Author, I Never is a new segment in which I interview fellow authors about the writing process, breaking into the industry, and breaking rules. I try to mix it up a little and ask some hopefully novel questions along with some of the old standards, and finish it up with a round of I Never (kid friendly version) to find out what cardinal writing rules you've broken.
Question the first: Maxine, when did you first know you wanted to be a writer?
I think I knew I wanted to be a writer when I was eight years old. Throughout my childhood, I spent most of my intellectual energy doing two things: reading and coming up with elaborate narrative structures in my brain. My sister called them “thinks.” They weren’t exactly stories. They were scenarios, settings, quests, etc., where the basic lines were set up and I plugged in an endless variety of details. It was pretty complicated: I had a system where I’d use the words that people were speaking around me and fit them into descriptions of characters. At first, I didn’t think of it as writing. It was an addiction more than anyone else. But I was lucky enough to have supportive parents and a few wonderful teachers who recognized my talents with language. Soon it seemed like being a writer was the only thing I knew I could succeed at, although it took years to build up the confidence and courage to really try.
Read MoreAuthor, I Never is a new segment in which I interview fellow authors about the writing process, breaking into the industry, and breaking rules. I try to mix it up a little and ask some hopefully novel questions along with some of the old standards, and finish it up with a round of I Never (kid friendly version) to find out what cardinal writing rules we've broken.
Question the first: Laurie, when did you first know you wanted to be a writer?
I always loved reading and writing, but it wasn’t until I was in my mid-twenties, when I started teaching middle school English, that I realized I wanted to write novels. As I got to know my seventh and eighth grade students, I remembered my own middle school years in vivid detail, and I remembered the books that had comforted me, thrilled me, and shaped me at that age. The summer after my first year of teaching, I started to write a story about a seventh grade girl, and I was hooked!
Read MoreAuthor, I Never is a new segment in which I interview fellow authors about the writing process, breaking into the industry, and breaking rules. I ask some hopefully novel questions along with some old standards, and finish it up with a round of I Never to find out what cardinal writing rules we've broken.
Question the first: Lindsay, when did you first know you wanted to be a writer?
I was a creative kid, always working on a bunch of projects at once (please, please, please don’t let those tapes of my living radio show surface). At first, I thought theater was my thing, but I always had a notebook that I’d fill with ideas for stories and plays. It wasn’t until I took a writing workshop in college that I realized writing was my true love, and it’s even more fun when I’m writing about music and theater and art and all the other stuff I love.
Read MoreAuthor, I Never is a segment in which I interview fellow authors about the writing process, breaking into the industry, and breaking rules. I ask some hopefully novel questions along with some of the old standards, and finish it up with a round of I Never to find out what cardinal writing rules we've broken.
Question the first: Jen, when did you first know you wanted to be a writer?
Third grade is the first time I remember both saying and exhibiting my desire to be a writer. That’s when I decided that I wanted to write a play—it was short, and about a girl who had to rescue her best friend, who’d been kidnapped by a witch. But it had a narrative, and my teacher even had my class perform it! Ever since then, I’ve been writing in some form or another, but it wasn’t until my oldest daughter was born five and a half years ago that I got serious about writing and starting working on a book during her naptimes.
Read More