I've had the writing bug ever since I was 10 or so. Got the bug from my dad and one of my sisters (I've got three older sisters). When we were kids, my dad wrote these action/fantasy stories in which we were each the main character. Don't remember a thing about mine, except seeing him type it on his mom's old school Royal typewriter, bind it in a green folder, and then read it to me before bed--all I remember about the story itself is that the name of the main character's was just my name spelled backwards.
That was 1991/1992, and I was 5ish. Fast forward a few years and I started reading voraciously. Drama, historical fiction, sci fi, fantasy, Westerns, thrillers, etc. I read 'em all. I read
Les Miserables when I was 8. By that time, I'd read
Lord of the Rings and
The Hobbit at least four times. My mom home schooled us, so I had tons of time to read. All four of us were voracious readers, though I had the biggest appetite for books of us kids. Still do. Anyhoo, my parents must have spent a small fortune on buying enough books to keep our appetites sated, since by the time I graduated high school, we had something like 1500 books in our house. And on top of that awesome collection, I was a biweekly fixture at the library, coming out with armfulls of books each time.
Getting back to the 1990s, the middle of my three older sisters was writing a series of short stories (just for family consumption, she never tried to get them published). I'd read hundreds, if not thousands, of books by that point, but had never tried my hand at writing. When I read a book, I really get into it, kinda like being plopped down into a Star Trek holodeck program. I wrote my first short story, a really bad, totally unintentionally funny Western in 1999. While that was a ridiculously horrendous attempt at writing, it flipped a switch in my head. Instead of just descending into a holodeck every time I opened the pages of a book, now the holodeck programs started writing themselves in my head. I've always had an extraordinarily vivid imagination, and that first attempt at writing shifted it into hyperdrive. Unfortunately, the next seven years of story telling attempts (if my count's correct, I tried 9 different novels and 4 short stories during that time span, all unsuccessful) were not sufficient to enable me to put these awesomely vivid ideas down onto paper. Civilizations rose and fell, space empires thrived and collapsed, men fought against fuzzy giants, a race of leopard-people aliens appeared in NYC, ancient Druids fought against the Romans, men walked among and fought with the gods, and a single teenager began a dynasty that stretched over thirty planets and 4000 years, all in my head, all in vivid Technicolor and surround sound. None of it survived the transition to paper.
When I went off to college, I threw myself into studying history, mostly the American Civil War (or the War of Northern Aggression...
) and put writing aside. During one of the many visits we made to Civil War sites (forts, sites of battles, stuff like that), I found out that if I physicially touch the remains of a site, I can envision it in action. I made that discovery when we visited the remains of an earthenworks position the Confederates had erected on the edge of a swamp. All that remained of the fort were two of the earthenwork walls, now completely overgrown with trees and shrubbery. I touched it and felt myself in the middle of the action that was that fort's claim to fame, when the Northerners tried to attack the fort from the swamp at around 2:00 in the morning, hoping to take the Confederates by surprise. I could feel myself slogging through the swamp, feel the light chill of the night air, feel the damp wool, so on and so forth. I mean, it was like I was actually there. I spent a summer in college studying in Spain. Visiting the sheer number of historic sites there was like shooting up.
After that, my creative juices began flowing again, and I started my hand at writing once more. First two novel attempts were flops, but my writing ability has
greatly improved. As I read, I get more and more ideas for my own writing. Now I even literally dream up ideas for stories. In fact, the short story I'm writing right now is actually 95% pulled straight from a dream I had a couple weeks ago.
...Um, so why do I write? I write because I love it! My head is overflowing with ideas, characters, entire series of books, and it gives me immense pleasure to (attempt to, at least) put them on paper. At any given moment these days, I've got anywhere between four and seven different short story/novel/series ideas floating around, spanning genres from sci fi to fantasy to historical fiction. That's why I write, to try and put them down on paper as they appear in my head. So far, my success rate is hovering right around 0%, but the process is more important to me at this point than the result is. I'd love to get other people to read my works...but it might help if I actually finish writing one so they'll have something to read!
I'm currently trying to hash out this one short story, and if I'm finally successful (after 15 years and about !), then I've got a whole series of short stories planned. I've also been toying with a novel, but won't really sink my teeth in it till I (hopefully) finish this short story. I'd love to be able to publish these stories and keep them coming, but it's very decidedly a work in progress. For years, my dream career has been swim coach/author. At this point, I can't support myself on either one, but it is my (years away) end goal!
