curious to see what this strange world what that I had created for my special dragon with his pulsing eyes. I left them to their devices, but they never liked being left alone for long, so before the end of that year, I drafted the first chapter of Birthright.

This is a really neat idea! I read over a few of your stories about how you came to the place you are in writing. How inspirational!
I haven't written as much as most of you... but I enjoy writing just the same!
I started making stories in my mind before I can remember, (my favorite was about a shepherd). My dad also told me many fascinating stories about dragons and castles. He would tell me that when I was older we would have to write them down. Unfortunately, neither of us remembers those stories very well - just pieces.

My first attempt at writing was (when I was 9) a story about children pioneers... I had big dreams for that story, and ev had ideas for the second book, but after a while I got busy and a few years later I found that document and felt like hiding away for the rest of my life - it was so embarrassing to read! Between the horrible spelling and childish plot I decided writing wasn't worth embarrassing myself over.

Then when I was about 16 I wrote a story about cowboys. I loved that story! I used the personalities of people I knew to fill out my characters and make them come to life. I had a few friends read the story and they loved it! I was actually surprised they liked it at all - so I was delighted! I decided I would keep writing!

My next story was able two brothers who at the beginning of the story never get along but then became best friends. At the end the older brother dies in the 9-11 attack. It was a rather emotional story for me to write.

I attempted to write several other stories but have never really understand finished, because I would take a brake and then look back over my work and feel embarrassed. I just need to write and not look back, or think twice EVER in order to write my thoughts.

I love your story, Lady Kitra Skene. Actually, I love all your stories - it's so fun hearing about the random stuff we've written! My writing history is pretty much the same as everyone else's. I've wanted to be a writer since when I was very young, and I've kept writing on and off since I was maybe five years old. Unfortunately, like NotThatShort, I threw my early stuff away. I wish I hadn't, because old bad writing is so entertaining to read. Anyways, I wrote a lot of different things - stories about seakitties (my imaginary creature that's been around since I was 3), one about endangered snow leopards having a crazy adventure in London, a script for an incredibly lame movie about a hacker who was going to take over the world (and I was a programmer at that point; I should have known better), and so on. The whole time, though, whether I was writing or not, I was always worldbuilding and always thinking about stories even if I never wrote stuff down.

When I was twelve, I did NaNoWriMo properly for the first time, aiming for 30,000 words. I wrote a spectacularly plot-hole-ridden fantasy novel, Star Circle Fish, about rebellions against evil governments and magic dolphins and parents with tragic backstories and malfunctioning submarines and so on and so forth. It was inspired a bit by Endless Ocean 2, a Wii game my sister and I liked, mostly in how my sister dared me to figure out a story just with the title "Star Circle Fish". In the end I was very unhappy with it, since I could tell how holey it was and how bland the characters had ended up. But I'm glad now that I wrote it - it was a really good experience for me.

During a later NaNo I wrote 15,000 words of a novel that exists in Sheesania (am I the only one here who makes up piles of novels that exist in her imaginary world? I've been doing that for ages). The writing was hilariously bad - it read like a parody of Dickens. But as I was writing that story I discovered the online writing community all over again. I started haunting the NaNoWriMo blog and the Writers Stack Exchange, learning tons of stuff but never actually using it.

These days, I'm still learning lots and forming far too many opinions about writing; I'm still planning to write stories and not actually writing them the vast majority of the time; I'm still hoping to someday, somehow get something good written and published; but through it all I'm still worldbuilding. Can't stop myself. I don't think I'll ever be a professional or even a steady writer, but hopefully in the future I can write on the side as I pursue something else as my main profession.


That sounds quite similar to a project my sister and I have both worked on, our Jonax and Bertha books. They're choose-your-own-adventure stories about a noble-hearted boy who's always getting into trouble, since he has uncontrollable magical powers that mess up the laws of probability (that's Jonax) and his sensible, experienced middle-aged sparrow sidekick (Bertha). They have all kinds of very strange adventures, often involving characters and places from video games and books we like. The books are written just for my sister and I, so they're sloppy and unedited and pretty bad...but they're a good way to play around and try new stuff we wouldn't in a serious project.