RTW -- The Beginning of This Long Journey Called Writing

Today is...um...Wednesday. Yes? Yes. Summer has the tendency to make the days bleed together until you barely remember whether or not you've had lunch yet or what month it is, let alone the day of the week. But anyway, it is indeed Wednesday which means it's time for another awesome topic by the wonderful people over at YAHighway. [Hop over there and read everyone else's posts on the topic and get a sneak peek at next week's. I seriously can't wait. There are going to be some hilariously epic posts next week.]

This week's topic: When/why did you start writing?

There's actually two stories for this one.

I actually have no clue when I started writing. I assume my journey started the day they taught me how to hold a pencil. Slowly, like all little kids, I learned to write. And write I did. I started to write short stories and the starts to random novels. All these stories had two major things in common: they were short and they included horses, unicorns, or a fantasy tale of how something came to be. (I once wrote a story about how the first waterfall was born. I'll share it someday. It was adorable.) I started writing because I loved it and because I couldn't not write.

I started writing seriously in November of '08. Prior to that amazing and crazy month, I'd started to write countless novels but they always ended up in the graveyard of barely started stories never to be touched again. I had major commitment issues. Then I got this idea. The result of that idea is now called Destiny and is shoved in the trunk. It was then known to me as Andra. I woke up one morning from a strange dream with an SNI. Experienced by this time in the fact that I could never finish a novel, I shoved the SNI in the back of my mind and forgot about it. But like the best story ideas, it refused to leave. It sat there in the back of my mind simmering and clearly making it's presence known until finally, on November 8th, I sat down and penned the first words of what was to become my first novel. Once I got started, I was hooked. I couldn't stop. I wrote it in two months and once I was done, I couldn't believe it. To this day, if you asked me how I managed to finally finish a novel after countless failed attempts, I can't answer you. Because I have no idea. The only thing I know is that I wrote because I had to and if I didn't, that idea would just sit there and nag me until I cracked.

I never started writing because I wanted to be published. I started because I didn't know to do anything else.