I promised you some reruns from time to time. This is part of a blog post (with updates) I wrote in 2012. At the time, I was participating in a blog challenge, something I no longer do (except for the annual April Blogging from A to Z Challenge.)
The prompt was: Describe your earliest memory of writing. How did your writing habit/process/career develop?
My very earliest memory? How about second grade? No, I won't count the
many hours I spent with plastic molded toy soldiers (World War II,
Civil War, Cowboys and Indians), making up "movies" for them. I never
wrote the plots down. I also remember making "comic" strips that passed
through a paper TV screen. I also won't count the many hours I spent
daydreaming that I worked at the Daily Planet alongside my heroine, Lois
Lane. I never did get into journalism.
No, I think it was when I was 10 or 11. I loved superhero comics
(Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, and a host of other). I decided to make
up my own superhero comics. The hero I created was "Cold Man", He
could freeze anything to near absolute zero. I couldn't draw worth a
whit, so I enlisted the help of a friend with artistic talent. She, in
turn, suggested my next venture and my first actual manuscript: The
Birdmen of Zuma. The Birdmen of Zuma were half man, half canary, and
lived hidden away in the Canary Islands. An American pilot crash landed
near their city.
It went downhill from there. Many adventures, just coincidentally,
resembled similar adventures of my beloved John Carter of Barsoom (an Edgar Rice Burroughs series - he did a lot more than Tarzan.) But
it was a start.
My serious writing started (after I stopped writing all together in my
early 20's) in April of 2009. I was in my late 50's. I started a blog
inspired by an "eyewitness" (sort of) email I wrote the day of a mass murder in Binghamton, New York.
My writing habit developed by participating first in the 2011 WordCount
Blogathon (31 daily posts, no skipping a day permitted), a blogging challenge no longer held, and then
several rounds of the Ultimate Blog Challenge. The latter challenge is still held and I highly recommend it.
I have the habit of daily writing, thanks to over 10 years of daily blogging.
I don't use a traditional writing process in the sense that I have never taken a writing course. I do "prewrite" but not formally. No one taught me these steps.
I developed a rhythm on my own in my first months of blogging. I've refined it over the years. I draft, revise, proofread (not perfectly, especially recently) and publish, usually taking 30-45 minutes with each post. I research during the drafting phase. I used to write in the early evening but that was more because of habits that evolved when I worked full time at a Monday to Friday work schedule. (I still work part time at my old job although I am, technically, retired).
Some of my posts seem to spring, fully formed, from my mind. Most don't.
I still don't have a writing career, unless you care to call me a career blogger (2009-present).
What about you?
...writing has never been my thing.
ReplyDeleteMy best friend and I started a book about Charlie, a talking horse, when we were 9 or 10. That's cool that you collaborated with an illustrator!
ReplyDeleteI'm playing around with a novel idea, but blog posts seem to be my natural medium.
I started blogging in the fall of 2010 I don't have a writing career either. I like that you break up the work that goes into writing and publishing blog posts.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely a career-blogger! I love your posts! Thank you for starting!
ReplyDeletethecontemplativecat here. My first written opus was when I was 4. Ralphie Edwards was a future classmate and my letter was a page of neatly written alphabet letters, upper and lower case. Interspersed were birthday cakes and pine trees.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your process. Mine is somewhat similar; I choose a topic, research it, find visuals to enhance the blog, expose it to potential readers, place it in a queue, and then review it prior to posting on the scheduled day.
ReplyDeleteI don't think there's a "correct" way to write. We all do it differently. And most "writing" classes are more about looking at what you produce, anyway. You're doing it perfectly for you.
ReplyDeleteYou write very well.you’ve got a solid process and you know how to tie the elements of your blog posts together. It’s always a pleasure to read your blog.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Liz A. There's no correct way to write. I think I compose in my head before I commit to paper (or to website), but once I do commit, that's it! No looking back.
ReplyDeleteThis is a good example to learn from you if I ever can become a writer!
ReplyDeleteThose plastic molded figurines! I had a few dozen of them. I didn't usually play with them as their designers expected though. The big clunky "baby dolls" didn't bring out any maternal instincts (I "mothered" animals and younger relatives) and seemed useless, except for games like switching all of their arms and legs and seeing how far they'd float downstream...the soldiers, cowboys, and "Indians" were small and light enough to act out scenes where they played real kids. "Indians" with long braids were cast as girls, cowboys and soldiers as boys. I took them for walks outdoors and brought them in for "school" lessons. Later, when I inherited some Barbies, a few of the plastic guys became the younger children they baby-sat. I even managed to project some affection onto those things; really missed one I'd dropped down a crack and felt as if a stray animal had come home when I was able to dig "her" out. So you weren't the only one!
ReplyDeleteNowadays someone would probably be saying "Prefers little boys' toys to little girls' toys...candidate for transgendering?" I am so glad people weren't that stupid back then--though for other purposes I did prefer little girls' toys, the tea set over the cap pistols any day, so that might have shut it off.