how long have I been a writer?
A reader asks:
“For how long have you been an author? Did you write in your teen years? What was your first book and when did you write it?”
I started writing when I was fifteen. I’m not gonna say how long ago that was, but suffice it to say some (or more than some) of the people reading this hadn’t been born yet.
Over the next couple of years I tried to write several novels, but I never could finish them. The farthest I got was about 70,000 words into a book that I suspect would have been a 150,000 word monster, but I just petered out. Eventually I realized that I needed to outline things first, so I started writing outlines. I wrote a 5,000 word outline for a long epic fantasy novel, and I resolved to finish it.
So I did it. I finished writing my first book when I was eighteen. Though to be more accurate, it took so long that I was eighteen when I started and nineteen when I finished. It was called HOLY SYMBOL, and it was 330,000 words and it took me ten months to finish, from August to July. (I have since learned the values of brevity and haste.) It was frankly an atrocious book, and the only way it will ever see the light of day is if someone finds it in my files after I die. Nevertheless, it did teach me that I could finish a novel, which I had never done before. The first one was the hardest, and after that it got easier.
As for how long I’ve been a published author, DEMONSOULED was published in 2005.
I have to admit I find self-publishing ebooks infinitely preferable to traditional publishing.
-JM
*sigh* Once again you failed to mention how awesome your reader is 😉 😀 😛
I’m 14 and I wrote a short “book” that has 50 pages, and about 82 000 words. I had a “literature” phase where I wrote everything. After it passed, I said “huh. I’m not so bad at this thing.” So, I decided to start writing. That’s when I got the inspiration o become a writer. It isn’t easy, but it’s definitely interesting. I never felt like finishing my book, but I’m determined to have one thing I can be very proud of in my first writing steps.
What do you mean by outline? Personally, I find it much harder to plan everything beforehand and then write it in detail. Actually, my “book” was supposed to be a story, maybe two pages long, until I had many more ideas and started adding layers of action and drama upon my main character(s).
I have a question. Have you ever thought about rewriting your very first book so that you can publish it? Or is it a momento of you’re first struggles as a writer?
So, you’ve been writing for yourself before 2005? Did you write many more books like Holy Symbol that are never supposed to see the light of day? 😉 Oh, and I must agree. I recently moved to Poland and I can’t buy normal paper books in english anywhere 🙁 But thankfully I have a nook, an ebook call it, and that’s my resource of survival. 🙂
My reader is indeed awesome. 🙂
Once again, this question will have a longer answer, so it will be a blog post in a few days.