FAQ'S, ONE SHOTS & OTHER THINGS

Why I Started Writing / Making Some Cool Cash From Cooler Words

Why I Started Writing / Making Some Cool Cash From Cooler Words

 

            I love this question. I could talk about this question for the rest of the year. I won't. But I could.

            Why I started writing.

            Oh, boy.

            The best place to start is to ask another question. Why I started reading.

            No one in my family is a particularly big reader. At least, they weren't when I was growing up. I guess me and books were always meant to be. When I was a kid there was nothing that captured me the way stories did. Seriously. And not verbal stories because I couldn't stand those, but stories I got to see in my own head through reading.

            I took to reading like a fish takes to running, or swimming, or whatever. I just really liked books. I started reading at a stupidly early age. I tore through middle grade novels before the other kids in my class could write their own names without scratching down a letter backwards.

            I read and read and read and read until eventually, there was nothing. Seriously. I had run out of every book that interested me. I was so desperate I actually turned to non-fiction. 

            So, I decided to search something crazy in the app store (I'm eleven at this time). I searched the word book. And holy macaroni, something came up! Wattpad! My personal heaven. A never ending parade of reading! Or so I thought. I read through my perferred genres and then there was nothing.

            So I wrote.

            Well, I tried to write.

            My first story is still on Wattpad but I will never say where.

            It was terrible.

            Cringe worthy.

            I still cringe actually, when I think about it.

            At the time of its conception, those ridiculously long titles were in high fashion. I used one. I regret it. So much. At that time, I wasn't sure what a paragraph was or that planning a story was an actual thing. I just figured I had read a lot of stories so naturally, I would be able to write one.

            No. Not at all.

            I guess the real question is why I continued to write.

            Well, that was because my grandfather died. He died and I wasn't overtly good at expressing how I felt about death so I wrote my first big hit. It was about an ordinary girl who falls in love with a  boy who has cancer. He dies. I wrote it (*ahem* two years before The Fault in Our Stars was published) when I was twelve years old. It became popular and I was thrilled so naturally, I wanted to keep writing.

            I don't want to say that success was the reason I stuck with writing. Because it wasn't. It was the reason I stuck with Wattpad. While writing that story I fell in love with the process of writing, the emotional unloading, the long periods of writer's block, that eureka moment when you have an amazing idea, the way characters became a part of you. I'm quite sure, that even without that story's success, I would have found my way back to writing at some point in my life. After all, it was my natural outlet for grief and it has continued to be. Grief and happiness.

            Before Wattpad though, I had shown promise as a writer in elementary school. I wrote a fantastic little piece on my mother and her challenges building a snowman, a short story called The Problem With Turns, and a more sophisticated piece of literature about a pilot with a fear of heights.

            So yeah, I hope that question has been adequately covered without having to talk about it for the remainder of this year.

            Onto the second part of this FAQ, the exciting part, the green part, the part you've all been waiting for. Making Money.

            Oh yeah.

            Oh no.

            Making money off of writing is incredibly hard. But, fun fact, I'm already doing it. Aha! Something most of you don't know about me. That cancer story I mentioned? I polished that baby up and self published for the diehards, I still get cheques almost two years later (albeit, not large ones). 

            The question I was asked is; Do you want to write professionally?

            The answer to said question; Hell yes!

            Yes. Yes, I do. With a passion beyond passions. Becoming a published, traditional, author is my dream and will always be my dream even if it happens. Publishing a book is the number one on my bucket list and my ultimate goal in life. If I don't complete it I'm pretty sure my soul will never be able to move on or rest or whatever.

            I want to write professionally. I want my words to reach people! I want to do book signings and talk to aspiring writers and fans! Yes! Who wouldn't want that? Seriously!

            But, of course, it's not so easy.

            The percentage of authors who generate enough income to just writing is shockingly, horrendously, gut wrenchingly, low. The big names are in the minority. Almost all authors, besides the tremendously lucky/talented ones, have another career outside of writing.

            That being said, I'd love to work in publishing. I think it's super cool to support the people who have the same dream as you. If not, I'd be perfectly content teaching English or creative writing or I don't know, race car driving.

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If I missed anything, let me know and I will add!

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