From Dream to Draft: My Journey to Becoming a Writer

I’ve procrastinated writing this first post for far too long. Since I’m a writer by trade, I envisioned this message as stunning, insightful, and humorous. It finally struck me that if I kept waiting for that to happen, my Substack publications would never get off the ground, so here goes. Hopefully, I’ll figure out someday why it’s easier to make up stories than it is to write as myself.

Since I am a writer, I decided to use this post to answer two questions I receive without fail when I meet readers in person. They are:

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•	Why did you become a fiction writer? 
•	Where do your stories come from?

In answer to the first, those of you who have followed me for a while have heard me tell of how I discovered my love of writing while studying poetry in grade school. I was already an avid reader, but I hadn’t experimented with putting my own words to paper. As my classmates moaned and groaned about their poetry assignments, I enthusiastically fiddled with creating my own works. Here’s one of my first attempts:

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Pink, pink, magical ink
Like a strawberry drink.
It makes you think.
I like pink.

Okay, cut me some slack. I was ten. Thankfully, my efforts improved over time. I even won an award for one of my poems and had another published in an anthology. It wasn’t until I was in middle school that my passion for writing prose sprang into existence. I credit the brilliant Professor Tolkien for that. As I was reading The Hobbit for the first time, something exploded in my brain, and I just knew. I was a writer. Many, many years would pass before I became a full-time writer, but thanks to my truly kind and supportive readers, I’m fortunate to be doing what I absolutely love to this day.

The second question is both easier and harder to answer. I’m fully aware that makes no sense, but here it is. Where do my stories come from? I have no idea. They just appear with settings and characters fully fleshed out in my brain. That doesn’t mean I don’t do revisions or outlines, but when I sit down to begin plotting out what I’ll write, my characters are actual people I know well. I even dream about them sometimes. I visualize their mannerisms and hear their way of speaking. It can be frustrating at times because they don’t always behave the way I want them to.

Check out a movie about Charles Dickens called The Man Who Invented Christmas. The movie is about him writing A Christmas Carol and comes as close as anything I’ve seen or read to describing what the story-creation process is like for me. It’s a fun and uplifting movie, if not entirely historically accurate.

This is the point where I ask readers to tell me about their passions, dreams, and talents. Please use the comments to let the rest of us know so we can all get to know each other better. (FYI, you have to have a Substack account and subscribe to comment.) I look forward to hearing your stories!

As always, happy reading!