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 to find out what cardinal writing rules you've broken. 

Question the first: Don, when did you first know you wanted to be a writer?

As far back as I can remember, I wanted to be a writer. I’ve even got a little book I wrote when I was 11, that I PUT A COPYRIGHT ON. (Yeah, I was already concerned with copyright infringement). I think I decided I wanted to be a writer for a career my junior year in high school. I was sitting in the back of my parents’ car heading to a swim meet and it hit me: I just want to be a writer. 

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 to find out what cardinal writing rules you've broken. 

 Question the first: Mischa, when did you first know you wanted to be a writer?

Since elementary school. I lived in fiction as a kid, and at ten I was ‘working’ at the local library processing new books, which in those days meant pasting in card pockets and filing Dewey cards. Saying it like that makes me feel ancient, but it was so much fun! In high school I started writing short stories and some novel-length fanfic and promised myself that by 25 I would have a book on the shelves. I’m almost ten years late to that goal, but as they say, there’s the plan and then there’s real life!

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 to find out what cardinal writing rules you've broken. 

Question the first: Beth, when did you first know you wanted to be a writer?

I’ve known I wanted to be a writer for as long as I’ve known that “a writer” was something you could “be.” There’s a lovely picture my mother took of me sitting with a pile of lined paper and chewing on a pen when I was barely a year old—so even before I knew what writing was, I was drawn to it! I also have hard physical evidence of the chapter books I wrote (and illustrated, bless ‘em; the protagonists were mostly horses with magnificent crayon-scribbled manes and tales) from about age five on. I started early, and never stopped writing stories. The sad thing is, it wasn’t until I turned thirty—after multiple publications, and decades of this deeply embedded identity that compelled me to constantly crank out words!—that I started telling people I was “a writer” without feeling like a fake. Imposter syndrome is real, y’all. 

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 to find out what cardinal writing rules you've broken. 

Question the first: Katya, when did you first know you wanted to be a writer?

I’ve been writing from a very young age (mostly, poetry), but it wasn’t until a few years ago when I got serious about it and decided to pursue this whole writing/publishing thing for real. 

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 we've broken.

Question the first: Monica, when did you first know you wanted to be a writer?

I knew I wanted to be a writer since I can remember! I’ve always loved words and storytelling, to the point that whenever a teacher assigned us vocabulary words and tasked us with writing a sentence for each, I would link my sentences together so they would form a story. The more vocabulary words we were assigned, the better. I’m sure the other kids didn’t feel that way, but I found it such a fun exercise. I have a draft from the first story I wrote when I was 8, but stories had been filling my brain well before then.