Okay, so I might be cheating a bit now - Day Six was just to write for ten minutes, which I've kind of already done over this month. Day Seven was to read for ten minutes, which again, I've already done. Day Eight was to write down the plots of ten of my favourite classic stories - but in a similar way to the fanfic day, I don't want to write the plots of other classic stories. I know what the plots are, I know how to break a plot down. Heck, I've been doing it on my Storyboard now and getting into the swing of it. So instead, we're starting again from Day Nine (writing on Day Seventeen). Sure, so I have 'skipped' three days, but only because I want to get stuck into something I actually care about.
I honestly cannot remember what made me start writing in the first place. The first story I ever wrote was in Grade 2 - Year 3, for the UK school system - and I think this is the age between 7-8. So that means the first story I ever wrote was when I was seven years old. I remember it vividly, it was a picture book about a dog called Patch, who got stuck on a raft down a river and a girl and her friend had to save him. I think they did in the end, I think there was a parachute involved. I'm pretty sure it's in a box somewhere in Mum's house. But the point stands that I was seven years old when I wrote my first story, wrote it down on paper, and from there I never really stopped.
The next story I wrote was from a dream; it was in Grade 3, I remember, because I had to read it out in front of my class. Saying that, now I think about it, it was mortifying because it was about zombies and me and a boy called Eddy that I had a crush on 'saving the day'. God, why did anyone let me read it out loud? But the point was, I told the story and my Mum wrote it down on the computer for me. I took it into school, showed it to my teacher, and he told me I should read it out for the class. So I did. I was between the ages of 8-9 then, and the story wasn't very good, but I just loved to tell them.
I'll be honest, Grade 4 I don't remember if I ever wrote a story in. One thing I do remember of Grade 4 was being a voracious reader, and I think by then I had a reading age of 18 years. That probably really helped for the next thing. Grade 5 is when things really started picking up - Year 6, I think, is it? Between the ages of 10-11. This time it was because we had been asked to write stories for class, which explained natural occurrences the way people of old would have discussed them, and I wrote a story about a magician and a dragon that were fighting in a mountain - and that's what caused volcanoes. I remember receiving praise for the story - and I remember that this was really when I knew that I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to be an author, I wanted to write books the way I loved to read them.
I wanted to tell stories that took me further from my own life, and also reflected it in a way that was fair to me and made sense to me. A lot of the time at that age, I think I wanted to write stories where I would win; where I was the underdog and managed to get the boy's love, or have magic powers, or be the most popular girl in school. All of the above, really. It didn't help that I also had none of these things, and was probably considered one of the weirdest kids in the class, and the grade. I mean, all the better, now. It's made me who I am, and I haven't stopped telling stories - they've just progressed as my mind has widened. I'm just telling different tales, but with the same need to express myself and find meaning in everything.
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