In the spirit of beginnings allow me to share my backstory and my journey as a writer.
My first diary.
Nearly fourteen years ago I was given a diary for my birthday. At first with the way I was raised by two military parents I thought that diaries were only for girls and I was much too manly for that. The large, hardcover notebook just didn't feel right to have, but as I went to my room I felt myself compelled to fill the blank lines with something. At first I wrote about the people I met at school, my first crush, my pets. As I got older I found myself writing about things I saw every day. Describing the trees and birds, making little stories about what it was like to be an animal.
Then came poetry. I don't quite remember when I began writing poetry, but I know it was on my brand new iPod touch generation one so it must have been around 2007. Thankfully, that iPod has been lost over the years as I'm sure everything in it was cringe worthy and filled to the brim with angst.
It was only five years later that I left writing behind for what I thought would be forever. My mother was always strict about being in extracurricular activities and me being too embarrassed to say I wanted to be in creative writing and theater hid that part of myself away. I joined engineering and football because they were the normal thing that smart kids whose parents want them to have a future would be in.
Those two things would outline the next four years of my life.
Two months after I graduated I moved out of my home in California to travel all the way to the east coast to go to college. I decided to go to college for nanotechnology with thoughts of sci-fi level experiments floating around in my head. Just like that I left everything behind a kid fresh out of high school getting his own apartment, his first job, and going to college for the first time all on the opposite side of the country from everyone I knew. I fondly call this time my "Year of Solitude".
As I went through the motions of college and adult life I realized very quickly that engineering was not what I wanted to do with my life. Searching for something new I remembered my love for writing stories and thus the writer you see now was born. It was in Maryland that I wrote the first iteration of what is now spiritborn, two books that will never see the light of day. They were called "Of spirit and body" and "Of Spirit and Mind" and although they are filled with every error imaginable I am glad I wrote them because without them I wouldn't have made the stories I have today I never would have rekindled that fiery passion I have for the craft.
So that's the overview of how I became the writer I am today.
How did you discover your art? What situations made you who you are today? Share in the comments below or submit a full story by going to my submission page!
Hope you enjoyed the story!
See you next Friday!
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