The first book I read seriously was the Bible. I then read Biblical Comentary's and Biographies portraying story's of overcomming adversity and personal acheivment.
I began to write about my life's experiences to try and find meaning in what I've been through.
People who have read my work include attorney and former mayor and municipal leader, Dianne Haskett, who is also owner of Believe Books, Washington, DC - Ken Wells, former Director of Nursing, West Hills Hospital of Reno, NV - Tom Luitwieler, pastor of Calvary Chapel of Reno, NV to name a few.
I am a non-fiction writer/author who is a lifetime science fiction fan. I grew up in the era when writers like Theodore Sturgeon, Isaac Asimov, Poul Anderson, Piers Anthony, Robert A. Heinlein, Robert Silverberg, and Roger Zelazny held sway over the genre. I enjoy them immensely along with Harlan Ellison, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Fritz Leiber. I suppose this early reading, full of hope and expectation and more importantly, "what if", influenced how I approached the field of personal finance.
I began to write seriously ten-years ago (after writing short stories most of life) when I realized that there was no good, product-free information for the average worker. I began the BlueCollarDollar.com (http://bluecollardollar.com) and from that, I now write not only for the site but two blogs, several guest columns and now have four books (McGraw-Hill).
My first readers were people who were looking for good, bias-free financial information.
I was a pretty big series reader. I absolutely loved Alfred Hitchcock's The Three Investigator series. Then Roger Zelazny's Amber Series of course and Philip Jose Farmer's Riverworld series.
Though I read a LOT I didn't actually entertain writing until college. The stories were in my head though and many of them still are.
The first and only person to read what I wrote was my best friend from college. She's also the one who inspired me to keep writing even though I'd no plans at that time of being published.
If you want to thank someone for pushing me to publish, you can thank Teresa. I never thought my stories were good enough.
My family were all pretty religious so even as a kid I read the Bible. But the first literary books I remember reading are Emma by Charlotte Bronte and a book about a girl named Penelope. My mother had a great memory and always walked around the house orating the openings of great books. So I grew up hearing the openings of A tale of two cities, Ivanhoe etc.
The same book about the pirate Jean Paul Lafitte all through grade school. Or books about Robert E. Lee. I began writing poetry in high school as a way to get into girl's panties. The first professional person to read my work was a professor in college who thought I had talent. I was in love with her so all my writing had strong erotic content. I went on to become a journalist, but never took any writing courses in college and stopped writing poetry. I wanted to be a novelist after college, but never took any courses, didn't know the first thing about writing or narrative. This struggle lasted decades to find a real voice. Journalism was a shallow profession and I wanted to be honest. Perhaps it was after reading Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way that I found that voice at 40+ and have been writing creatively ever since.
The first story I remember hearing was "Bluebeard." My mother wasn't very conventional! I read everything I could (there weren't many books in the house so the Mineral Wells Library had to suffice -- Cotton Mather was a big one). My pre-school teacher, Mrs. Griffeth was probably the very first person to read a story I "wrote" to get out of naptime.
The first books I read were Dr. Seuss books as a child. The first large work of fiction I read was The Lord of the Rings. However, I was very into non-fiction works before that, especially about animals and insects, and my parents purchased many non-fiction books for me as a child.
I began to write as a fanfiction writer on the internet, and those were the first things people read from me. I have since moved on to blogging about my day-to-day experiences and hobbies, which is what has gotten me my most wide-spread readership. I still write fiction, but it is my own, rather than fanfiction.
I first read fairytales by the Brothers Grimm and Hans Anderson. I was five at the time. However I do remember going through magazines with my grand-dad as a two year old and getting absolutely mesmerised with the words.
I started writing at 12. I don't remeber how simply because the words just came to me.
My nana, gran and parents were the first to read what I wrote.
I'm sure I read Golden Books, but the first real series I read voraciously was Nancy Drew. Then the number of authors and subjects grew exponentially. Everything from Art History to Erotica interests me, and I still love a good mystery, thanks to Nancy.
At one time I wrote non-fiction. Journalism and library science were my interests in college, but I eventually strayed into fiction. Here was a world I could build to my liking, and sometimes if the characters let me, I can even determine what happens.
My family and friends were the first to read my amateuish attempts at creative writing. Now I have critique partners to punish with my wordy choices.
My first book was 'Winnie-the-Pooh' by A.A. Milne, which my dad gave to me a day after I was born. Took me a few years to learn to read it!
Once I learned - teaching myself on a set of primers my grandmother gave me - I read everything I could. I can't really remember starting to write, only that I wanted so badly to create stories like those that gave me so much pleasure.
I still have a few of the stories I wrote as a kid. My parents read them, and my teachers would laminate them and bind them so I would feel 'published.'
My mom says that the first book I ever read was "Jaws" by Peter Benchley. For me, the first book I ever read was a book about Grover from Stresame Street.
My first love was the pulp western novels handed down to me by my grandfather. In fact I think I learned to read from a Louis L'amour book and then later I moved onto Ian Fleming, Mickey Spillane and all the escapist fiction that used to be around. I've always felt the need to write, to create. Indeed I would have started writing in the womb if I'd had a pencil.
I first read the back of milk cartons. But I mostly just looked at the pictures. It made the story easier to understand. Even at such a young age, I got it. The cows like eating daisies, they smile, while blinking their pop art eyelashes. They are happy to have their teats violated for me. I think from here I moved on to picture books, but those memories are all a little hazy. Must have been all the Children's Tylenol I was jacked up on.
I began to write in kindergarten. I had just learned a new skillset: the proper etiquette for eating paste. I was a sick kid (all the paste, of course) and spent about three weeks in hospital, during which I completed my opus. It was magnificent; something about a dinosaur. It glittered. I made a cover out of cardboard, which my mother had to sew together as the doctors had banned all paste.
Comics probably. Then Hockey Pictorials and then Hardy Boys I think. But that's really stretching the memory glands or cells or synapses. I was inspired to write by Dylan and The Beatles and Kerouac and Tom Wolfe (The Electric Cool Aid Acid Test one). Probably the first was some poor girl who didn't want to hurt my feelings and tell me how bad it was.
The first books I remember reading were the classics: Little Women and Gone with the Wind. Ironically, my writing career started after the loss of my vision. I lost my vision nine years ago after a long bout with diabetic retinopathy. Prior to this, I was a legal secretary where I prepared cases for judges in the Family Division. But painting was my passion and I spent all my free time pursuing this passion. Devastated, I enrolled in a program for the blind where I was taught how to use a computer with adaptive software which converts text to synthesized speech. And after a long and winding road, a new dream resurrected. Today, instead of painting my pictures on canvas, I paint my pictures with words. The first people to see my writing was family and friends. But after that, I took creative writing classes and workshops and now belong to several critique groups. |
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