Welcome to the official start of my 2007 series! In my introductory post about this series, I shared what you can expect to learn in these posts. So if you haven’t read it yet, take a look and then come back to read this one!
The Writing Bug
I’ve always known that I wanted to be a writer. When I was in middle school, probably about 5th grade, I wrote down my ideas and came up with some stories. I did some plotting and some writing. It was just fun and a hobby. Truthfully, I don’t know when I stopped playing around with stories, but I always kept what I had written and created.
Writing was always something I loved to do. English was my favorite subject in school. Around the time I was looking to go to college, it seemed almost concrete that the idea of going to school for writing and becoming a writer was far-fetched. Authors were as highly coveted professions as musicians and actresses back then, or so I thought. It was too out of reach, so I never entertained the idea of jumping into something so unstable.
Taking The Plunge
In 2007, while I was attending community college, I had a pretty routine lifestyle. I had consistent hours at work, my class schedule was locked down, and I saw my friends periodically.
One thing I was obsessed with at the time (and now) was my favorite TV show, One Tree Hill. New episodes were still coming on, but I, of course, had every previous series on DVD. I watched it constantly. I adored the characters and they were always on my mind.
Two of the characters actually inspired my current WIP. I remember exactly where I was when I came up with my idea, while outside enjoying a daily walk.
I wish I could say with certainty how I felt at that moment, but I can’t quite pin it down! All I know is that this was when I finally decided to start writing.
Getting My Ideas Out
Soon after that moment (maybe that night, as I said, my memory is hazy), I opened up a Word document and started jotting down story ideas.
I still have this document! I started with Idea 1, and wrote a brief synopsis. The first three ideas I jotted down were story ideas I had come up with when I was in middle school. They were ones I still remembered vividly and wanted to eventually recreated. Idea 4 was the big one, my current WIP and the idea that birthed this first step.
The document became my running list of story ideas I wanted to create. Right now, the document has 18 ideas. I think somewhere along the way, I stopped putting my ideas here. I know I’ve come up with more that aren’t listed there. Either way, I obviously have so many thoughts bouncing in my head!
After creating these ideas, I started doing some plotting. Not for all of them, not even close, but for some. Idea 1 is actually a story I full wrote and even submitted to publishers and agents back in 2013. It needs some major work, but it’s definitely something I want to publish one day!
In the next post in this series, I’ll be sharing just how crazy of a plotter I was at this time and how it’s actually helped me in my writing today! Sign up for my newsletter to know when that blog goes live.
