20sw: a history of writing

following up with a previous post about a new writing community, i'd like to happily announce that twenty something writers has officially launched! i'm so excited to take part in this, and for those of you who love to write, or want to start loving it, go over and check it out!

for this particular post, 20sw suggested a prompt that we answer in our blogs. here goes!

The Prompt

We’d like to get the ball rolling by hearing your responses to the prompt: Tell us about your writing history. Have you always enjoyed writing? Did you hate grammar lessons in school? Who have been your greatest influences? What kind of writing do you enjoy most? Take any creative spin you want. Post your response on your blog and leave the link in the comments below. Check out the responses of others as well.

i think i officially remember starting to write, i mean really write, in the fifth grade. prior to that, i was never really much of a reader, and so writing for me was just something i needed to do. it wasn't until my best childhood friend, S., shared with me some books she was reading at the moment (r.l. stine's "goosebumps: return of the mummy," if you're curious) that i learned how great writing could be.

now, there was always an unspoken competition between S.and i. where she was first in the class, i was second. where she could speak two languages, i could speak one. where she was cute and small and asian (a badge of honor in hawaii), i was...well, not. so when she offered me these books i of course took them. i'd do anything to make myself just a bit smarter, a bit more like her. (in case anyone's wondering, she moved away at the end of our fifth grade year, eventually went on to go to columbia for college, and we're still great friends). those books, as odd as it may seem, opened a whole new world for me. i began recognizing what writing could do. it could introduce you to people who will never really exist, but whose lives you're completely invested in. it could show you places you may never go to. it could totally capture your imagination and run wild with it. i think that's why i firmly believe that, when people say they don't like to read, it's because they haven't found The book that's gonna change their lives. and when N. tells me about kids he teaches who can't really write, it's almost always because they hate to read.

so my love affair with writing began when i was ten. i immediately saw my writing ability sky-rocket. in fact, i remember this one time when i had just finished reading r.l. stine's "fear street saga: the betrayal" (you know, the first book when savannah goode gets burned at the stake in the salem witch trials?), and i chose to write a book report on it. writing the book report wasn't very hard, didn't take me very long, and in the end i remember thinking that it would probably get a decent grade. two days later, my teacher calls me up to her desk and asks if i had copied my summary off the back cover of the book. and i was shocked. not only was that the first (and only) time i'd ever been accused of cheating, but i didn't even think what i wrote was that good. so i showed her the book cover, and i ended up getting the highest grade on the book report. i think that was the first time i realized that writing was something i was okay at, and it wasn't going to take much of an effort.

so from then on i wrote. my friends and i started a slam book that eventually progressed into a straight out poetry book. i think i still have it somewhere. we'd pass the book from person to person throughout a class period and each of us would write a poem a day. childish poetry. teenage poetry. why doesn't this boy like me? what will it be like when i'm an adult? i hate this teacher because this teacher hates me. simple stuff. but it got me writing almost daily, and critiquing the writing of others.

a few years later, when i was in high school, my friends and i began writing fan fiction. i don't think i even knew what fan fiction was. just, one day, my best friend decided to write a story involving our circle of friends (ten years older than we were), and the celebrities we had crushes on at the time. i picked up on it and away we went. i'd sit in english class, finish my assignments (which still did not require me to work very hard for good grades) ahead of time, and start jotting down scenarios and dialogue for the next chapter of whatever fan fic i was currently working on. i also began the infamous "incomplete novel" that my friends (the quints) still ask me about. i took each of us, created characters which embodied the extreme characteristic of each of our personalities, and wrote a story about growing up and remaining friends through the changes that our lives throw our way (interestingly enough, the character that embodied me was a fiction writer. lol.). a few years later, when i looked back at the pages i'd written, and when i was in one of my moods where nothing i produced seemed good enough, i deleted it. i still regret that.

i was also journaling heavily during this time. heavily. i think in my sophomore year of high school, i must have gone through about three or four composition note books worth of journaling. i don't think it's too much of an exaggeration to say that writing, at that point, during that time, saved my life. it was my only outlet, the only place where i could say things and not have to censor myself. the only "person" i could tell my secrets/fears/angers/worries/sorrows to and not worry that i would lose them because of it. for a while after that, years really, i wondered if those months where writing was all i did somehow purged me of the need for it. because prior to that writing really was a need i had. and since then until right about three years ago, i haven't been able to write much, and i haven't been able to write any fiction.

even now, my writing is different than what it used to be. i'm not just talking about my skills (though, JEEZ, that's changed. thank God.), but more so my style. i write academic articles now. that's what i know how to do. i research, analyze, and suggest policy changes. i got published for the first time this year (still doing a happy dance over that!), and will be published again in a few months (woo-hoo!). and i think i'm good at it. i would never say that if i didn't really, really believe it, because i'm not the kind of person to toot my own horn. ever. but writing has always been the one thing i'm good at. i'm not great. but i'm good.

so recently, i've tried to pick up the torch again when it comes to writing for fun, which for me means writing fiction (romance/fantasy/paranormal/take your pick). i mean, i blog, but i don't write fiction anymore. and i've got ideas (a composition book full of them!), i just never seem to have the time. i can make the time, i think. i just haven't yet. hopefully, 20sw will get me moving in a good direction!