Promptly: A Book That Inspired You To Become a Writer

I don’t normally do these… but this particular writing prompt required a response.

If you’ve been following me for a while now you probably already know about my love for J.K.Rowling and how I consider her the greatest inspirational factor in my wanting to become a writer, but I wanted to discuss the specific book that really set it off for me and why.

I got into Harry Potter a bit later than most. I had received the first two as a Christmas gift in early 2000, but upon attempting to read the first chapter of book one I found myself unable to get very far. Shortly thereafter either sometime before the movies or just after, my aunt and grandmother (the same grandmother who bought me the books in the first place) somehow came to the ridiculous conclusion that the books were incredibly Satanic in nature and therefore I wasn’t allowed to read them. (They spent a good chunk of my life pretending as if they were also my parents, since apparently they were not convinced my mother was enough, she really had no opinion one way or another on the books, she hadn’t read them). Just before the first movie came out we moved to Las Vegas, and I had asked my mother whether or not we should throw out the books since it was doubtful I’d ever read them. To which she suggested I keep them anyway. By the time the movie came out, we no longer cared what the rest of the family thought and decided to see it anyway. We were instantly in love and for the first time I decided to give the first book another chance. This was the start of my real love affair with books.

I realized somewhere after reading book 4 that I wanted to know what happened next, which, oddly led to me writing a completely unrelated story with a completely unrelated theme. But it wasn’t until much much later, in fact, only about two or three years ago, that I realized that Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was perhaps more inspirational to me as a writer, even though it came out several years after I had already started writing.

The summer O.O.T.P came out I spent one of my final summers with my father and stepmother. They were always fighting and when they weren’t fighting which was usually when they were asleep during the day, I was reading. I particularly felt connected to Harry because I was at the time living with three other people in a tiny motel room and forced to read beneath the sunlight seeping through the front door, in an effort not to wake anyone. It was being transported into Harry’s world that helped me get through those times, and it was years later that I realized that I didn’t just want to be a writer, I wanted to be someone who could bring people into my own world, and out of theirs.

PS: I may or may not decide to do more of these prompts in the coming days and months.