Thursday, July 7, 2011

Why did you start writing?


Why did I start writing? Now that I don't really remember.
 I first started writing in 3rd grade with my best friend at the time, Karly. I remember at recess we used to play a game where we were tigers and we had to get away from the humans before they caught us. And that started the series known as The Adventures of Star and Stripe.  I wrote from Stripe's point of view who was a white tiger, and Karly wrote from Star's point of view who was a baby orange tiger. They were sisters. (Don't ask me how that's possible. I was 8.) We wrote a ton of different books, with all different adventures and conflicts. Star and Stripe had to save their habitat from humans who were taking their home and all their animal friends away in the "human truck." I was obsessed with tigers back then. The two tigers even had super powers. We were cool kids. 
 We were really proud of it, but let no one see it. Then I remember in 4th grade, Karly was put in a different class than I was so we grew apart. We tried to continue writing but we just gave up.
At the end of fourth grade, I was embarrassed to take my series of stories home because I didn't want my mother to see. So you know what I did? I threw them all away.

I could punch myself so freaking hard right now. All of my hard work in a dumpster some where. Days and days of fun and writing with Karly, gone. I am so stupid. Back in my nine year old mind, it seemed the only logical thing to do. My mom could never know about it, and to this day, she still doesn't.

In fifth grade I wrote books on my own. A few actually. Karly was in my class that year, but she gave up on writing, and we were too embarrassed (You know because we were cool 5th graders) to continue with Star and Stripe. So I went on my own. I don't remember what my writing was about, but my teacher must have seen it because she told my mom I would be an author some day. I know they had something to do with horses, I was obsessed with those that year.

6th grade I didn't write at all. That was the years when I finally crushed on boys so I would never be caught dead writing.
7th Grade, I wrote again. I actually still have the story in my room somewhere. I just temporarily lost it... it is actually the first draft of my book "The Angel That Turned Dark." (Which was constructed in 10th grade) I just didn't know that when I wrote it. 
8th grade, all hell broke loose on my life and writing was the least of my worries. I stared reading though.

The end of 9th grade was when I started my first blog. (Not this one. The 828 was created in October 2010) I envied my cousin Mary who had her own poetry blog. From that day on I never wrote on paper again, all my writing was on the computer. On that blog, I started a book called "The Sixth Sense." The first thing I EVER wrote on the computer is here. It's pretty suckish.

 Mary suggested that I put my writing on a site called "Inkpop.com" 
The rest is history.

So back then when I was eight, I don't remember why I started. Just for something fun to do, I guess. 
But now I know I write because I love the creativity and imagination of it. I just love that it's something I created with my own mind, and some people actually like it. 

Right now I decided I'm on the "Quest to 100." To get Flawed in the 100 rankings. Right now I'm currently at 270. (My personal best was 267.) My short story "Turning the Page" is currently ranked at 59, the best I've ever been ranked before, but that's only in the short story category. 

Why am I doing this post exactly? Because July 2011 is my one year anniversary of writing online. July 12th 2010 to be exact. I think I've come a long way since then, and hopefully I continue to go farther. 

I say I want to be a journalist, at least I'm pretty sure I do. But in the back of my mind, I want to be an author too. I don't know how realistic that dream is, I doubt I could ever find someone who would want to publish my work. I can only hope. And in this terrible economy, I'm going to need a good job, who knows if I'll be successful as an author. Maybe I'll do it as a side job, and if I end up getting published, quit my job as a journalist. That sounds good.

My English teacher told me once, " The only way to get better at writing is to read." So I'll be reading a lot. My parents don't know I write, the only ones who do are my cousins Bailey and Mary.  


So, over to you guys! Why did you start writing? What was the first thing you ever wrote? Do you remember? When did you start writing? Do your parents know you write? Leave comments! I always like to get to know my followers better!

Tomorrow Evie and Taylor Lynn will be guest posting! So check for those posts tomorrow! I'll be off visiting a college!  Thanks for reading! 

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20 comments:

Dia said...

I think I started writing in 5th grade, with my friend Sarah. We wrote a book called 'Adrian' about a princess that is denied the right to marry the man she loves and in the heat of rebellion has his child. And then she is murdered and a bunch of other crap happens. Truthfully, I have been meaning to rewrite that for the longest time and never remembered!

Well, thank you for the push!

Alyianna said...

Suckish? That story is good! (I only read the first chapter, but whatever).

I started writing when I was seven or eight. I remember there was this nurse that came sometimes over to look at my little sister or help my mom or something, and one of the days she was over, I drew some pictures. Then I wrote a story to go with them. It was a story about two girls, Molly and Sarah, playing in the snow. Then they went over to Molly's house, played, had dinner, and had a sleepover. That was when my Molly series was born. For the next few years, I wrote Molly stories, probably until I was nine or ten.

Then I got interested in The Lord of the Rings and fantasy, and my stories turned to subject on these lines. I still tried writing a few stories with my first original characters (Molly, Sarah, and Sally), but they never went far.

This year, I started getting interested in boys. So my stories are more about love, but with an adventure aspect to them. :)

firefly114 said...

I always love to hear how other people started writing. Your early writings sounded great! A lot better than mine - I just posted about mine on my site, firefly114.blogspot.com

Savannah Jean said...

I started writing...in 5th or 6th grade. Whenever I was completely obsessed with the Princess Diaries and read them over and over again. Yea, that was 5th-6th. Meg Cabot was my idol, so I started writing a book about a girl named Susannah who was famous but undercover. It was her diary.
Yea it sucked pretty badly. I didn't write again until 8th grade when my friend invited me to do NaNoWriMo. And I did it. And from there, I've just loved writing.

J said...

Wow this is SO different than my experience. I think I'll make my own post as a response to this. I've actually only seriously been writing for over a year. It will be two in Sept.

Anonymous said...

I like this post =) It makes me remember when I started writing....
Which, in response to your questions, I'll be writing about in a future post. Maybe tomorrow. ^-^

Paige Woiner said...

@Dia, ooh that's really interesting, way better than mine haha!

@Alaw- Haha that's cool and a different way to get into writing, I wish I could draw! I'll be checking out the story on your writing blog soon :) Yeah, when you're into boys writing changes haha

@Firefly- I commented on that post :)

@Qui-I watched the Princess Diary Movies but never read the books :( That sounds way more interesting that mine! I want to do NaNoWriMo this year but I doubt I can do 50k in a month!

@j- I'll look forward to seeing it!

@Hana-Looking forward to it!

Alyianna said...

Actually, I can't draw. Okay, I can, but not well at ALL. haha

Anonymous said...

I started writing in the 1st grade. We had these things called "Author's Journals" and we had to write a story in them every day. My first story was called "Slush's Adventure". It was about a sled dog. My classmates just loved it, I was like a celebrity in my first grade class. I wrote a few stories in 2nd grade, but after that I stopped until 5th grade. I kept thinking of all these ideas and thought "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if I wrote a book about this?" And so I started writing again. It seems like I wrote a little bit in 6th grade, but then in 7th grade I got all caught up in writing fan fictions (mine sucked). Luckily I finally started writing more original stuff, even though I still write fanfics from time to time. Right now I'm rewriting one of my books from 5th grade. I like the idea of it, but I'm changing a lot of major things, like the character names (all of which were pretty stupid) and the writing style could use major improvement.

Sorry, I got kind of rambly :P

Grace said...

Paige, what you did with all your stories when you were little totally rings a bell. I did that too. My best friend (well, former best friend, I don't really talk to her anymore...at all...XD) and I used to write these stories with my 'imaginary friends' who were technically characters in stories I wrote in like, first grade. XD By 3rd grade, I'd written a lot of stories similar to it, using similar/the same characters, but I GOT RID OF ALL OF THEM. Sometimes, if I write something and go through a period of 'i suck at writing why do i even try?' I'll delete stuff again and then HATE myself for it. (ex. I did that last week). But I didn't really start WRITING WRITING, until last year, thanks to Qui, and Endor. XD Seriously. I read about how excited the two of them were (esp. Qui) for NaNoWriMo, and I decided on a spur-of-the-moment idea to go ahead and try it. I wrote a 50,800 word Star Wars fanfic novel, that IMO is VERY suckish. I don't think it's good at all, but everyone who's read it (which is not that many people) think it's great. :P I don't know what universe they're living in though. XDD
Now, I've got a bunch of things that are Works in Progress, but I've got nothing finished. XDD I even have ideas that I"m saving for NaNoWriMo. :P Just because. I have one Idea, and I REALLY want to start it, but I'm thinking I'll just save it. :P I've got it written in my idea journal for future reference though. ;)
Most of my stories nowadays are fanfiction or fantasy. :) Almost all of them are romance and/or family stories. :)

Sorry I got so rambly too. xD LOL!

Dia said...

@Paige I wouldn't say so! Mine actually sucked terribly bad. We didn't even know to use quotations and so when I read it over now, I have to think very hard to know when someone is actually talking!

Alyianna said...

To Duchess Satine Kenobi:

What kind of fanfics did you write?

Anonymous said...

Ooh, that must be so frustrating that you actually threw out your stories! I know I'd wish I still had them to read...

As for me, I don't know when I started writing. It seems like I've always been doing it, and becoming a bestselling novelist is one of my biggest dreams.

And Paige, it's just my opinion, but I don't think you should give up your dream of becoming an author. Even if you think it's a long shot, or even if you don't think your work is good enough, go for it! If you think that your work isn't good enough, then you can always improve it. Just don't give up on it! I wish you luck!

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Sorry for the removed comment, I accidentally posted mine twice. ;)

Paige Woiner said...

Thank you all for commenting! It's so cool to see how other people started writing! All of the ways you started out are so interesting :)

@Jedi chick- I'm glad I'm not the only one who threw away my hard work, haha!

@Taylor- Thanks! I'll try not to, I just hope one day I do become an author!

Anonymous said...

That makes two of us, Paige. ;) Don't worry, someday we'll both be bestsellers and we can host book signings together or something. ;D

Paige Woiner said...

@Taylor, that would be so awesome! :)

Anonymous said...

Yes! Let's do it. :D

Anonymous said...

alaw, I wrote Star Wars fanfics mostly, but I did write one Warrior cats fanfic and a Warriors Star Wars crossover.