I first began to write seriously in 1977 during a period of unemployment after qualifying as a marine biologist. My first book was a gangster thriller based in my home town of Weymouth in Dorset, England. It was never published. Some time later, after moving to Ireland, my wife and I went on a charity expedition to Egypt where we visited the Great Pyramid of Cheops near Cairo. Seeing this incredible structure, and wondering why it was built, I began a story about a fictional billionaire who loses his wife in a botched assassination attempt meant for himself. This was the beginning of the "Virtual Trilogy", the first book of which - "Virtually Maria" (ISBN 9780955763700) was first published in 1998 and has subsequently been reprinted, along with the other two books - "A Matter of Time (ISBN 9780955763717) and "Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow" (ISBN 9780955763724) by Spindrift Press, Dublin.
"Virtually Maria", the first book in the Virtual Trilogy, was chosen as "Book of the Month" by the Eason's bookstore chain in Ireland and, together with "A Matter of Time" has been translated into Russian by the Moscow publishing house ACT.   | | |
I don't remember the first book I read, but I have been reading since before I went to school. I do remember one particular book that was giving me trouble when I was very young. I am a bunny, I couldn't figure out the word toadstool for the longest time. But I finally got it.
As for how I began writing, I have always written journals, and short stories for school, but what peaked my interest on poetry was my Grade 10 English class. We had a wonderful teacher, Mr. Phillips, and he exposed us to works by Tennyson, Yeats, and Kipling. I guess you would say he was my first reader.
I wrote a novel called, Forever My Lady. I began writing it actually as a screenplay but after years of rejection decided to turn it into a novel. It was the best decision I ever made.
Dick and Dora first reads
Sat down at the computer and started to write about teaching experiences
My wife
I began to write for therapeutic reasons. My first attempts were hopeless and uninteresting bits of dribble. Simply, when the source of most of my pain, my mother, passed away, it flowed freely onto the screen.
My sisters were the first to read the first chapters of my memoir.
I have always been an avid reader. The first book I remember truly loving was 101 Dalmatians (I was 7 years old). I own a Dalmatian now, 30 years later, so clearly it had an effect. My primary school years were dominated by fantasy fiction and mystery thrillers - C.S. Lewis, Enid Blyton, and the like. In high school I fell in love with the drama of the classics - the Bronte sisters, Shakespeare, Austen, for example - and poetry. I can't remember a time in my life that I didn't have a book I needed to take with me everywhere.
I started writing stories as soon as I could form words on paper. My first ever reader was my little brother. I wrote and illustrated a picture book for him. He was 3 and I was 9. I always wanted to be an author, and nothing else ever appealed.
I think it was "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" by Roald Dahl. I was nine and I spent a vacation in our family's cabin mesmerized by that book.
My old man, I guess, was the first one to suffer my prose, written on college ruled, lined paper stuck in a binder as my first "novel". His grace and patience gave me some strength to seek it further.
I taught myself with my grandmother's help at age 3. I read voraciously. By age 10 I was reading books like War and Peace, Whuthering Heights.
My writing career began in earnest at age 12 when I founded a newspaper at my lycée in order to publish my novel. My first readers were the teachers, then the students.
When I was about nine or ten, I started to read those fearstreet novels for young adults. I read them in french(my native language) and later on read them in english. Then in fifth grade, I wrote a christmas story that my teacher loved, she said that I had a great, creative talent. It later inspired me to write dark fantasy stories that I wrote at night by candle lights. I used to write with pen and paper, until I discovered the computer. Now my computer is my best friend.
My best friend Cindhy was the first one to read my stories. Then, I have a close friend named Bonnie, who read all my poems. She was the first grown up I showed my work to. My mom also reads my stories, except erotica.
Around the end of grade one, as soon as I could sound out words enough to print them (many misspelled) on paper, I began mimicking detective programs on the radio. The short, action-packed stories I wrote were full of loud effects such as “Bang! Crash! Boom! Socko! Wham!” One story, “The Death of the Murdered Girl”, was published in the Brantford Expositor newspaper when I was seven. After that, the stories just kept flowing. It wasn’t until I reached high school that I was drawn more to writing poetry.
First read? Way too long ago to remember, some kids stories a propos to the mid-fifties I would prsume. I began writing just out of interest in trying my hand at it. After years of reject letters I was about to give up when I found out that my efforts at marketing made it tax deductible and thus continued doing it - with many more rejects, more and more worded kindly and supportively, but still rejected. So my first readrs were all editors who did not like what they saw enough to publish any of it.
Like many writers, I was a keen reader as a child, and initially I devoured fiction such as Australian author Ethel Turner (Seven Little Australians can still make me cry) and the English author Enid Blyton, as well as Louisa May Alcott's Anne of Green Gables series. As a teenager, I enjoyed English literature subjects and found I did well with creative writing exercises. When I began working as a clinical psychologist, a colleague encouraged me to write a column for a local newspaper, dealing with a wide range of mental health issues. This column was well-received and encouraged me to write about my particular speciality, Sex Therapy. My first book on sexuality was published in Australia in 1985.
My first read was probably The Cat in the Hat since we were both born in the same year. And I've always worn a hat, so in a way I guess I aspired to be the living version of The Cat in the Hat; unless he aspired to be me. Who can say? I began to write seriously at the age of 17. It was a difficult year for me and I needed an outlet. So it was either writing, which I found easy, or a dive off a cliff which there aren't many of in Miami where I'm from. I don't know who the first to read my work was. I started getting published very quickly in a literary journal out of Bloomfield, New Jersey. So I imagine some frazzled souls across the river take that prize.
My first real story that I read was a school book, Child in darkness, but unfortunately I cant remember the Author's name. From then on I was totally hooked on literacy. It gave me the freedom to realise my child-fantasies in more ways than one.
I started writing when I had a crush on one of the boys in my school. It was totally nonsense poetry then, but it gave me the opening I wanted and today I can write about themes and subjects more realistically.
The first one to read my poetry and short stories? Goodness, my first poem I read to my Afrikaans Teacher, Ms Visser, but she said I lied about writing it, so I stopped and afterwards the boy I had a crush on had the privilege to read my first poems all dedicated to him. It was so embarrassing, but looking back I'm proud that it didnt stop me from writing some more.
I began reading voraciously when I was young, almost exclusively non-fiction and in the realm of ufo's, ghosts, the unexplained, and the paranormal. I began to write poetry as a way of passing time during very boring night shifts at work, which moved over fairly quickly to non-fiction writing. A couple of friends were the first to read my writings. |
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