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: Laura, when did you first know you wanted to be a writer?

So, I read a TON of Lucy Maud Montgomery books as a kid. Anne of Green Gables and Emily of New Moon were very much my bosom friends. Anne and Emily both have very vivid imaginations (as I did and still do) and both of them loved to write. Writing as a hobby never occurred to me until one fateful recess period in 4th grade, when I was struck by a bolt of inspiration out of the blue. Thanks to Anne and Emily, I knew exactly what to do and jotted down a terrible poem about the wind.

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: Tara, when did you first know you wanted to be a writer?

I don’t know if I can actually pinpoint a single moment when I decided I wanted to be a writer. I know that by second and third grade, I was reading constantly, writing a lot, and fairly certain that I was soon going to become the world’s first bestselling author who was still in elementary school. I remember my third grade teacher telling me that stories submitted to publishers came back with “red pencil all over them.” Not my stories, I thought. (Gosh, I wish I still had that confidence!) It only took me 25 more years, and I had sold my first book!

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: Hayley, when did you first know you wanted to be a writer?

I was one of those children who always had a journal with me. I wrote constantly. But I mostly wrote songs because a) I was obsessed with singing and b) writing a whole book was way too daunting. Writing a novel was always something I wanted to do someday, but it wasn’t until I was twenty-three and swamped with reading legal textbooks that I realised I needed fiction in my life in the same way that I needed oxygen. That’s when I wrote my first (terrible) draft of a novel.