Q & A: How Long Have You Been Writing and How Did You Start?

This question was posed to me quite some time ago, so I apologize for how long it’s taken me to finally respond. Without further ado:

How long have you been writing and how did you start?

I’ve been publishing my novels since 2016, but I’ve been writing for over 25 years.

Becoming a Writer

My earliest memory of being a writer was when I was seven years old. In those days I used to fold paper together and make “books.” I would draw the chapter headings and start writing under them. I usually didn’t get very far, but I always dreamed that someday I would finish the stories I began.

I continued writing as I grew up. I wrote in my spare time for fun and I wrote at the prompting of my school assignments. My teachers in elementary, middle, and high school all seemed to think I had a talent for it. I’ll let you be the judge of that.

In middle school my friend and I began a newspaper. The school’s official paper happened to dissolve that year, and our paper took its place. We were very proud back then.

After high school another friend and I financed a road trip by selling homemade books of our poetry to friends and family. I guess self-publishing has always been in my DNA.

I majored in writing in college and my favorite way to practice foreign languages was writing stories in them. The French classes I did the best in for my French minor were classes where we wrote instead of classes where we read.

Becoming an Author

I continued writing after college, but I just wrote for myself. It wasn’t until I finished The Inventor’s Slave that I really began to think about the implications of publishing. I realized that I really believed in the message of The Inventor’s Slave – don’t give up – so much that I didn’t want to leave it unpublished. Like I always say, that book is not for everyone. A lot of people just don’t like it. But it is for someone. And I want it to be out there so that people who need it can read it.

Reading K.M. Weiland’s guides to character arcs and story structure and getting Scrivener revolutionized the way I write, and now I plan and write regularly. Barely a day goes by when I’m not doing some kind of writing-related activity. I have so many ideas and look forward to the days when all the good ones can be realized.