About the blogfest:
On Monday, February 13th, post your own origin story. Tell us all where your writing dreams began. It could be anything from how you started making up stories as a child, or writing for the school newspaper, or even what prompted you to start a blog. How about stories about the first time somebody took an interest in your writing, or maybe the singular moment when you first started calling yourself a writer. It all started somewhere and we want you to tell us your own unique beginnings.
My writing dreams didn't so much begin in a sudden "I'm going to be a writer!" moment as evolve over time. The beginning of that evolution started one summer's day (nope, not even a dark and stormy night) when I decided to write a short story involving a 12-year-old boy, a Lord of Mortals (who wanted to become the Lord of Immortals, of course, and was willing to kill to do it), glaciers, and the underworld. Max planned page count? 10-20, longhand.
A couple months later, it had expanded into a trilogy. I wanted to pack everything possible into that trilogy; time travel, shape-shifting, telekinesis, cryokinesis, gryphons, exotic islands, and a showdown between good and evil.
Did I ever finish the trilogy--or even the first book? No. (I might try my hand at MG again and work on it; however, that's another post.) But I managed to write out over 120 pages and the writing bug occupied my brain for a while.
Then I didn't write much; the bug seemed to have abandoned me. A few short stories, a poem or two, several stalled attempts at more novels I never followed up on. But in 2009 I came across the Space Opera novel The Dragon Never Sleeps by Glen Cook at the library. At this point I hadn't read much Science Fiction (so this involves my SF origins as well), nor did I have a great desire to. But I fell in love with the cover of the book and decided to take it out based on that and the blurb.
(I'm partial to covers with ships; and yes, I know the cover is the shallowest reason for choosing a story.)
I loved the world-building in The Dragon Never Sleeps. I've forgotten most of it now (the only thing I remember for sure is that there were War Avocats who were as strange as they sound) and it felt like there was a lot of technical jargon I had to read twice to fully understand, but the story still hooked me--regardless of the fact that I wanted to chuck many of the characters into a black hole.
And so I decided to write something I really wanted to read myself, despite the fact I knew I couldn't create something as good as a published novel. I built off of (read: copied, though I went back and changed the glaring similarities) the world and happily typed away a random scene, which eventually morphed into the 1000+ page story I now call The Trilogy. During those 1 1/2 years spent writing The Trilogy is when I began to identify myself: I was not just someone who scribbled away on the back porch on a whim, but a writer who spent time on the craft. Mostly in the form of wrangling plot, arguing with stubborn and silent characters, and looking in despair at the mess of a setting I'd created, but still.
A writer.
And there you have my origins story.
What's yours?
-----The Golden Eagle
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