When did you know?...

[Dante Sawyer]

When did you know you wanted to write fantasy? Or simply write in general? What inspired you to pick up the preverbal pen and begin writing your first work? Was it a single clarifying moment, or a series of events?
I realize this is a broad question, but I’m interested to see where others on this forum found their initial inspiration to pursue the craft of writing.

I’ll begin… I was sixteen. Over winter break, my family took a vacation to Hawaii. Shortly after checking into the hotel, my father realized he forgot to bring a book with him. We quickly went to a nearby Barnes n’ Noble for my father to pick up some Clancy novel. While there, a book caught my eye. I was by no means an avid reader (I hadn’t read a book for pleasure since well before the beginning of high school), but I thought I’d give it a shot nonetheless. Stephen King’s The Gunslinger astounded me. I couldn’t believe I could be so entranced by a book (and that is even the “bad” Dark Tower book!). I’d always liked writing, but after reading that novel, I knew that was what I wanted to do with my life.
Not too exciting for a moment of inspiration, I know, but that’s what it was.

Please, share what got you into the craft!

(Also, as an aside, this is my 100th post… I think that means I’m a ‘Lore Master’ now. Woo!)

 

[Kelise]

I wrote a bit when I was very young. I loved to read, so it didn't seem 'wow' when I started to write little stories here and there - it only seemed natural. I started taking writing seriously in 1999 in my last year of primary school.

Everything I write has always been fantasy, simply because that's what I prefer to read, and there's not many boundaries when you write. As long as you can make it seem possible, it is possible. So that was me sold.

 

[Argentum]

When I was in elementary school, I didn't do anything that wasn't forced, including reading. When I was homeschooled, I saw this thick book in the basement that had been my dad's. The Sword of Shannara. I can't remember whether or not I had read the Lord of the Rings first, but Terry Brooks inspired me more. Remember when there was a Daughter's to Work day? My dad was a computer programmer, so while he was busy, I was looking at that book and thinking, "How hard could this be? I can do this." Then I stapled five sheets of paper together, drew myself a map on the first page, then wrote a story from somewhere in the middle. When I went home, I got out a notebook and then proceeded to fill up fourteen notebooks with story before I eventually put them on the computer. I'm not sure when I started wanting to be a famous author. I think maybe I always knew that this was what I wanted, and while my friends' ideas of what they wanted to do with their life has changed, mine haven't.

 

[Amanita]

I've been making up stories in my head since I can remember and I've actually started writing some of them down when I was about nine. On German weather report there is this tradition to give the pressure areas first names. I used to make up stories about winged, humanoid creatures living above the clouds and being responsible for rain, storms or the sun shining. Later, I've added other creatures inhabiting forests and rivers as well. They wanted to get revenge on humanity for the destruction of the environment and kept meeting in a place called "The Forest Court" to plan their revenge but always failed because they didn't manage to coordinate their efforts and the storm creatures where so badly-behaved disciplining them required most of the meeting time.
With a few modifications they've made it into Silaris as "Lerca".

 

[Garren Jacobsen]

It all started when I read Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. Before I was an avid reader but there was something about the world he made that just hooked me like an Eyeless!

 

[Telcontar]

I think I was about six when I first tried to write a story. I kept writing after that, but it never really entered my head that writing was something I could try and make a career out of. I didn't get it in my head to try and get published until freshman year of high school, when my English teacher suggested that I probably had the chops for it.

Damn that man, putting this crazy idea in my head.

 

[Leuco]

During the Great Recession, which arguably may have never ended, I received a pink slip. That summer, while "looking for work," I sat down and wrote a couple of chapters of what eventually would become my first full length novel. I've always been a fan of fantasy, and I'd like to think somewhat creative, but I never considered such a project. That year, however, I figured if some teenager could make a living selling Eragon books, what was stopping me from doing the same?

I eventually got called back to work, but then the very next summer I got another pink slip.

Ouch.

So, I went back to writing again. It took about three summers in total, but I finished my novel. As a result of my experience, The Guardians of Valinon became a tragic reflection of what it's like to have and lose everything-- and, more importantly, how one goes about coping with it. I think our nation (USA) is struggling right now with an economic fall from grace. My novel is a parable of how we should learn to deal with the real villains instead of simply fighting amongst ourselves.

Some of it is in the showcase if you want to check it out.

And yes, I am still working! Thank goodness!

 

[Angharad]

When I was in 4th grade. I started writing a fantasy novel about children who get lost in the woods and end up in a magical realm. I think I was first inspired by Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and A Wrinkle in Time. Then in 6th grade I discovered The Hobbit and fell utterly in love.

 

[Theankh]

I don't even remember when it started. I always read, and I always wrote. I don't have any recollection of a catalyst or particular moment - this was just what I was born as

 

[kuraimorgan]

It's just something I've always done. When I was ten or eleven something I had wrote fell out of my pocket while at my aunts
house, she read it of course and thought there was something wrong with me and from that day forward I haven't been able to
stop...I love my auntie.

 

[Metalfist]

I was always plied with books when i was a kid. I was also given plenty of drawing pads and pencils. I liked to draw and also write stories. I suppose that it was the old method of escapism, pre-videogame era.

 

[Emeria]

I've always enjoyed making up stories. It began with me stealing the dolls from my sister's dollhouse and making them go on adventures and get lost in the woods and bitten by the giant rubber snake (Snakey... how original...). I would also love to read and some of my favourite books were the Narnia ones. That got me into writing adventure and my discovery of Tolkien in middle school opened up the world of fan-fiction (shudder) and eventually, some of my own fantasy. In eighth grade, for one of our classes, we had to keep a journal through the entire year and instead of writing about the "suggested topics" (which was usually "what did you do today?" or "what's your best memory from childhood?"...), I wrote a story. The following year, we had an assignment in social studies to make up our own island (complete with geography, economy, weather, politics, etc) and through the rest of high school, I used it as the main location for the adventure stories I was writing.

Well, since then, I've taken a few classes on writing and I can't say I enjoy it any less than I originally did.

 

[mythique890]

After a friend of mine forced me to read Twilight. I remember reading it and going, "Wow, if this woman can get write and get published, I can." I guess that makes me sort of a late bloomer, since that was just in 2008 and I was 23. But now that I'm thinking about it, there were at least three times (8th grade, sometime in high school, and my junior year of college) where I sat down at a computer with an idea and wrote a scene. I've been told I'm a good writer by teachers before, but I never got serious about it until three years ago. Writing a novel has always been on my bucket list, but now I'd like to write for a living.

 

[Hëradïn]

My first foray with the idea of being a writer was when I was about 14. I quickly dropped the idea after writing some strange story but short about a pool that would eat people that swam in it, showing it to my grandma and getting scolded about it "not being real" (yeah my grandma is a cunt). The second time was when I was 18 and I wrote this story about a ww2 soldier who almost lived through it. The summer after I graduated high school is when I got my big idea that would eventually become Grïsïma. I was lying in bed trying to fall asleep and some bastards outside were making a bunch of noise so I got up to close the window. I looked into the distance at the morning light as it came over what was commonly called "The Hill" I imagined myself standing atop it after shutting up all the people making noise. I saw them in my head as I looked down upon them with the apartment complex in the background. Suddenly I was Hëradïn VII on the hill and the complex became Gëldïs Galhëm and I began writing.

 

[Hans]

There is a small book somewhere with stories I dictated my parents when I was in kindergarten.
Ever since I had some small literary projects.

 

[Ghost]

My first written stories were made for school, though. I still have a story I wrote in the 4th grade about a gigantic eagle. During high school, I wrote a novelette about zombies in Massachusetts. Yeah, it was complete dreck.

The thought of writing fantasy or even writing a full-length novel didn't occur to me until I read Elizabeth Haydon's Rhapsody Trilogy. I would have been 14 or 15. I thought those books were great at the time. As I read it, I thought, "Hey, I could write something like this!" Looking back after attempting (and failing) to reread Rhapsody, I think it's because the book looked very easy to write.

 

[Mistresselysia]

I've always written here and there since I was little (my first book was a factual book called 'All You Ever Wanted to Know About Cheetahs', and my Dad wrote 'Tidy Up Your Room!!' on the back of it in purple marker. I think I was about 7 or 8. I still have it somewhere...), and co-wrote loads of stories with friends as a teenager (we'd each write a page and spend most of it trying to embarrass the person who was due to write next as much as possible), and ALL of my entries made the stories fantasy stories. I guess my earliest memory of fantasy was my mum reading The Hobbit to me when I was about 6, and being completely captivated by it. However, for most of the time, I concentrated on my artwork rather than my writing (I still take my artwork very seriously, but I divide my time equally between writing and drawing now, whereas once drawing dominated), only dabbling with stories until I was off work ill back in 2000. To take my mind off it, I wrote my first 'proper' novel (which has served as the basis for my current novel, so it was definitely time well spent). Then, in 2003, I wrote a mod for Baldur's Gate:SoA, which kindled a love of writing D&D stories. After that, I started to write my (still unfinished) D&D fan fiction (180,000 words and counting!), which most people seemed to rather like, which encouraged me to take writing more seriously. After that, I got my act together and in 2010, wrote my first serious 'I am going to get this published, dammit!' story. Now I can't help meself

 

[Benjamin Clayborne]

I've always liked writing, but I never really took it seriously until about eight years ago, when I made a serious attempt at learning screenwriting.

That was a mistake. Well, not a mistake, exactly; I learned a lot, including the fact that I didn't have the stomach for the strictures the movie industry puts on screenplays. Novels, it turns out, are much more my speed, where I can explore and elaborate and don't have to be constrained to this two-hour format, and there's some things you just can't do unless you're James Cameron.

So a couple of years later, NaNoWriMo comes along, and I gave it a shot. I think I maybe wrote 15k words the first year, and more than that the second, but I'm not convinced that the NNWM format is good for more than just a fun gimmick. Both times, what I wrote was fantasy, although over the years I've sporadically written other things. But I never had the dedication to really finish anything.

That changed this summer. At the Japanese American National Museum here in Los Angeles, we went to see an exhibit (which is still running) about Stan Sakai, creator of Usagi Yojimbo. I don't know what happened, but hearing about this man who'd worked on the same thing for almost 30 years somehow gave me the internal motivation I needed to finish a novel. In the past, I'd work on something for a while and then it would get Too Hard. But today, more than two months into this novel I'm writing, I feel just as motivated as I did the day I started.

So I don't really know what changed, but I know I'm going to finish.

 

[Sparkie]

I'm thankful to have parents who, instead of turning on the television as a go-to form of entertainment, weren't afraid to hand me a book and say 'here, read something.' That's probably where the initial seed was planted, but two other things stick out in my mind.

When I was in sixth grade, my younger cousin wrote a story that was basically a rip off of the SNES title 'The Secret of Mana.' Reading that, I knew I could do better job of writing fantasy. And I did. I wrote a story called 'The Seven Sapphires,' which my friends and relatives really liked. Unfortunately, the manuscript has been lost to time and several moves. Too bad, really. I'd like to examine what I wrote in light of what I know now.

The other event happened within the last year and a half. I read two books within a month: 'The Great Gatsby' bye F. Scott Fitzgerald, and 'Midwinter' by Matthew Sturges. What a contrast! Not that Mr. Sturges is a bad author, but what I realized by reading his book right after reading what is arguably the great american novel was that one doesn't need to be a great writer to be published. You only need to be good enough. I'm not sure if I'll ever be good enough, but I knew that I was going to try and be just that. Just good enough, at least.