Wow, the answer to that question goes way back. Besides the Scholastic Book Service in elementary school, my family was big into reading. Miss Pickerel Goes to Mars by Ellen MacGregor and the Mushroom Planet series by Eleanor Cameron come to mind as examples of SBS reads. Grandmother sent me The Frogman Spy by J Bernard Hutton. And of course, Dickens and Mark Twain. As for being a writer myself, I began keeping a journal during college and wrote several longhand drafts about draining swamps for golf courses in Florida and traveling around the country with a guitar in tow but it wasn't untl 1991 when I went to a Writers Conference that I began writing in what might be called 'earnest.'
My mother bought me a Golden Book every week at the grocery store and when then I started to read the books she had for her book club in the 50's. Because these books were "adult" in subject matter, I raced through them. By the time I was in 6th grade I tested as a "college level reader." I guess those naughty novels increased my vocabulary.
I began to write to fulfill school assignments and loved making up stories. My high school classmates have reminded me that my work was always read out loud by the English teacher - but I don't remember.
My college and graduate school writing assignments required non-fiction responses. I liked doing the research that was required to put together a convincing paper. Those professors were required to read and grade those papers, so I had a captive audience.
My professional writing revolved around state education standards - dry stuff, but again, people were required to read it.
The first thing I had to learn in writing my book was that it had to be something people wanted to read. It is a self-help book that needed to be both informative and entertaining. This style of writing is miles a part from the academic writing I was trained to do.   | | |
According to my parents, I was reading long before first grade. Oddly enough, as a child I read mostly children's books (I remember the Bobbsey Twins books as some of the first non-picture books I read). However, by the time I was in 4th or 5th grade, I was frequenting the "adult" section of our library (had to have parents' permission to check out books from it).
I would say I began "writing" when I was in elementary school and would draw pictures and make up stories to go with them, for my parents, my cousins and my school classmates. I finished my first (absolutely awful) novel when I was in 8th grade, and my classmates passed it around and read it in installments as I wrote each chapter - until one of them supposedly lost it. That was probably for the best, as I was trying to emulate Jacqueline Susann, whose "Valley of the Dolls" I'd just read.
The Dick and Sally books for kids are the first books I remember reading. In fifth grade, I started our school's first newspaper and was sole writer/editor. I guess the first to read what I wrote were the other elementary school kids! :o)
I've been reading since I was pre-Kindergarten. And before that, my grandmother used to read children's books, Aesop's Fables, Grimm Fairy Tales and many others to me.
I remember trying to write my first story at the age of seven, using my mother's old Royal manual typewriter. I read my story to my parents, who thought it was wonderful. My older sister and brother, however, weren't all that impressed!
When I was very small, I read "The Little Train that Could." I think that was the title. I was about four years then. I remember it because it gave me hope that whatever I tried to do, I could, just like the little train.
I had always wanted to be a writer, ever since I can remember, but most everyone I told said I was a dreamer and told to pick something else to be. That only made me more determined to write, but I knew I had to do it in secret or be punished. When I was ten, I finally got the courage to do it, and went to an empty room in the boarding house where we (my mother and I) lived and armed with discarded paper from a trash can and an old pencil I found, wrote "The Stormy Sea of Life." I'll never forget it. I wrote about the most glamorous people I could imagine who had a lot of problems, and how they strode to overcome it.
No one read it but me I didn't dare show it to anyone. I hid it in a crack in the dresser of the room Mom and I rented, and there it stayed. I guess it's probably still there. But that was years ago, so I don't know for sure. | | |
The earliest book I can remember reading was Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. I was fascinated by Mark Twain's characters and how he brought them to life. I began to write when my children were small. I would make up bedtime stories for them and when they got older they asked me if I could remember some of the stories. Fortunately I remembered a few and started writing them down. I soon found that I had a knack for writing conversational dialogue. My parents and my sister were the first to read my attempts at writing. My father was a published poet and I wanted my work to gain his stamp of approval.
I grew up reading "Famous Monsters of Filmland" and "Fate". I began to write plays in elementary school and continued to do so through College. I never truly finished a 'book' until 2006. That book "Walking with Awanu" was first read by my sister and her best friend.
Well I first started reading when I was about 3 years old. I believe it was Sesame Street Numbers and Letters books. Seriously, I became obsessed with reading at a young age and gradually moved toward larger novels as my tastes developed. The young adult/ teens section wasn't quite as popular as it is now and I found that my love of fantasy/sci-fi genre graduated toward an adult level of reading quite fast.
I began to write short stories and poetry in highschool. I went to a magnet school that fostered growth in writing and I found I loved to create stories and tales of new places or develop stories of places I had been and what it would be like going back. It wasn't until halfway through my college years did I attempt novel writing. It really was putting pen to paper everyday and seeing where I could send the characters next.
The first to read my works, I actually don't know their names. This was still in highschool. I wrote two literary essays that were then sent to the UK to be shadow read and critiqued for a journal entry. They were both accepted. For my first novel, my sister was the first to read it. You may think, of course she'd like it, but she gave me a lot of critique and helped me to really advance my writing | | |
Most of the historical fiction books of James Fenimore Cooper, and Drums Along the Mohawk by Walter D. Edmonds.
I began writing poetry at 18 in high school, and Allan Ginzburg read my poetry, as well as my English teatcher. As I lived near Allan on his 'farm' in upstate New York near my home back in 1967-1968.
Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert Heinlein were amongst my very first reads. I've loved science fiction and fantasy from the very beginnig.
As a child I used to have a hard time going to sleep, so I started imagining stories in my head of characters I'd seen on my favorite TV shows. Eventually I had an idea of my own and decided to put it to paper.
The First Book i read i believe was The Lake Lagoon books. i began writing for a red ribbon week contest in junior high. i wrote an essay, ended up winning the contest, and got to read it in front of the entire school. My best friend Crystal Watson was the first to read anything that i wrote, until i moved out of state.
I've always been an avid reader, nonfiction stuff in the realm of science and history mostly as well as myths & legends from all over the world. Even from a very young age I have been drawn to the paranormal & supernatural and to this day my bookshelves are about 85% ghost & monster stories. I actually still have many books from my youth, some in better condition than others, and I have even gone out and purchased some of my old favorites. The Alvin Schwartz "Scary Stories" trilogy, Jack Prelutsky's "Nightmares, Poems to Trouble Your Sleep", and most anything by Daniel Cohen were and still remain some of my all time favorite reads. I used to (and still do, of course) read a lot of mythology, and stories from the Native Americans, Mexico, China, Egypt, Greece, Celts, etc. have all been great inspirations to my work at some point. For fiction, I was mostly glued to Stephen King but did branch out to other authors and genres from time to time. I'm sorry to say I don't read as much these days, but when I do it's ghost stories, history & mythology, maybe an occasional novel here and there. Novels I read more than others include "Silence of the Lambs" and "Watership Down"
I have been writing for as long as I can remember, pretty much ever since I learned to pick up a pen. My imagination has always been a runaway train going full speed, and my playtime would be full of elaborate tales. In fact, one thing I used to do was something my family dubbed "jumping". I would hold a single toy and bounce around a room while a story played about in my head. I would make sound effects and just skip back and forth at a rapid pace. My family got so used to it, that even when I would bounce in front of the TV they would hardly notice. Visitors, however, were enthralled and/or annoyed. I really wish I still did that, I'd be a heck of a lot better shape if I did. One of the first stories I ever wrote was called "The Quest of Sir James" (and if you don't know by now what the J. in J. A. Flores stand for, shame on you!). I must have been about 5 or 6 years old. Basically, it was a story about a dragon kidnapping a beautiful princess and Sir James going to rescue her. This would actually eventually become The Quest Saga.
I've never been shy about letting other people read my work. I never offered it, but if anyone asked to see it I had no problem turning it over. My parents and my brothers and sister were of course the first to read my very, very early stuff, but once I started writing in school, my classmates would also read it. I started working on The Quest in high school, and once they found out what I was doing many of my friends and people that I barely knew wanted to read it. Most even requested (or insisted) that I make them characters. | | |
I began reading at age 3, so I took on all the Dr Seuss books I could find before moving on to reading anything my parents had laying around the house. My first "story" was a drawing of neighborhood kids riding their bikes with a two or three line narrative. My mother and father were amazed; I guess it was pretty well drawn and written for a 4 year old.
I remember the first 'major' book I ever read was Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine. That was when I was five. I have always read a lot in my life, have always written things whether it was for school or for myself.
Usually I kept my writing to myself, but for school projects my teachers would read what I'd written. |
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