Writer Series: How It All Began

I never thought of being a writer. It wasn’t something I dreamed about, worked at or thought of much at all, to be honest. In high school, English was my least favorite subject. Papers were a nightmare and I couldn’t write a poem to save my life. It didn’t help that my teachers were vicious; every paper was drenched in bloody red pen, highlighting all of my brilliant mistakes. It felt like more than constructive criticism and did nothing to inspire further efforts in writing anything more than necessity.

College courses were no better. I performed much better, though the elective courses I enjoyed and excelled more. Apparently my high school teachers were much more ruthless in terms of grading. Or maybe it was just because I went to a business school and creative writing wasn’t really a high priority. Although now that I think about it, I don’t think I did any writing other than research papers. Though my grades were better, I still didn’t like writing. It wasn’t something that I looked forward to, but more like a chore.

The last few years of college were tough, emotionally. Then graduation happened and I hadn’t found a job, the search taking months where I was left sitting at home alone with my dog. A few trips to therapy, some suggestions on expressing emotions and I found myself directed journaling using tarot cards to pick a subject for an entry. It started as an occasional thing, here and there, but then it grew becoming more and more frequent to the point where I wrote an entry or two every night before bed.

Somewhere along the way I found myself drawn to words. And the more I wrote, the more I wanted and had to write, if that makes any sense. That desire had me branching out, writing poems and stories, and spurred the beginnings of a semi-forgotten memoir of my high school and college years. No longer limited to the tarot deck, I kept writing, kept thinking, kept brainstorming all the ideas, metaphors and analogies that popped into my head.

Suddenly, in the midst of it all, an idea came to me for a story about a girl going on a quest for some sort of mythical object. Though it was kind of vague, I couldn’t let it go, compelled to write it down and make sure that I never forgot it. And that was when my real journey began.