I Wanted to be a Writer. It Didn't Happen Until 35 (Part 1)

The other day, I asked my Twitter followers if they had any interest in hearing my “origin story,” or all my failures on the road to becoming a (nearly) full-time writer at 35. I’d been mulling over this for a while, but wondered it it was just too navel-gazing to actually publish. That said, if you’re here, you’ve opted into my narcissistic delusions, so enjoy!

As soon as I learned what writing was, I wanted to do it. From preschool age, I always had a story in my mind—someone I was pretending to be, a scenario I was pretending to experience—and I couldn’t imagine how great it would feel to turn those things into stories, let alone books. I’m not sure how well a book called The Princess Fairy Veterinarian Dog would have sold, but I had dreams.

I didn’t learn how to actually put pencil to paper until I was about six. My first grade teacher allowed us thirty minutes of free journaling time every day. One day, I simply didn’t want to stop when the other kids stopped. I asked my teacher if I could keep writing, mostly as a Hail Mary because I didn’t think she would say yes. But she did. She allowed me to write, for what turned out to be hours, slowly filling my marble notebook with stories, thoughts and drawings. I did that for the rest of the day, until school was over. That was when I knew that this wasn’t just something I enjoyed. This was what I was meant to do.

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