When was the first moment you knew you wanted to be a writer?
Ever since I was able to hold a pencil, I’ve been writing stories. Short ones, long ones, ones about sea serpents and space travelers and swashbucklers. As a child, I’d spend every spare moment spinning tales. I’d fill notebook after notebook with my scribblings, lost on adventures with my imaginary friends. In fact, I become known around town as that “little writing machine.” It got to be---
Wait! Hold on! Stop the presses! Not a word of that is true.
Let me try again, this time with the truth.
When I was in high school, I hated English and I hated writing reports. (Actually, one afternoon when I was about ten, I sat down with my best friend to write the sequel to War of the Worlds. We wrote about a page and a half, then went out to play basketball, never to finish the job.) In college, I didn’t take a single creative writing course (I was required to take a single English class, and Technical Writing qualified). I never wrote anything longer than a grocery list, and even then, I’d use abbreviations. In grad school (business), I couldn’t escape writing altogether, but I made sure that whatever I wrote was as dry as dust and chock-full of clichés, buzzwords, and nonsensical jargon (I fit right in with the future Captains of Industry!).
But fiction writer? Never. No way. No how!
And then, about ten years ago, things changed. Now, I spend a lot of time writing fiction.
What caused this reversal?
Beats me!
It sounds like my transformation would make a heck of a story! If only I could find someone to write it…
(This entry “simul-posted” on Criminal Minds.)
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