I'd spent years reading kinders books and thinking "I could write a kids' book!" and immediately flashed to, "No, I couldn't! I'd have to have a plot!"
Forward to my early 40's. An online friend told me I should try writing. I told him I couldn't and wrote two pages to prove it. He insisted those two pages were good, so I continued with this thing. Ninety pages later, (and rather plotless; my plotty goodness technique was, "Okay, now THIS happens!") I realized I was hooked. (I did walk away from that poor misguided novel, however, and worked on short stories.)
Not that I was a writer, but I knew I could do it.
OWW and the Sock Monkeys convinced me I could be a writer. Clarion West just reinforced it. I don't have the sales I'd like to prove it to my husband, although he has accepted the idea of me typing most evenings. The kids, however, do introduce me to friends on occasion with demands to let said friends read my ded Charlie story. So, hey. Progress of a sort.
See, I can't keep my chronology straight. But you're right: we met first at WisCon and then again at the SH workshop. I think you are my gateway person!
I know what you mean about First Novel and Next First Novel. My First Novel, well, it ain't that great and will never be published, but it was a great learning experience (and I'm pillaging parts of it for the next three novels). My Next Novel really is my first novel...
I never even considered the possibility of writing. I made up worlds and wrote backgrounds for gaming characters, but it wasn't until 1995 when a group of friends and I decided to start "ThpThp".
We each wrote a story a month, bound them into a book, then did a critique. We did this for almost two years, wherein I turned in a story every month and other folks dropped off. When they started yelling at me for proofing my stories and rewriting them before I submitted them, I knew it was time to move on. (They said I was trying to make them look bad.)
After that, I joined Critters, read a bunch of Clarion journals, and plugged away at the whole writing-submitting-rejection thing. Guess I'm still doing that. :)
So, nope, I haven't always known I would be a writer, though my love of fantasy has been with me since I could read. It was just a long time before I realized I might be able to write it, too.
Sounds like you were aiming toward a higher level of professionalism right from the start. It must be in your blood!
I should amend my 'how I came to writing' story. I wrote poems when I was a kid and took a short story writing class in college, and I wrote lots of academic papers in grad school (some of which were published) and edited a textbook. But I wasn't a writer until I found the community which, as Hannah says, made the publishing process transparent.
I happen to belong to Jay Lake's Banzi School for Writing Mentorship (he calls it the Banzai School for Famous Authors, but I think it can apply to the less famous of us as well). When I was an undergrad at NCSU, I sought out John Kessel, because he was the only SF writer on the English faculty (even when I was in a different major), and because he really had his shit together. Though I wasn't even an English major, I took many of his classes, and spent an annoying amount of time hanging out in his office, bugging him about writing and markets when I'm sure he would have rather been working on his own fiction or taking care of other academic matters. But he was always patient with me, encouraged me to push myself as a writer, and made me feel as if I was part of something bigger. Though English was only my minor, and he wasn't my advisor, he became a mentor to me, and got me excited about writing again, making me truly believe that it was something I could do
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Forward to my early 40's. An online friend told me I should try writing. I told him I couldn't and wrote two pages to prove it. He insisted those two pages were good, so I continued with this thing. Ninety pages later, (and rather plotless; my plotty goodness technique was, "Okay, now THIS happens!") I realized I was hooked. (I did walk away from that poor misguided novel, however, and worked on short stories.)
Not that I was a writer, but I knew I could do it.
OWW and the Sock Monkeys convinced me I could be a writer. Clarion West just reinforced it. I don't have the sales I'd like to prove it to my husband, although he has accepted the idea of me typing most evenings. The kids, however, do introduce me to friends on occasion with demands to let said friends read my ded Charlie story. So, hey. Progress of a sort.
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We each wrote a story a month, bound them into a book, then did a critique. We did this for almost two years, wherein I turned in a story every month and other folks dropped off. When they started yelling at me for proofing my stories and rewriting them before I submitted them, I knew it was time to move on. (They said I was trying to make them look bad.)
After that, I joined Critters, read a bunch of Clarion journals, and plugged away at the whole writing-submitting-rejection thing. Guess I'm still doing that. :)
So, nope, I haven't always known I would be a writer, though my love of fantasy has been with me since I could read. It was just a long time before I realized I might be able to write it, too.
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I should amend my 'how I came to writing' story. I wrote poems when I was a kid and took a short story writing class in college, and I wrote lots of academic papers in grad school (some of which were published) and edited a textbook. But I wasn't a writer until I found the community which, as Hannah says, made the publishing process transparent.
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I always turn to Charlie for advice...
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