How I Started Writing

   I wrote my first novel when I was fourteen.

 Before then, I had tried to keep journals, but I could never keep it up because I thought my life wasn't exciting enough to write down on paper. Who would want to read that? Me, when I'm older? I would fall asleep while reading about the boring life I had as a young teenager. Besides, who wants to relive their teenage years?

 I wanted to write something exciting, if I was going to write about anything.

 I love reading. I wanted to write something of my own. I wanted to write a book.

 I had thought about writing books, or short stories and such before, but had never managed to do it. I'd write a page, or so, then get bored and discard the entire idea. I'd rewritten and rewritten the first few pages of this one book idea I had, but I could never really get the story rolling because I just wasn't experienced enough. I didn't have a plot outlined, or even much of an idea for a plot, and I wasn't very good at grammar (still not, but it's way better than it was originally). I just wasn't good at writing. I couldn't plan out a story.

  At first, I was using notebooks to write my book in to see if I could actually write a book. Then I came across this website called Miss Literati one day while surfing the web. It's pretty cool. It's like Wattpad, except it's generated for a younger audience. I started writing my book on there, but didn't publish any of it. I wasn't ready for anyone to see my writing. Plus, people can post comments after reading your story and I was worried I'd get negative feedback. I wasn't ready for someone to tell me something that I already knew.

 I wrote a few chapters for this story, but never finished it. I got bored with the story, feeling like it wasn't original. (It was about vampires, because I was really into the Twilight saga at the time.)

 Don't worry, I stopped writing about vampires. I have a very active imagination so I managed to come up with another book idea.

 For about a year, I had this one story that I would continuously develop in my head. I could easily listen to music for a couple of hours while in this world that I'd built as an escape. At the time, I was obsessed with X-men and the whole idea of writing about a school for teenagers that had "gifts."

 That was the book I wanted to write.

 It took me a while to realize that that was the kind of story I wanted to write, but I had the urge to get this world I'd developed down on paper. But I was also a little hesitant. "Did I want to write this story? What if someone read it? It was my world. The world I had created for myself as an escape. It was fun and exciting and mystical and different...Did I want someone reading about it?" I wasn't sure if I wanted to share it.

 I decided to finally write down the story that had been in my head for so long. The plot was good, it could've used work (maybe a lot more work than I realize right now) but I liked the plot. The writing needs a ton of work. If I ever decided to rewrite my first book, it would take a while. I liked having my magical world written down for me to read; as terrible as it was.

 I was also very excited to have written my first book. I've written about 10 complete works since, and many incomplete that I hope to finish later on.

 But that's how my love of writing started. I was hooked after that first book. I had to write more.

 And once I started, I haven't been able to stop.