Early writing dreams

[eimarra]

I can remember a time when I was not a writer.

In first and second grade, I wrote sentences for my spelling words, and that was about it. (I remember my mom telling me at the time that all of my sentences shouldn’t be “I did this” and “I did that.”) By the time I was in third grade, however, I was writing poetry. In fifth grade, I wrote a story to warn my teacher of the dangers of giving too much homework. (As if I ever had a problem with that!)

It wasn’t until middle school that I thought of writing a book.

I’d been reading a lot of Regency romances, and I decided I was going to write one. The heroine was an orphan who’d found her murdered parents and still had flashbacks of the knife that was with their bodies. (“The knife. The bloody knife. The knife that killed them.” Yes, that was part of the first paragraph.) Her aunt, who took her in, has this habit of adding extra middle names whenever someone doesn’t do what he or she is told. (A tactic I may use for NaNo sometime; a great way to add extra words!) I never got past the first chapter, partly because I didn’t know what was going to happen next and partly because I listened to my dad, who said the thought of me writing a book was fiction.

Despite those negative words, however, I kept writing — stories and poems, at least. I didn’t turn my hand back to longer fiction until after college. I couldn’t stop. I make up worlds, people, situations. I have such joy of reading, and I wanted to share my own ideas with others who like to read. That’s why I write: I’m a creator, and I like to share my creations.

It’s nothing profound, nothing you haven’t heard from everyone else. I haven’t always written, but I started young. I still remember those early creations. Whatever flaws they had, I found them memorable, enjoyable, and I write to share that.

Today’s post was inspired by the topic “My earliest writing dreams (i.e., why I am a writer)”– July’s topic in the Merry-Go-Round Blog Tour — an ongoing tour where you, the reader, travel around the world from author’s blog to author’s blog. We have all sorts of writers at all stages in their writing career, so there’s something for everyone to enjoy. The next post in the tour will be on the 4th, by D. M. Bonnano. Be sure to check it out.

If you want to get to know nearly twenty other writers and find out their thoughts on crossing genre lines, check out the Merry-Go-Round Blog Tour. You can find links to all of the posts on the tour by checking out the group site. Read and enjoy!

Originally published at Erin M. Hartshorn. You can comment here or there.