Monday, September 21, 2009

I'm Hanging Up My Shoes!

At least for a week. I believe it was B.J. Anderson who started this blog tradition known as Unplug Week. It is intended to be a week of no social networking so we writers can just write. I participated in July, and I have to admit that I was miserable. I missed blogging, so I chose not to participate in August. However, I find myself, now, feeling the need to take a little break. As you may or may not have guessed from my recent posts, I'm in the thick of the revision process. The kind of revising I need to do requires a great deal of creativity, and I'm finding that my creativity is all being spent on writing my posts and finding shoes to go along with them. So, I've decided to join B.J. in unplugging this week. Well, sort of. I'll still be posting, and I'll still be reading and commenting on your blogs, but there will be no new shoe pictures this week. The ones you see here will be on the rest of my posts, which will consist of nothing more than a simple question for you. That being said, today's question is: When did you start writing? I started writing in kindergarten. It was just a simple Mother's Day card, but I knew right then that I loved to write, and I've been doing it ever since. Now, I must go write, or revise in this case. Have a great day!

42 comments:

strugglingwriter said...

I'll miss the shoe pictures. *sniff* :)

I remember really enjoying and excelling at the creative writing exercises in grade school and I had one meandering, long story I wrote in 5th grade.

Then not much else until 9 or so years ago when my local newspaper had a writing contest and I won and was published in the paper. Then I was hooked again.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I hear ya! You gotta make time for doing what is improtant. I love blogging, but at the end of the day the bigger picture is the work that we work on outside of our blogs... at least that is how I see it. I mean, I love you blog, but I want to read your novel more! :o)

I started writng at the age of 7 in the 2nd grade. We had to write a story about being invisible. I have been doing it ever since. If you have the time, go to my April post and look for Clips My Mental Archive - 2nd grade elem.... it is a really long ttile. I tell the whole story of how I became a writer. I you would like to read!

Well my dear, Happy Writing! :o)

Anonymous said...

Wow... I meant to say long title and If you would like to read. Sorry for the typo's. lol.

Clementine said...

Good for you! I hope you get a lot accomplished.

Kimbra Kasch said...

Hope you have a restful week. I started writing as a little kid - poetry and things for myself. I didn't get "serious" until my kids started heading off to college and my son told me "You need to get a life." It's not as bad as it sounds. He was worried about me having such a void in my life, without their basketball, tennis, track, plays, and choir. So I thought "What do I really like to do?" Write.

Rita Loca said...

I have journaled for as long as I can remember. I was an early reader and at the age of 4 read The Little House series. I was inspired by Laura's 'memory books', and began to keep my own.

Natalie said...

I need to buckle down and get some writing done too. I hope it's a good week for you.

I started creative writing about 2 years ago. I had been a journalism major in college so I had written before, but never for fun. I like it now :)

Stephanie McGee said...

I didn't start until junior high/high school. But I've loved it ever since.

Kristen Torres-Toro said...

Hey, Susan! Have a great week! I hope you're able to get a lot done!

I wrote my first story when I was 9--third grade. I started by first book when I was 12. But I started journaling young... mostly because I thought that's what I was supposed for do. My grandparents gave me a diary for my K-5 graduation and I was gone from there. :0)

Patti said...

It's been so long I can't even remember. I wrote a whole book when I was 14 and still have it.

Rae said...

Have a great week and I hope you get a lot accomplished while taking your break.

Wendy Paine Miller said...

Began to know it was something important to me when I was eight.
~ Wendy

Kelsey (Dominique) Ridge said...

I hope the week is what you hope it will be. :D

I started writing in junior year of high school. Mainly in Physics class.

Corey Schwartz said...

Good idea to partially unplug. We don't need the shoe pics... we're clever. We can use our imaginations :)

Carrie Harris said...

I wrote my first book in kindergarten, but I didn't decide to pursue writing as a career until college.

That was 15 years ago. Which is embarrassing to admit, but what the hey.

Janna Leadbetter said...

Best during you semi-unplugged state!

I guess it was always in me, really. From before I could read and write, those were the things I wanted to do more than anything else. And once I learned, I never stopped. It's all gone into my craft now, in some tiny way. Great question!

Regina Quentin said...

Good luck with your revising. You are making a wise decision. I want to unplug soon too!

Angie Muresan said...

Good for you and best of luck on your revising! I journal the old fashioned way daily, and blog a few times per week. I've been journaling since grade school, blogging is fairly recent, yet so much fun.

Sherrie Petersen said...

I've been writing as long as I can remember. I always wanted to be a writer, but it took a long time before I believe in myself enough to actually do the writing.

Stephanie Faris said...

Oh gosh...I feel like I've been writing forever. I remember when I was in elementary school, having the fantasy of drawing up my own book and putting it on the shelves in the grocery store with the other kids' books. I wondered if someone would pick it up and read it! But I really started writing seriously when I was in high school.

Terri Tiffany said...

I hope when you come back you can report you got a ton done!! Enjoy:))

Eileen Astels Watson said...

May you have a very writing productive week ahead!!

Karen M. Peterson said...

I've been telling stories since I was about 3 and writing them down since I was around 5. My evil 4th grade teacher severely criticized a short story I wrote and instead of falling apart and thinking I couldn't write, I decided she was wrong and I was going to prove it.

Have fun unplugging. I just can't do that!

Jody Hedlund said...

Cute shoe picture! Good choice for the week! Hope you get a lot of revising done and can crank up the creative juices!

Nicolette said...

We have a shoe tree near my hometown where all the graduating seniors each year would throw a pair of their old sneakers onto a branch to hang. That's what you should have- a shoe tree. :)

I started writing well before I can really remember, but my first story was in third grade...And for some reason, I had no sense of the margins on paper so my writing looked like this sometimes:

There once was a woman who lived in
a shoe. She had 14 children.
All of her children were
brats and never did
any of their
chores.

Don't laugh, it's a true story. :P I rarely write on notebook paper anymore, but when I do, I always remember to start at the margin and finish at the margin lol!

Jill Kemerer said...

Good luck and have a lovely break. Maybe apple cider and donuts too? It seems right, doesn't it? :)

Tabitha Bird said...

i started writing when I could hold a pen... okay, no. But not long after. I loved story writing from really young, but never thought I was any good. And at the time I probably wasn't. I still struggle to think that I am any good. Do we ever get over that???

AiringMyLaundry said...

Good luck with the unplugging thing.

I started to write when I was pretty little...maybe second grade? One day I was in the middle of playing Barbies and then I just had this compulsion to write. So I grabbed this tiny notebook and started scribbling away.

Chelle Sandell said...

I'm going to try a partial unplug... :) I've always loved to read but didn't start writing geared toward romance until two years ago.

storyqueen said...

2nd grade. I am on involuntary unplug most days since my school has a filter that blocks out forums....I can only check blogs for 15 minutes in the morning, longer in the evening, if I choose. I can only manage to post twice a week, though, but that will have to be okay.

Enjoy your revisions....hehehe

Shelley

Danyelle L. said...

I've always written, but have only been writing with a professional eye for the last few years. Good luck on your revisions. :D

Deb said...

I can't remember the first thing I wrote... Gee, no shoes, we'll be having shoe withdrawal.
Good luck with the revisions--you'll get there I know you will!

Beth Mann said...

Kudos to you - hope you enjoy your unplugged time and are able to get much revising done! I started writing as a kid. I LOOOVED to make up stories, but didn't like to play make believe...is that strange?

Roni Loren said...

Enjoy your break from shoes and your semi-unplugged time.

Lillian Robinson said...

I'll miss the shoes too! Happy working!

Faith said...

Ah, unplugging... what a wonderful idea. I unplugged a few weeks ago when I went on vacation, and it was shocking how much I had to catch up on when I returned. But it was GREAT while it lasted! I hope you're able to get lots of work done :)

The first thing I can remember writing was from grade one... a story about an alien who lived on Mars and ate a lot of chocolate bars (yes, it was a rhyming book). I think that story, and the positive response it sparked, made me realize that writing was what I loved. I went on to win a regional writing contest for kids the next year, and my future was set in stone :) Or at least, set in my brain...!

Dawn Simon said...

I know I saw myself as a writer by fourth grade.

Good luck with those revisions! :)

L. T. Host said...

I'm pretty sure as soon as I could hold a pen. And I don't mean that facetiously. I've always had a very active imagination.

Anna C. Morrison said...

I don't know really when I began writing. I have a short story I wrote in 6th Grade. I think that was the first time I ever showed anything to the world. Maybe that counts.

Midlife Roadtripper said...

I'm not sure when I started writing or decided I wanted to be one. In school, writing always came to me easily. Perhaps I just opted for what came with ease.

Bonita said...

I purposefully started writing when I was nine. I tried my hand at writing a couple of extra credit spooky stories for my fourth grade teacher. Her comments melted my heart and I've been writing ever since.

J.B. Chicoine said...

I started writing when my mother made a contest of it, between my siblings and me. As 3 in a line of 7, I wanted so badly to outdo the others that I wrote my 8 year-old heart out. Little did we know that we would all receive an equal prize; we were all winners, which meant none of us were—at least that’s the way I saw it then. Nevertheless, it did plant valuable seeds.