How I Became A Writer
Transcript:
I don't know if it's obvious, but I found my favorite lens hidden in storage.
What do you think? Let me know.
Today I thought I’d tell you about why and how I became a writer.
We talk a lot about my passion for storytelling here, but I don’t think I’ve ever told you how my passion for words came to be. I’m really excited to share my writing journey with you and especially to tell you why I decided to become a young adult author in particular.
I’ve always been a reader.
My mother used to be a teacher long before I was born, so early education was really important to her. She made me personalized picture books where I was the star. She read to me all the time. She stocked our home with lots of books.
I actually read the first Harry Potter in kindergarten. There’s a really sweet story about that. I was introduced to Harry Potter through a book themed ornament a kind old man gave me at the swap market because I was crying about a doll we couldn’t afford. He told us all about Harry Potter to cheer me up and got me super excited about a tiny little Christmas ornament, so my mom bought me the first book and the rest is history.
Now the thing is, if you’re a poor bookworm, you read some pretty crazy things.
Save for Harry Potter, most of my books were hand me downs or yard sale finds. I read a lot of books that were probably inappropriate for my age level, including a lot of True Crime. I’m mentioning that now because it will be relevant later.
I also read lots of children’s classics like Judy Bloom, Nancy Drew, the Boxcar kids, Goosebumps, Sweet Valley High, and the Babysitter’s club.
Oh my gosh, I loved the Babysitter’s club.
I’ve always loved kids and I use to be a nanny for twins and a daycare worker in charge of twenty babies at once, so you could definitely say my early reading habits influenced those career decisions.
Anyway, most of my books were older and I was rough with them.
I read my copy of Matilda so much it literally fell apart. The same thing happened with two HARDBACK copies of Prisoner of Azkaban. But I still didn’t get the inkling that I might someday want to become an author!
Looking back on my childhood, I really should have realized it sooner.
I routinely played a game called Cops & Serial Killers with my brothers, where I buried my Bratz dolls in the backyard and investigated their murders with my “Detective” brothers, complete with tearful interviews with the other dolls and lots of twists and turns because I had to think of dramatic reveals to mask the fact I was both the lead investigator and the actual “murderer.”
Pretty much all my childhood games involved long and complicated backstories for all of my dolls and stuffed animals.
I’d even write these down for my brothers to refer to so they didn’t get lost in the big picture and yet I still didn’t think, “Hey, I like telling stories… maybe I should do something about that.”
In fact, it wasn’t until middle school that I started writing stories for the joy of creative writing instead of as a supplement to something else.
I got my start writing fan fiction for a series called The Clique by Lisi Harrison. There was a I think direct to TV movie coming out for that series and they had a forum to promote it. I shared my writing there all the time.
I’ve mentioned before that I broke my leg very badly in middle school and I couldn’t be as active outdoors as I used to be. I gained a lot of confidence in myself through the friends I made in this tiny web community and the feedback my writing received there.
I was already sort of primed to take on writing as an obsession when I discovered Twilight.
Now—in case you don’t know—for all the hate Twilight received, it was pretty revolutionary at its time. If not for the content, for what it did for the Young Adult genre. Harry Potter played a very big part in legitimizing writing for young adults as something that could be taken seriously and equally enjoyed by adults as well as teenagers and children, but it was Twilight that brought Young Adult to the level it is at today.
Twilight was a global obsession, at one time consisting of 15% of all book sales total in a year long period. Publishers really wanted to invest in what made Twilight so popular and the growth from that, from selling future books similar to ones from that group that did well, really brought Young Adult into its own sustainable market.
The years before Twilight in Young Adult, the early 2000s, were a rough time for Young Adult. I mentioned before that I spent my childhood reading a lot of children’s classics.
For a long time, that’s all that young adult literature was: moral stories or cheap mass paperbacks.
Writing for teens or children was not considered very serious, literary, or profitable.
Twilight was a leading factor in what helped push YA into what it is today. Young Adult books used to be a single shelf in the children’s section and now it’s an entire aisle. There are so many options now. Epic Reads YouTube channel made a very cool video on the history of Young Adult that explains this much more clearly.
Anyway, so discovering Twilight, especially at the prime age it was targeting, was sort of revolutionary. I wrote a lot more fanfiction, but I also started nurturing my own stories and wondering how I could publish my ideas.
I owe a great debt to Alexandra Bracken.
She’s a very well known author now, but I won a contest for her first novel, and in addition to the novel (which is wonderful, by the way) the prize also included a $50 gift card. $50 in book money was like winning the lottery. It was really the first time I could invest in new books for myself.
Alex also had a pretty detailed blog at the start of her career where she talked about her publishing journey and her work as an editing or marketing assistant (I can’t remember exactly which) at a New York publishing house.
Her blog taught me a LOT about writing, the traditional publishing experience, and the industry.
By the time I was sixteen I'd basically decided there was no other path for me.
I actually have a very clear memory of reading Lauren Oliver’s Delirium and thinking throughout the entire experience, “This is what I want to do. This is how I want people to feel when they read my work. I want to be on the other side of the page.”
I’d already been researching the industry, but that was the first time I read a book and felt as connected to the process of writing as I was to the story I was reading.
I remember being so impressed by the little pieces of world building that would preface each chapter and desperately wanting to learn how to use that same skill myself. I really wanted to make someone else feel as inspired and impressed as I felt right then.
That really marked a turning point of reading as a writer for me.
From then on I started seriously examining what made a book work as I read.
I prioritized a practical career because it’s irresponsible not to, but even if I could only write in the bathroom or on lunch breaks my goal was and will always be to be a published author someday. Specifically a young adult author. I never considered a different subset of the writing industry.
While I would like to try my hand at screenwriting and other mediums someday, my heart has always been in young adult.
Young adult fiction gave me confidence and strength as friendships fell apart, as my heart was broken both by people I cared about and by harsh realities of life and dreams I was forced to set aside.
Young adult fiction helped shape me into the woman I am today.
I'm always going to want to speak to the girl I was, to tell the stories I needed to hear at that age. The story of how I became a writer is a really a story wrapped up in what inspired me and gave me hope. Reading and writing have always been there for me, even when nothing or no one else could be.
I’m beyond grateful for what that has done for me and I would be honored if my words could do that for someone else.
So that’s the story of how I became a writer!
What inspired you to start writing? Tell me in the comments.
If you enjoyed this video, please like it and subscribe. I’m here every week with new book and writing related videos.
Thank you so much for watching. I’ll see you soon. Bye.
